Absorbed in the corporate world, I was just another Marcom (Marketing Communications) person, following a scarily repetitive manic daily routine. My days seemed to follow the same drill, which got as exciting as getting up in the morning heading to work, trying to do what I want but doing exactly what the boss wanted me to do. All the fights and assertions eventually would end each day in the same spirit that they started- frustrating.

Heels on Fire gave me a platform to do something of my own, and away from my routine. When at first the idea was discussed, I thought it was totally insane and thought who in their right mind (besides all of us at the dinner table at Volgas that night) would be mad enough to be a part of this... what happened next just surprised me, it grew from just a conversation on the dinner table to something everybody wanted to be a part of... everybody who I had talked to seemed to be interested and wanted to know more. It seemed to have a domino effect and perked up all that I had the good fortune of briefing. So much so that it became the most enjoyable thing in my day.

I am extremely happy to be a part of this dream that we all saw together
and am overwhelmed that we were able to make it a reality... together we have successfully managed to overcome many hurdles to get to this point and are charged to face all that may lie ahead. I have the confidence that we will be able to achieve this and also that we have the power to make many more of our dreams a reality!!!
 

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Meena Bhandari is part time stargazer and writer. She has spinning-tops for feet that have taken her across the world, as far afield as Berkshire in the UK. Meena currently spends her time whizzing across the desert land of the Sahel countries in West Africa, shepherding her sheep. On the side, Meena is also a committed humanitarian worker for an international NGO.

It was Robin's charisma and charm, as he leaned up against bar Camilla (his Queen-to-be home-bar) with Rum and Coke in hand, that first got me interested in joining in the HOF team of committed drinkers - I mean committed movers and shakers. There was the promise of princely sums of money, fame and fortune, and the chance to spend quality e-time with the chaps out on a swagger across God's own brewery.

What attracted me to get involved? Simple (and more seriously). This an excuse to be inspired by a group of inspiring people sitting in all four rounded corners of the e-world; they're all bouncing ideas around, to get a guy to run a crazy 600km in the scorching heat, to make something spectacular - out of nothing in particular.

Running 'into' people and villages, from top to toe of a southern India state, might be a bit like watching the unknown for some people out there, who have never traveled or who have never experienced another culture. Pete's adventure run is uniquely linked to a lens and a computer screen. It offers a chance to see how other people on the other side of the world simply get on with their lives. If just one person sitting at a computer screen in a far away town like, let's say Didcot, clicks onto a story that they can connect with, and understands that people are all just people wherever they are in the world - that'll be inspiring for me.

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An economist with a Masters in Business Administration am presently based in London. All my working life in India was spent working in the development sector. Nostalgic about my growing up years in India and the several years I spent in Kerala, I found myself sub-consciously involved in the planning of Heels on Fire. My passion includes planning, designing and implementing projects (even when they involve delirious ideas) and most importantly hosting people to discuss them.
It all started with Pete calling up to ask about the length of India and whether it was possible to run that distance in a couple of months. When you see the current plan in the context of his original idea, it does look very sane. Over the next few weeks, we pored through maps and ideas to figure out the route and the bigger picture objectives. The plan sucked in a wider circle of friends and acquaintances and I chipped in with plans and lists (which they believe I am obsessed with preparing). It also provided an opportunity to plan work with our favourite photographer – Desmond and reconnect to the network of friends from the development circle in India.
I am going to miss out much of the excitement during the run as I will be in a Yoga ashram in Lonavla, but I am hoping to hear regular updates from Robin and others. At the risk of sounding silly, I am hoping that heelsonfire.org will help us all discover our inner fires and follow our heart. My compulsive need to plan ahead has my friends believing that I already have my charts and plans filed for the years ahead and hence would know exactly where Heels on Fire is headed, but honestly you will just have to wait and watch for that one.

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So here I am on the eve of our departure for Delhi where we will be launching the run with the kind support of a Reebok, the Indian Tourism Office in London and Intrepid Travel. From Delhi we will fly to Cochin to arrive on the morning of the 30th. It's a drive north to Kazaragod and a good nights sleep. Somewhere between 4.30 - 5am (mid night UK time) myself Rahul and Dez will awake from sleep with a feeling in our bellies marking the realisation that the wildest plans can actually come fruition. It will be a golden moment for all of us to remember for the rest of our lives.

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Robin Koshy is a London based veteran of many inter-pub marathons, celebrated mobile phone camera photographer and writer of ransom notes. He grew up in a Kerala village and has spent the last decade running away from Kerala, without success. Attempts of friends to wade through Kerala fills him with a wicked sense of pleasure. In his spare time, he works hardly as an economist with a development consulting firm.

One Sunday morning in March, Pete landed up at home complaining of an urge to run through India. He has tried many such ingenious excuses to have breakfast at our place, but this time it was for real. Several phone calls and discussions later, I had no doubts about his nerve (insanity) or capability to go ahead with the plan. In Dez, we found someone willing to go along and capture life in Kerala, in spite of Pete. Having shot his last few photographic assignments in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Yemen, following a running Irishman through Kerala must have sounded like a holiday. Within weeks, the plan and network of people working on it got bigger than we had imagined.

What attracted me to all this? To make insanity cool? Frankly, an opportunity to mobilise people around a cause and see the power of a focused network unleashed, drew me more than the run or the adventure itself. To blog and do a website were the additional highs. How did the name 'Heels on fire' strike? I wish I had an elaborate story involving aliens, dreams and flying cows, but it all happened with Tulika glaring at me for spending too much time on the Internet. I saw fire and took to heels.

What do I want out of all this? To take pride in dear friends who have gone that extra mile to realise dreams that do not involve big cars and mortgages – just the simple pleasure of pushing the limits. To make heelsonfire.org a forum to dare people to do the extraordinary to connect to ordinary people and their lives in the developing world. And to have breakfast for a month without worrying about Pete eating my share of bacon and eggs.

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What to do..we are like that only- in our created world far away from all the Gheun tak (Take them away.. not allowed) Salvation…Salvation!!!

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Of course now I think they’re completely mad and I respect them more for that.

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I'm a sixties child and probably one of the oldest members of the team! I’m a qualified graphic designer with experience in advertising and magazine publishing. Until a couple or so years ago, I used to juggle illustrating children’s publishing packaging and educational book publishing and lecturing part-time at Kingston College of Further Education. I then joined an economic development consultancy as a receptionist (life's stranger than fiction), where I met, amongst other lovely people, Pete, Gaya and Dan.
I'm fortunate to have always been surrounded by family and friends who share a common interest in world affairs, so in addition to the day to day routine of running reception; answering calls and talking with colleagues, I have become more aware of issues relating to international development.
Pete told about 'Heels on Fire' and asked me if I would design a logo for some T-shirts. The brief was "coconuts, coastline and 600km". I’d read Life of Pie and The God of Small Things, but that was the extent of my knowledge of India and Kerala. Suddenly I was receiving emails from Pete’s vast network of friends that I'd never spoken with or met. It was all very new and exciting, if not a little frightening. After burning the midnight oil for a few nights, I developed the rough sketch into the final logo with inputs from the team. In between, I even fitted in my training for the ladies 5km 'Race For Life' run, which I was doing with the other ladies from work's ‘Wednesday Running Club’, (which Pete founded the year before).
A week later, Pete invited me to meet up with some of the team members in an old reclaimed warehouse in Islington. I pushed open the heavy door and walked into a magical open-plan space buzzing with creativity. I felt positive and strangely at home. Pete introduced me to Rahul, Stevie and Dan (aka The Rocket - I automatically thought he must be a very fast runner). The guys from the team were all seated around a table in the middle of the room, which was covered in papers and an enormous map of Kerala. We got down to discussions about the adventure and the London Launch and even a conference call with Dez in India to finalise the T-shirt design and flyers. It all seemed quite surreal. My butterflies had soon disappeared and it all felt completely natural – a group of like-minded people getting together with one common aim. Despite how crazy it had sounded, being invited to take part in the creativity, enthusiasm and productivity of that morning, was for me a delight. And at that moment everything seemed possible. The next day, I told Steve, a good friend, all about HOF and he kindly offered to do all the photocopying for the press releases, business cards and flyers for us.
Pete is one of the most positive people I’ve met. It had taken no persuading on his part to get me involved with HOF, as I knew it would be a positive experience.

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When Pete first told me about the Heels on Fire concept (then simply labeled ‘Pete’s lunatic idea to run through India’), I couldn’t help but get excited about the possibilities. The novelty of the idea itself was so appealing (I’ve heard of cycling through Vietnam, white water rafting in East Africa but running through Kerala, whose done that before?!). But not just the running. Also, the chance to showcase Kerala, its NGO activities and its local communities, literally from top to bottom. A chance to gather personalised stories and images of what influences development away from all the policy jargon. That’s assuming they survive the crazy bus drivers of course!

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Heels on fire is a perfect example of how great ideas happen over cups of coffee, (though we came upon this over laughs at a dinner table). It all started with a conversation about a non-descript program shown on the national broadcaster 'Doordarshan' - Motorcycle Diaries, not to be confused with the superb film of the same name. Kruti, the "sniffer" for good ideas pounced upon this and in true gujju (Gujrati Community regarded as the wise merchants of India) fashion engineered a spin that was felt from India to the U.K. - a couple of days and the world wide web was watching us grow from an idea to a blogsite (www.heelsonfire.blogspot.com) and www.heelsonfire.org.

The idea of running from Kasargod to Kanyakumari might seem very insane, but initially the thought was to do a run from New Delhi to Kanyakumari - you can imagine the insane minds working on this. In between Pete sends us a link of the fatman walking; Why was he walking? To loose weight was the obvious response... so what was our reason? - Why was I in this insane plan? - First it was the idea which drove the madness, then it was Maria's stick figure interpretation of our run ( you can see it on the almost all our web pages) and now it's a sense of discovery, an opportunity to be the "man with the camera".
I like to think of Heels on Fire as a collaboration to initiate debate and conversation on a range of issues - and the run gives us the reason to discover roads less traveled, discover people from villages that do not even appear as dots on the state map. For me it’s more than a 600 km run, its meeting hundreds of exciting people over the 30 days.

Most of my work allows me the freedom to picture people in a random and leisurely pace - a pace that photographers would like, but few appreciate!! I like to meet the people I photograph, to chat with them and in a fraction of a second freeze time and the moment. My resume is a sum of all these fractions - a compression of time and my years of experience!! Heels on Fire is a challenge like I've never attempted before, "getting into" (well that's what i do) peoples' lives, connecting with them through the camera - and then loosing them to time and distance. The conflict will be evident

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My childhood was divided between London-England and Manali- North India were my parents ran a trekking holiday company. Having studied economics and social anthropology, my experience ranges from running a successful London restaurant (The Hoxton Apprentice) to being in a Civil Society Organisation engaged in urban regeneration in post-apartheid South Africa. I love sports and the way it can bring people together from all walks of life.

Coverage of the Trip
We will update the website regularly with the reports from the Heels of Fire team. We hope not only to tell the story of our adventure, but also to give rural Keralite voices access to a global audience.

Articles for Runners World, Men's Health, and The Guardian's G2 have been requested. A book of the journey will be published, and possibly a recipe book on Keralite food, and the Definitive Guide To Avoiding Rabid Dogs While Losing Weight And Getting A Suntan.

Running History
A veteran of zero marathons and with a grand total of 50kms training prior to this epic adventure, I am hoping to show that such a trip is accessible to even a running novice.

Favourite Run
To the shop at the end of the road to buy a pint of milk.

Why Do it?
Pete's enthusiasm is hugely infectious and the idea of exploring a beautiful part of India, where I spent many of the early years of my life, was an opportunity too good to turn down.

Sports, tourism and development are three areas very close to my heart and Heels on Fire combines all three. Since deciding to go, I have caught the running bug and am determined to run as much of the route as is possible.

The anthropologist in me would not be content if my writing did not incorporate some understanding of what it's actually like to run such a long distance, and in such difficult conditions.

Hopes and Ambitions for Kerala
I'm looking forward to the sharing the experience of running through Kerala with other members of the Heels on Fire crew. The places, smells, food and people we meet along the way. To travel though a place at such slow pace is a luxury to savour. I am sure the people I travel with, meet and those involved in Heels on Fire will play a big part in my life for years to come.

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What is tougher than running 600kms in Kerala??? Well to me it’s writing your own Bio .ten days in the run and here I am being threatened by Desmond to write it. Will take you straight to the night when I spoke to Desmond from Pune and he told me to visit the blog. It had just started and there was not much to it apart from the crazy plan. 2 weeks later I was sitting with Dez and Farah didi discussing the run and being briefed about it. It was march 25th.

It’s not everyday that you come across such opportunities and I was in it from the word go. The idea of traveling through Kerala for a month (my first trip to gods own country) and the chance to beef-up (thats having beef fry for breakfast, lunch and dinner) was too much to resist.

I saw Heels on Fire grow from a small little idea to a reality all in one month (April). Slowly but steadily things fell into place- sponsorships and supporters. Finally the D- day- 30th April I got to meet Rahul and Stevie for the first time and we were all set to leave.

Initially I had a very different perspective of Heels on Fire-I'll go to Kerala and film the run, learn about the state, the culture and other such things- but in the last ten days a lot has happened that's changed my perspective towards a lot of things in life. For instance how we all take a lot of things for granted, the opportunities that we let go off. The people we've met so far were all happy and content with life despite their struggles. I can just go on and on but guess will put it in the other section. Heels on Fire now means a lot more than it earlier did. Its a trip that’s permanently etched in my memory bank- to remember for life and am sure that I'll go back to Delhi as a much more mature person

Guess have written enough and will be spared the agony of having to write about myself.

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We have definitely come a long way from that dinner conversation but still have a lot more ground to cover. With every kilometer that these guys cover, with every story written and every photograph taken, 'heels on fire' just becomes bigger involving that many more people. 'Heels on fire' provides each one of us with a platform to explore the endless possibilities out there.

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