India: Lost & found

Good luck, my friend. Simple words said in passing by a holy man to David Grier on the streets of Mumbai. Grier didn't know the man; he hardly saw him, in fact, but that encounter was a sign that the madcap idea he was investigating - whether or not it was, in fact, possible to run the length of India - was something he had to do. With his hardy yet comical crew, he set off to run from the northernmost Hindu temple in the Himalayan foothills of Kashmir right down to the southern tip of India. Through mountain ranges and across rich farmlands and forests; dodging traffic, battling through smog-choked cities and across desert salt plains; fjording rivers and running (unwittingly) through a tiger sanctuary, they ran and ran. Armed with GPSs, maps and helpful directions, they got lost in India. But through its beauty, its heaving masses and the remarkable resilience of its people, they found themselves, 93 days and 4 008 km later, emerging a whole lot wiser at their journey's end.