This Solo Biker from Andhra Rode Across 12 Nations, Funding Surgeries & Planting 700+ Trees

Meet the 37-year-old nomad on wheels — Joshuva Daniel Putti. To most people, a map represents a fuzzy of borders, boundaries and demarcations. But ‘Rider Josh’, a moniker he is known by, sees pockets of opportunity. His expeditions have taught him that borders blur in the face of kindness and there is no tariff on empathy.  

The weather has seldom dictated Joshuva’s plans. He and his bike have sojourned from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, crossed the formidable Sach Pass in the Himalayas, made stopovers in rugged landscapes, eked out a living on some days, and braved the throes of untamed wilderness on others. Signposts don’t dictate his halts. His ‘good Samaritan’ gene does. 

Joshuva is on an audacious journey to circumnavigate the world — “I’ve ridden through 12 countries, I want to complete 160” — intending to make it to the most insular communities, where there’s a critical need for of monetary aid and hope. 

A quick scan of his rucksack reveals the rations tucked for those he might meet along the way outpace his own supplies — a few packets of food, a raincoat, a blanket, four pairs of clothes, a first aid kit, a bike tool kit, the permits to cross a country’s borders and his ‘Carnet de Passages en Douane’ (CPD), a customs document that enables crossing international borders (Think of it like a bike passport, he tells me.). 

Joshuva’s learnings have been shaped by his chequered past; in 2013, during his time in Uganda, his heart went out to the children there, the troubling contrast to his privilege evident. “I saw malnutrition at its peak; their parents aren’t able to provide food for the children. Because of improper nutrition, most of the children are unable to walk. Seeing this shattered me.” 

He underscores how a majority of the humanitarian assistance directed to Uganda was directed to the capital city of Kampala, leaving remote areas untouched. His first-hand accounts of the nutrition crisis in the country are backed by statistics: Uganda’s child stunting rate is 28.9 percent. 

A UNICEF report revealed that between 2013 and 2015, an estimated 500,000 young Ugandan children died, with nearly half of these deaths associated with undernutrition.

These experiences formed the premise of Joshuva’s life and bike rides. He wanted to help underserved communities. 

The recognition he’s received amplifies his zeal; Joshuva was the recipient of the Swami Vivekananda Changemaker Award (2021); he was nominated for the Padma Shri (2022), and was honoured with the Rashtriya Padma Bhushan Sammaan Award (2024). 

Ensuring last-mile communities’ access to resources 

Sankalpana (7) enjoys a good game of cricket, particularly batting. A few years ago, she’d only feel confident to watch from the sidelines, never participate. You see, as a child, she was diagnosed with three holes in her heart, a hereditary condition, which had cost the lives of three of her siblings. 

“Whenever I would run or exert, my chest would hurt a lot,” she shares. Her life changed in 2021 when Joshuva, who was riding through her hometown in Vinukonda, Andhra Pradesh, met her parents and heard her story. He stepped in to help, funded the Rs 4 lakh surgery which happened at the Madaras Medical Mission in Chennai. 

Today, Sankalpana is hale and hearty, and we hear she bats like a pro. 

Her father, once dejected that his daughter would be relegated to a life of sitting on the sidelines because of her medical condition, is now thrilled as he watches her run around the home and play like the other children. “Many doctors had said that Sankalpana’s conditions could not be treated. We were stressed and scared. Now, we are relieved,” he shares.  

Stories like these fuel Joshuva’s philanthropic resolve. 

As he shares, the scope of his work has extended to both, providing momentary relief —- during the COVID pandemic, meals were distributed to over 1500 people daily, Joshuva collaborated with the authorities in Singapore to raise around $50,000 for the support of children who were battling cancer, his team has distributed menstrual hygiene kits across rural communities — as well as lasting change in terms of funding children’s heart surgeries, cancer treatment as well as empowering women in India’s villages to become independent by providing them guidance with sewing, candle making, beautician courses and craft work.

And from where does the money to orchestrate these changes come?  

“Sometimes freelance projects, sometimes real estate, other times fish farming — a business that I started in 2011. I give 80 percent of my earnings to the foundations’ causes,” Joshuva shares. 

Putting change into ‘gear’ across India’s villages  

As I speak to Joshuva, he’s getting ready to cross Brunei, north of Malaysia — as this article is published, he has set a record of becoming one of the first Indians on a motorbike to do so — from where he will ride through Russia, China, Mongolia, and Europe. Like Sankalpana, he meets numerous people in need of help, mostly medical assistance. This forms the basis of his next claim, of how medical misinformation is rampant across the Indian hinterland. 

“We came across a case of a young boy whose blood cancer had gone undiagnosed. He had been prescribed a treatment for another condition. The boy died.” 

One of the most heart-wrenching stories he shares is that of the 13-year-old Ruth, who’d been suffering from cerebral palsy (a group of conditions that affect movement and posture). “Her father told us of his plans to marry her off to a man who also had a disability, saying that this was an easy way to get money as part of a scheme.” 

When Joshuva suggested a medical consultation at Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad and a corrective surgery that would help the girl walk, the father wasn’t too keen. “Then I will have to care for her during the recovery,” he said. Nothing doing, Joshuva stepped in, helped Ruth, and she’s now walking well. 

Then in Gujarat, Joshuva came across the case of young menstruating girls being made to wear cloths stuffed with mud, that would presumably soak the blood and not stain their clothes. But the mud would often lead to infections. Joshuva and his team stepped in with menstrual hygiene kits. 

This regressive mentality is also evident in the case of young girls, who are often made to work instead of being educated. “The parents believe that working will atleast earn them Rs 100 a day. What will education earn them?” Joshuva shares. 

His scope of work has extended to environmental causes — in 2021, Joshuva collaborated with Green Challenge India for a plantation drive in Hyderabad, planting 500 trees; during the 2022 floods that decimated Andhra Pradesh, his foundation supported the village of Bandarugudem, home to the Koya tribe, who are engaged in handicrafts, with groceries and medicines; he extended the same help to Assam when the state was inundated with flood waters in July 2022; and provided underprivileged children in the Philippines with food, blankets, shoes, and clothes in 2017. 

The way Joshuva’s chosen to champion altruism is fascinating.  A conversation with him reveals his charitable nature has roots in a story dating back to when he was 14 and decided to play truant. 

‘I ran away from home.’

“The movies tell you about people who do this and become heroes. But that did not happen in my case,” Joshuva negates a filmy turn to his absconding. 

“I realised that reality is different,” he recalls, sharing that it was soon after his class 10 that he bolted from his home in Bandalamottu village of Andhra Pradesh, convinced that there lay a world beyond his village, where dreams are allowed to burgeon. 

But it was on that train journey from Bandalamottu to Vijaywada and then to Hyderabad that he regretted his decision. But it was too late. In an instant, his goal shifted — he wanted to get back home. But he was lost. 

Joshuva avoided seeking help from an authority for fear of being reprimanded. His parents, meanwhile, were sick with worry. Months of trying to trace him down yielded nothing. And eventually, they conceded he must be dead. 

While trying to trace his way back home, Joshuva was relegated to a life dictated by fate — strangely, one that ended up shaping the ethos of the rest of his life —- living as a beggar, sleeping on railway stations, eating from dustbins; most days landing on some stale bread felt like a great find. But these harsh realities underscored a simple fact. “I had chosen to live that kind of a life, but I realised how there were children in the world who were forced into it.” 

And so, when he did manage to make his way back, it was with the ironic desire to leave again soon. He’d just found his life’s calling. He skipped college, trained at NGOs in Vishakhapatnam, where he learned the intricacies of philanthropy and then set out on his way once more, turning a corner in his life. While his benevolence began in 2013, the Rider Josh Foundation was registered in 2020, founded on the intent of equipping communities across the world with quiet dignity. 

And it’s been a compelling journey. 

As Joshuva revs the engine for another day on the road, his goal is clear — don’t set out to change the world, just set out to change someone’s world. 

Edited by Vidya Gowri Venkatesh; All pictures courtesy Joshuva Daniel Putti

Sources 

A Closer Look at Hunger and Undernutrition by Global Hunger Index, Published in June 2019.

Scaling up high impact nutrition interventions by UNICEF.

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