AFTER THE DIVINE AND EMOTIONAL FLAG OFF
After very divine and emotional flag with excitement and jubilation with people shouting slogans of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, and waving off British and Indian flags to signify the importance of this mission to strengthen Indo-British ties. The BAPS Shree Swaminarayan temple,
Luton were waiting to take me and the vehicle set for the mission to the temple for a blessing. This was yet another extremely humble welcome at the temple and support to my mission. Once again I was touched by the humbleness of entire team at BAPS mandir, Luton, especially Neha who escorted my vehicle to the temple and made all necessary arrangements. What a lovely send off again from the Shree Swaminarayan Temple, Luton. Once again I was humbled by the welcome and humbleness of everyone at the temple. As always, once again it made me proud of my Gujarati heritage and values. We then proceeded to the Hindu mandir Luton, who’s committee stood by me throughout this mission from the time I conveyed it to them. Once again I was humbled by the welcome at the temple and send off from there. From there we proceeded towards the capital, London. We reached M1, which was stand still. This forced us to detour to our next destination with an intention to cover London before I proceed for Europe for rest of my journey. My children who were in the vehicle with me demonstrated some emotional moments suggesting they would like some final photos of the vehicle at their school, as they would not be going to school in the vehicle for considerable length of time. As it was moving toward late afternoon I attempted to convince them to proceed to our next destination but my attempt failed. Ultimately I ended up driving to their school for some photo session.
We then left towards our next destination Wales, but faced significant traffic jam resulting in further delays. We were due to visit Cardiff hindu temple at 6.30pm, which had to be canceled. In the mean time The Mayor of Luton organized my further interview with BBC three county radio which was scheduled at 6.30pm. After various stops and traffic jam we reached our friends house near Cardiff at 8.30pm. Our friends were eagerly waiting to welcome us and be part of the mission. They had booked a table for us to make the first evening of the mission memorable. By the time our meeting and greeting finished it was nearly 9pm so we left for dinner and rest of the evening. My day was certainly very long and tiring but I enjoyed each second of my day.