The name is Yati Gaur, and this is what he tells us: “I always felt that to explore a country as diverse and large as India, you will have to get on your feet and walk.” The conversation is happening online from his abode for the night, a single room in Belur village, near the Ellora caves of Maharashtra.

Since 2022, starting in Uttarakhand, Yati has been walking across India with dog Butter in tow.

Every day, he finds the landscape changing, finds himself among different people, different cultures, different gods and even different food. So far, the duo has covered more than 13,000 kilometres. Yati believes he could easily cover 55 kilometers daily if he rode a bicycle but that wouldn’t let him pause and explore. “I walk five to 25 kilometres every day,”

Yati has to repeat his story to strangers he meets on his itinerant walk and also to his followers on social media. Turns out, he worked for a travel company briefly, after graduating. He says it taught him how to travel on a budget. In the initial days of this long journeying, his parents helped him financially. But now with around 95k followers on Instagram and a clutch of brand sponsors, walking is his career.

He makes sure to point out that he and Butter are covering the Char Dham — Badrinath-Kedarnath, Dwarka, Puri and Rameswaram — and the 12 jyotirlingas. But ask him if there is a religious subtext to what he is doing and he laughs it off. “People often mistake me for a sadhu,” says Yati.

He speaks simply, compellingly, without drama — most of the time he lets the facts convey the drama.

As arrangements go, it seems Yati has to prepare only for half the way — his whole world fits into the 25-kilogram rucksack on his back. The people of India — those in remote villages to those in hills, forests, in dhabas and petrol pumps along the national highways — help him for the rest of the way.

For instance, he says, he has never had to go a day without a meal on the road. And someone or the other invariably finds a place for him and Butter to sleep at night.

Yati met Butter in Bhojwas village in Rajasthan during his yatra. Ever since they met, the dog has been following Yati wherever he goes. He says, “In Butter, I found someone who likes to walk as much as me.”

They start their day not knowing where they will sleep at night. “During summers, we wake up around 5.30am and hit the road by 7.” After 2 to 3 hours, they stop for breakfast and then take off once again. “We often wait out the midday sun in these shelters,” adds Yati. That is when he either works on his videos, writes in his journal or enjoys a nap.

But, is it that easy, to start the day, not knowing where you will end up? Without missing a beat, Yati replies in the affirmative.

So, in the Maharashtra leg of his journey, he sticks almost exclusively to vada pav, and when he was in South India, idli was his staple. And what if there is no shop around? Yati smiles and says, “You just have to ask.” He carries 7-8 kilograms of chicken meat for Butter. As for himself, a vegetarian, he says, “I eat what I get to my full strength.”

More anecdotes follow. They are to do about people and places, but most often than not the recurring trope is food and shared meals.

Sample this story about their very recent trek into the Nallamala Forest in Andhra Pradesh.

It was getting dark and there was no village in sight. The two of them had already walked for 55 kilometres without tea or refreshments and were bone tired. Finally, they came across a small village, and perhaps the only one near the forest. With hand gestures and a few Telugu words that Yati had picked up along the way, he asked a villager for help. “I don’t know what he had made of it but he got us food from his house and arranged a shelter for the night,” says Yati.

Then again on his way back from Puri in 2022, Yati stopped at a remote village called Alisa near Behrampore in Odisha. “There was only a tea stall,” Yati says. So he binged on five or six cups of tea and fed multiple biscuits to Butter and the local dogs. The chaiwallah got them rice and dal from his own house. Later at night, they camped inside a temple.

The next day, before leaving, Yati goes back to the tea stall to square his payment. The chaiwallah billed him ₹80. Yati was shocked. “Among other things, we had had at least half a litre of milk and a full plate of rice. How could it only be 80?” But the chaiwallah misread Yati’s surprise and lowered the price to ₹60 immediately.

In 2023, during his walk through Manul, a Sikkimese village, Yati was stuck outdoors in pouring rain when he asked a villager for help. “He had taken me to his one-bedroom cottage that could accommodate only four,” Yati says. That night his son was also returning home from Gangtok with a friend. But there was no more room now that Yati was there. “I saw his wife calling their son, asking him to spend the night at his friend’s house instead,” he recalls.

“I think we are a good country and people are, essentially, kind at heart,” says Yati. At this point, Butter peeps into Yati’s phone camera, as if to stress the point her human is making and then goes back to sleep.