In 2017, Anoop Babani, Goa-based former journalist, was recuperating from a cycling accident when he encountered a book from 1931, With Cyclists Around the World, written by three Indians who, in the days before widespread paved roads and satellite communications, had biked around the world. “A new China has been born in the world,” they wrote prophetically of one of their destinations. “Few see her; but those who do see, realize how she will affect world’s course and shape world’s history.” The cyclists—Adi Hakim, Jal Bapasola, and Rustom Bhumgara—chronicled their…
