The Route Less Taken (2024)

07/03/2023

It’s never easy to abandon the lifestyle you grew up in after you start questioning its ethics. Robert Byarugaba is one of the best examples of people who turned from their way of life to take the route less taken.

Byarugaba grew up on land that was incorporated into Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda in 1992, when he was 19 years old. As the first-born son of a popular poacher, Byarugaba was pulled out of school at 10 to start hunting bushmeat like wild pigs and daiker, a type of wild antelope. Even after the park was established in the early ’90s, Byarugaba continued poaching into the early 2000s, when he grew tired of living at odds with the law.

But Robert and the Bwindi community were never just rebels without a cause. The poachers in this community aren’t seeking trophy prizes in these wild animals or even black market sales, they do this for survival. “People are just killing for meat here,” he says. “Five kilograms of meat is five dollars in a market. Very few people can afford that. If you set your own traps, you can catch a daiker that’s 14 kilograms and feed your family for a week.”

The geography of Bwindi is rather symbolic as well. Bwindi’s sloping hills above the village have high-end lodges tucked away. The tourists who come here come just for one simple reason - Roughly half the world’s remaining population of endangered mountain gorillas lives in the Impenetrable Forest; and for decades, gorilla treks and sightings have single-handedly sustained tourism to this region.

Robert used to be a porter for tourists trekking to see gorillas in the Impenetrable Forest. In 2016, he founded the Bwindi Community Integrated Rural Development Initiative (BCIRDI), a community of reformed poachers who produce coffee, oyster mushrooms and most prominently, honey.

The story of the BCIRDI led by Robert Byarugaba is a beautiful story of leaving all you have grown up with due to a conviction to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

13/01/2023

Fleeing Syria after the destruction of her home in 2015 and embarking on a journey for survival through Lebanon, Turkey and eventually being smuggled into Greece by boat, Yusra Mardini overcame all the hardships life threw at her to compete at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Yusra and her sister Sarah’s overcrowded boat stopped working and they had to push and pull the boat through the water for 3 hours with two other people until the group reached the island of Le**os. From there, they travelled on foot to Germany, completing this month-long perilous journey.

After arriving in Germany, Mardini trained with her coach Sven Spannenkrebs in Berlin, in the hopes of qualifying for the Olympics. In June 2016, Mardini was one of ten athletes selected for the newly-formed Refugee Olympic Team and she competed in the 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She won a 100m butterfly heat against four other competitors.

After competing in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo as well, Mardini said, “After the Olympics, I realised that it’s not just my story anymore. I realised that my responsibility is to raise awareness and bring hope to millions of refugees around the world and speak for all of those who do not have a voice.”

On 3 May 2018, her autobiography Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian - My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph was published. Irish musician Declan O'Rourke penned the song "Olympian" to recall Yusra's story as well. In November 2022, a biographical film, inspired by Mardini's life and titled The Swimmers, was theatrically released and distributed on Netflix later the same month.

Mardini’s story of bravery, resilience and overcoming adversity is a story of a young girl who took the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

05/12/2022

A popular feature of modern automobiles is the automatic transmission. No need to worry about your engine racing or lugging (and the damage this causes!), just press the gas pedal and go! However, not many know about the men who perfected the automatic transmission, Jose Braz Araripe and Fernando Lehly Lemos.

The automatic transmission was first invented back in 1921 by a Canadian steam engineer by the name of Alred Horner Munro. This version, though, couldn't be adapted to mass production because of its dependence on compressed air.

In 1932, Araripe and Lemos developed an automatic transmission that relied on hydraulic fluid instead of compressed air. The two sold the plans for their ergonomic idea to General Motors who utilized it in their 1940 Oldsmobile as the Hydramatic Transmission.

It takes problem solvers like Araripe and Lemos to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

09/04/2022

Cheung Chau Jiao (Bun) Festival is a unique Hong Kong tradition which is celebrated with immense fervor yearly.

The story behind the festival is that a plague was dispelled on Cheung Chau more than a century ago. Since then the festival is celebrated to pray for the peace and safety of the entire island to the god Pak Tai, who is said to have driven the plague and evil spirits away.

Two grand events at Cheong Chau are the Grand Parade and the Bun Scrambling event. The Grand Parade features a procession of colorful floats called "Piu S*k". The parade features child actors in special costumes impersonating historical figures or celebrities.

The finale of the festival is the Bun Grabbing contest. A 60 foot bamboo tower is set up and dozens of participants climb up the bun-covered structure as they scramble to grab as many lucky buns as possible in three minutes. People believe this brings good luck. The bun grabbing event was stopped in 1979 due to safety reasons but has recommenced since 2005.

It takes a community tradition like the Jiao Festival to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

The Cheung Chau Bun Festival 2022 starts from 6th May so mark your calendars!

08/04/2022

Since the 1960s, the music industry has had a hidden figure composing and writing some of the greatest hits of all time. His name is Paul Williams.

Williams lost his father to a car accident when he was 13 years old. Williams moved to live with his aunt after this incident. Both Paul and his older brother Mentor, being songwriters, were also members of the short-lived band The Holy Mackeral, which recorded an album released by Reprise Records in 1968.

One of the first songs he wrote was “Fill Your Heart” which was recorded by Biff Rose on his first album, The Thorn in Mrs. Rose’s Side. This song was also covered faithfully by David Bowie on his album Hunky Dory (1971). Williams even wrote a couple songs on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. Along with Nile Rogers, he spoke on behalf of Daft Punk when they received Album of the Year in the 2014 Grammy Awards.

He is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Given his expertise in music industry, WIlliams was elected President and Chairman of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in April 2009. He wrote music for films like Bugsy Malone, Smokey and the Bandit, The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Princess Diaries 2, and also TV shows like The Love Boat, The McLean Stevenson Show and Sugar Time!

It takes a passionate songwriter like Williams to challenge all odds and take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

07/04/2022

In Zion National Park, Utah there exists a mountain biking landmark called "The Rock" which was christened by daredevil rider Brendan Fairclough.

In the 2019 edition of the Redbull Rampage Contest, Fairclough proved the daredevil he is when he flew across a ravine in a terrifying stunt during the Redbull Rampage Contest. He also landed an impressive backflip over a canyon. The annual event pulls 21 of the best freestyle mountain bike riders as they go head to head in jaw dropping stunts.

Fairclough has also made a High-Energy Mountain Biking movie called Deathgrip, which is a relentless mission to challenge the limits of creativity, technology, and the human potential.

Along with Clay Porter’s progressive filmmaking in the most visually engaging locations in the world, Fairclough’s raw expression through his riding ability shines through in the film.

It takes a daredevil like Fairclough to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

06/04/2022

Architecture and Nature are often at odds today. Barring Japanese architecture, which highly emphasizes the marriage of the two, architecture in the urban west is generally devoid of nature. Fallingwater in southwest Pennsylvania is an exception to this.

Fallingwater is a house designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939 in the Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania. Built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run, the house was designed as a weekend home for Liliane and Edgar J Kauffmann, the owner of Kauffmann’s Department Store in Pittsburgh, and lovers of the outdoors.

The design had a strong focus on the harmony between man and nature, which can be rooted back to his Japanese influences. Contemporary Japanese architect Tadao Ando has said of the house:
“I think Wright learned the most important aspect of architecture, the treatment of space, from Japanese architecture. When I visited Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, I found that same sensibility of space. But there was the additional sounds of nature that appealed to me.”

Listed among Smithsonian’s “Life List of 28 Places to See Before You Die”, the house is built on top of an active waterfall. A model of the house was even featured at the Museum of Modern Art in 2009.

In 1966, the house was passed over by the Kauffmanns and designated as a National Historic Landmark. Edgar Kauffmann Jr said, “[Wright] understood that people were creatures of nature, hence an architecture which conformed to nature would conform to what was basic in people. For example, although all of Fallingwater is opened by broad bands of windows, people inside are sheltered as in a deep cave, secure in the sense of the hill behind them."

In 2007, the house was ranked 29th on the list of America’s Favorite Architecture according to the American Institute of Architects and has become a heavily frequented tourist landmark today.

It takes a visionary like Frank Lloyd Wright to realise the importance of nature and take the route less taken with his architecture. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

05/04/2022

Fauvism is an art style that uses wild strokes and strong color over the realism of Impressionism that gained popularity from around 1905 to 1910. French artist Henri Matisse helped define the revolutionary developments in this visual art movement.

The inspiration for this movement came when Matisse visited the artist John Russell on the island of Belle Île off the coast of Brittany. After seeing Russell’s impressionist work, Matisse ditched his earth-coloured palette for bright colours. Around April 1906, Matisse also met the young Pablo Picasso. The two became friends as well as lifelong rivals. While Picasso’s work was more imaginative, Matisse’s work was grounded in nature.

Critics had massive disdain for Matisse's fauvism, however. A well known critic Camille Mauclair spoke of Matisse's work as “A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public.”

After World War 1, Matisse’s work was more softened and relaxed, much like most of his contemporaries in the era. He made his well-renowned self portait in 1918 as well.

Matisse made it through both world wars, but in 1941 he underwent a surgery for abdominal cancer which left him reliant on a wheelchair. Since painting and sculpting became physically impossible, he began creating cut paper collages with the help of his assistant. He would thus create an art form with dimensional complexity and distinction. He referred to the last 14 years of his life post-surgery as his "second life".

It takes a determined artist like Matisse to persist through what life threw at him and take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

01/03/2022

Settled in Kochi, Theruvoram is an NGO started in 2007 by Murukan S Theruvoram which offers rehabilitation to people around Kerala. Since 2013, they’ve also been working with the government on numerous social welfare projects. But first, let’s talk about the man behind the mission, Murukan S.
Murukan was born in Kerala to a mother who worked as a plantation laborer in Peerumedu. As a child, he often had no food in his belly and clothes on his back. He used to collect discarded and often soiled vegetables to satisfy his hunger. Murukan then moved to an orphanage at Pulluthurthy where he worked as a mason and also sold newspapers. He also started to work with Childline as a volunteer.
Saddened by the pitiable states of children and the elderly living on the streets who were somehow holding on to dear life. He gradually saved enough to purchase an auto rickshaw and decided to become a social worker to help those in need. His selfless motives inspired him to start his NGO Theruvoram in 2007 as well. Theruvoram aims to reach out to the most marginalized children and old age people to provide interventions of shelter, medical, repatriation, rescue, death related, sponsorship, emotional support and guidance. Murukan has saved more than 9000 children till date, entering him in the Limca Book of World Records as well.
But for him, the awards and recognition aren’t what it’s about. Speaking to The Optimist Citizen, he said:
“The only vision I have is a society where people live for others. This world is not my home, I am just passing through. I won’t take anything with me, so why not help others rather than asking for material things. Awards and recognitions do not matter, what you do for others does. I try my level best with what I can; I am just an auto driver who once lived on the streets”.
It takes a determined social worker like Murukan to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

17/02/2022

Back in the 1930s when racial discrimination and segregation was rampant, an African-American track and field athlete proved that talent isn’t racial. His name was Jesse Owens.

Owens’ family history had deep-rooted ties with black segregation. At the age of nine, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio for better opportunities along with 1.5 million African Americans who had to leave the segregated South in the Great Migration. Owens discovered his passion for running while doing menial jobs like delivering groceries, loading freight cars and shoe repairing as a youth.

His junior high school track coach, Charles RIley, is the one Owens attributed his success to. RIley allowed him to practice before school hours, since Owens had part time work to undertake after school hours. Owens was snubbed off a scholarship in university as well and had to stay and eat at “blacks only” hotels and restaurants when he traveled with the team.

On 25 May 1935, Jesse Owens established 4 world records in athletics in the span of 45 minutes. He equaled the world record for the 100 yard dash at 9.4 seconds, and set world records in the long jump at 8.13 m, 220 yards sprint at 20.3 seconds and 220 yard low hurdles at 22.6 seconds. This success led him to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Owens won four gold medals in the 100m dash, the long jump, the 200m sprint and 4 x 100m team sprint relay. Owen’s success at the 1936 Olympics bothered Hi**er, who wanted to use the Olympics to show the world a resurgent N**i Germany. He and other government officials had hoped that German athletes would dominate the games. N**i minister Albert Speer wrote that Hi**er was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by Owens.

Despite his wins, however, after the Olympics, Owens said he was snubbed by the US President Franklin D Roosevelt, since he was not invited to the White House to shake Roosevelt’s hand. After the Olympics, Owens decided to seek endorsement deals to alleviate his economic conditions instead of competing in Sweden with the rest of the team. Officials withdrew his amateur status for this reason. He worked in several jobs for the rest of his life, from managing a dry cleaning firm to helping form the West Coast Negro Baseball League with Abe Saperstein.

Owens’ legacy lived on even after his passing in 1980. He was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century. The Jesse Owens Award is USA Track and Field’s highest accolade in the field as well.

It takes a norm breaker like Owens to fight against racial discrimination and take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

15/02/2022

Have you ever been driving on a long empty road and your right foot tires over time? Most cars today come equipped with a cruise control function to automatically steady your vehicle’s pace and let you catch a breather. Most of us know about this but what's less known is that modern cruise control was invented back in 1948 by an inventor named Ralph Teetor.

Teetor went through a fatal injury at the age of 5 when he injured his eye with a knife. Within a year, he developed sympathetic ophthalmia and lost vision in both his eyes. Despite this, Teetor worked hard and graduated from University of Pennsylvania with a graduate degree in mechanical engineering in 1912 and by the 1930s got a master’s degree in engineering from there too.

Teetor’s visual impediment didn’t hamper his progress as he developed a heightened sense of touch which helped in his work for the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, balancing turbine rotors on torpedo-boat destroyers from the war. He developed his own technique in the process. He also designed a fluid-operated gear shift in the 1920s that he sold to the Bendix Corporation.

Teetor worked as a longtime President of the automotives parts manufacturer The Perfect CIrcle Co, where he spent most of his years working. He developed the cruise control system in 1948. Family lore suggests that Teetor got the idea for the cruise control system while riding with the family lawyer, Harry Lindsey, who would slow down while talking and speed up while listening. Another possible inspiration is the US-imposed nationwide 35 mph speed limit to save gas and tire rubber during WW2.

Despite what the real reason might be, the cruise control system has helped deal with driver fatigue and boost fuel efficiency in the last 74 years of its existence. It has an undeniable impact on the automotive world.

It takes an inventor like Ralph Teetor to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

11/02/2022

The United States’ coral barrier reefs find their home in the Florida Keys. The Looe Key Reef’s marine environment was endangered in the recent past. In an effort to raise awareness for coral preservation, Bill Becker started the Underwater Music Festival held 20 feet below sea level!

For the last 37 years, divers, snorkelers and boaters have been getting together in early July every year at Looe Key Reef for a marine celebration. Divers descend and play along with instruments designed by August Powers, a local artist. Powers crafts original musical instruments using non corrosive tin and copper which are inspired by sea life with wacky names like “bass-oon” and a “trom-bonefish”. Though it's impossible to play these instruments underwater, the divers play along with it and also occasionally dress up in mermaid or shark costumes.

A playlist of water-inspired songs like the Beatles’ iconic “Yellow Submarine” are piped underwater via waterproof speakers hung from boats floating above the reef. Sound travels 4.3 times faster in water than in air which makes the music experience particularly special.

Dave Turner, executive director of the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce discusses the history of the festival:

“Thirty-five years ago a few Keys locals sat down and wanted to figure out a way to bring awareness to our coral reefs that would preserve them and rebuild them and restore them in any way. They came up with this idea to play music underwater and invited divers and snorkelers to listen while also enjoying the local sea life.

The music is obviously not as clear as when you’re sitting in a room with a stereo, but you can still hear it and understand the lyrics and music. If you were to go underwater, you would recognize the song and it would sound the same, it just has a little different tone to it. Plus, sound travels faster and farther underwater.”

The 37th edition was on July 10 2021. Now a two day event that draws dozens of scuba divers, snorkelers and boaters from around the world, the 2022 edition is presumed to be held after July 4th.

It takes a unique festival to conserve marine habitat through the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

10/02/2022

A good brand fills in a need in the community. Ten-time US national champion and entrepreneur Allyson Felix realised this when she envisioned her footwear brand, Saysh. But before we talk about Saysh we need to talk about the visionary behind the brand.

Felix is the most decorated woman and most decorated American in Olympic track and field history. She has 11 medals across 5 Olympic Games, including a 2012 Olympic champion for 200m and 2015 Olympic champion for 400m. Her 200m personal best time of 21.69 seconds is the third-fastest time ever run by an American woman.

Despite her achievements, back in 2019, she said that Nike wanted to pay her 70% less following her pregnancy. She stirred a public outcry against the brand maternal policy. Felix departed from Nike and started Saysh in June 2021, designed with women in mind.

Saysh One is their flagship product, a lifestyle sneaker designed for and by women. Priced at $150, the One is designed as a wrapping dress. The drapes of a wrap are also reminiscent of the track - Allyson’s place of work. Their Product Designer, Natalie says: We arrived at a design that appropriately bridges the worlds of the professional and the casual – a sneaker to accompany us wherever, whenever. Underpinning that, the Saysh One offers the support we need, while maintaining an elegant silhouette with a sculptural heel piece that both fits her foot and is fitting of her lifestyle.”

Simone The Label Anklets By:Saysh is the first installment in an ongoing collaboration with Simone The Label. With this partnership, they aim to create thoughtful accessories for the everyday, and for that special day. Saysh Collective is their membership-based community with the mission to undermine inequality with female creativity and athleticism. Membership includes energizing and challenging workouts, events like cooking classes, concerts, etc.

Allyson’s work commemorated her as one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People of 2020 and 2021. It takes an enterprising businesswoman like Felix to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

09/02/2022

US Astronaut Alan Shepard is known for piloting the first American spaceflight on May 5, 1961. But those who worked behind the scenes often get unnoticed. Katherine Johnson was one of these determined NASA employees.

Regarded as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist, Katherine had humble beginnings. She was the youngest of four children with her mother being a teacher and her father being a handyman, lumberman and farmer at the Greenbier hotel. At the age of 10, she was enrolled for high school on the campus of West Virginia State College because Greenbier County didn’t offer public schooling for African-American students beyond eighth grade. She took every math course offered by the college by the age of 18. She was the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Her work for NASA included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for projects like the Project Mercury spaceflights. She was known as a “human computer” for her tremendous mathematical capability and ability to work with space trajectories with such little technology and recognition at the time.

Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 from Barack Obama. She was also presented with the SIlver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut Leland D Melvin in 2016 and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2021. Her legacy lived on in the 2016 biographical drama film Hidden Figures and was played by Taraji P Henson.

It takes a hardworker like Johnson to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

08/02/2022

In 1987, two French musicians, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, became friends and formed an indie rock band called Darlin’ with Laurent Brancowitz in 1992. They disbanded in 1993 but Guy-Manuel and Thomas would go on to change the course of 90s music, quite literally!

The duo formed the electronic music act, Daft Punk , in 1993, which would lead the French house movement. After playing indie demos and singles under Darlin’, they began experimenting with drum machines and synthesizers. Their music could be best described as “sounds of the future”, with synth sounds that would shape the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) genre and heavy usage of autotune and vocoder effects to sound robotic.

Along with sounding like the future, Daft Punk also looked like the future. They were known for their helmets, gloves and dark clothes to preserve their identities. They set themselves apart from the rest of the pop industry and this built a sense of curiosity around their music. They wanted to avoid the idea of stardom, hoping the focus stayed on their music and not how they looked.

“We don’t believe in the star system,” explained Thomas Bangaltar, per Far Out Magazine. “We want the focus to be on the music. If we have to create an image, it must be an artificial image. That combination hides our physicality and also shows our view of the star system. It is not a compromise. We’re trying to separate the private side and the public side,” he added.

Their most iconic album, Random Access Memories, won five Grammy Awards in 2014, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Get Lucky”. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked them the 12th greatest musical duo. Though they disbanded on 22 February 2021, their music continues to live on. With over 15 million monthly listeners on Spotify and 3 billion cumulative YouTube views, Daft Punk’s work continues to impact the music industry 29 years after they first formed.

It takes visionaries like Daft Punk to take the route less taken. What are your favourite Route Less Taken stories? Send us your stories at [email protected], and we’d feature them here.

The Route Less Taken