D. Krishna Kumar and his mother Ratnamma at the Kali Matha temple on the beach road in Visakhapatnam on March 11, 2025.
| Photo Credit: K.R. DEEPAK
At a time when people abandoning their elderly parents is not rare, this is a story that will warm up one’s heart. Meet 45-year-old D. Krishna Kumar from Mysore, who along with his 75-year-old mother Chudaratna (Ratnamma), is on a country-wide pilgrimage on his 24-year-old scooter.
Popular as the ‘modern-day Shravan Kumar’, the famous mythological character who carried his blind parents on his shoulders on a pilgrimage, on social media, Mr. Krishna Kumar, along with his mother, reached Visakhapatnam on Monday (March 10, 2025) night after completing a 92,822-km pilgrimage titled ‘Matru Seva Sankalpa Yatra’ on his 2001 model Bajaj Chetak.
On Tuesday (March 11, 2025), they visited Sri Kanaka Mahalakshmi Temple, Kali Matha Temple, Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple (Simhachalam) and other famous religious places in the city.
Narrating his story to The Hindu, Mr. Krishna Kumar said that he was undertaking this journey to show the beauty of this world to his mother who did not step out of her house until his father Dakshinamurthy passed away in August 2015.
Mr. Krishna Kumar worked as a team leader in a corporate company in Bengaluru. He quit his job and deposited all his money in his mother’s bank account. He is undertaking this journey with the interest earned from the money he saved, he said.
“We are undertaking this journey on a self-funded basis. We do not accept donations. We avoid rich food. We prefer temple ‘Prasadam’ or fruits. We do not go for costly fruits like apple or dry fruits. We have not faced any health problems during our journey so far,” he said.
“I do not believe in yesterday or tomorrow. Today is what I have. I live for the day. Visakhapatnam is very peaceful and spiritual,” said Mr. Krishna Kumar, who is unmarried.
Ms. Ratnamma said her husband Dakshinamurthy used this Chetak scooter. After his death, Mr. Krishna Kumar considers it as a gift from his father. “We feel he (Dakshinamurthy) is also accompanying us through out the trip,” she added.
“One day, my son decided to go on this pilgrimage and asked me to join him. I was hesitant at first, but later agreed. I got to see so many temples during this joyful journey with my son. We have also visited neighbouring countries such as Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar,” Ms. Chudaratna said.
Mr. Kumar said that they had covered almost all the States in India, but could not cover the coastal region due to the temporary pause in the tour due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We resumed our journey of the coastal belt and reached Visakhapatnam on Monday (March 10, 2025) night. We started the pilgrimage on January 16, 2018,” he said, adding that they were heading for Vizianagaram.
Published – March 12, 2025 08:52 am IST