From Delhi to Kanyakumari and back, a ride for mental health

New Delhi: When Seher Hashmi, a mental health survivor, fashion stylist, visual artist and motivational speaker, rode back into Delhi on Friday, October 15, bringing her 56-day Delhi-Kanyakumari-Delhi journey to a close, she also wrapped up a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about mental health.

Aptly titled Beyond the Horizon: A Ride for Resilience, the campaign reached over 15,000 youth, with 111 grassroots mental health awareness sessions across 62 cities, towns, and villages in 14 states.

Accompanying Seher on her journey was Sunny Lochav, the second rider who shared the demands of the long-distance expedition.

Seher, who has lived with clinical depression and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) for over a decade, set out to challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness and encourage young people to speak openly about their emotional well-being, seek help and support those experiencing psychological distress.

The campaign is significant for its survivor-led approach; by sharing her own experiences, Seher has challenged the belief that mental illness is a weakness or a personal failing.

Across schools, colleges and community gatherings, Seher’s sessions addressed depression, anxiety, emotional distress, self-esteem, relationships, stigma and the importance of seeking professional support. The campaign also reached smaller community gatherings and villages, where conversations often took place in informal settings.

In many interactions, Seher’s personal account of living with mental illness opened the door to conversations about distress, social pressures and the need for understanding within families and communities.

For Seher, the ride was both a national awareness initiative and a personal commitment to transforming lived experience into public action. Her decision to undertake such a demanding journey on a motorcycle also challenged gender stereotypes and conventional expectations of women. It demonstrated how a woman could claim public space, undertake an extraordinary physical challenge and use her platform to address an issue that remains surrounded by silence and misunderstanding.

The campaign was undertaken under the aegis of Pehchan, with the Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) as the primary sponsor and the Population Foundation of India (PFI) as the co-sponsor. Royal Enfield provided on-road service support.

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