Your cover story "Perilous pedaling” (Parsiana, June 7-20, 2019) made for interesting reading. However, we sisters, Diane Mody and Perviz Alexander were disappointed to see that no mention was made of our father, Jamshed R. Mody (pictured above and below), who also undertook a world tour on a bicycle.
He commenced his world trip as a Rover Scout of Troop 51 of Bombay with J. S. Irani and another Scout on May 6, 1934 from Bombay and returned home in April 1937. His two companions dropped out at some point along the way.
Our father cycled through India, Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, China, Japan, Hawaii, USA, Canada, Great Britain (16,000 miles by April 1936) and home through France, Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Persia and Afghanistan. He attended the Boy Scout Jamboree in Australia and was received by the Mayor of Melbourne on November 15, 1934. Lord Baden Powell was present at that jamboree. On November 2, 1935 he was received at the White House by US President Roosevelt.
His grandson, Darius Mody, an Eagle Scout, is married to Tinaz Hakim, Adi Hakim’s granddaughter. Adi, one of the authors of the book With Cyclists Around the World, had also cycled around the globe.