A 64-year-old man from Hyderabad is walking thousands of kilometers to Ayodhya to present gold-plated footwear to Lord Ram. Challa Srinivas Sastry started his journey on July 20 and is following the route that Lord Rama took during his exile in reverse. He has already covered places like Puri in Odisha, Trimbak in Maharashtra, and Dwaraka in Gujarat. Sastry plans to cover a distance of nearly 8,000 km on foot and will hand over the footwear to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath upon reaching Ayodhya. He is following a map researched by Dr Ramavatar, a retired Income Tax Department official.
Sastry’s father was a strong devotee of Lord Hanuman and participated in Karseva in Ayodhya. Sastry aims to fulfill his father’s desire of seeing the Ram temple built in Ayodhya. He has already donated five silver bricks for the temple and is carrying gold-plated footwear made with five metals for Lord Ram. Sastry had to briefly pause his march when he had to go to the UK but later resumed his walk from where he left off in Tamil Nadu. Currently, he is in Chitrakoot, about 272 km from Ayodhya, and hopes to reach his destination in about 10 days. Sastry covers a distance of 30 to 50 km every day.
The value of the footwear he is carrying is about Rs 65 lakh, some of which was donated by others. Sastry is the founder of the Ayodhya Bhagyanagar Sitarama Foundation and plans to settle down permanently in Ayodhya and build a house there. The grand inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya will take place on January 22, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi officiating the ceremony. Sastry’s son, Challa Pavan Kumar, is the first blade runner in India and has won several medals. Sastry himself has worked as a sound engineer with various film studios.
