His mission was to give people, especially the rural folk, exposure to quality cinema. In his rucksack were films of Ritwik Ghatak, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, besides some cassettes of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

``I show these cassettes during visits to various places and universities,'' Bhagirath told UNI on arriving in the capital after traversing through seven states.

A post-graduate from the Department of Film Studies in Jadavpur University, Bhagirath started off on his novel journey with only a token of Rs. 500 given to him by his fellow students. ``Some essentials including the bicycle was provided by the department,'' he said.

What inspired him to undertake such an arduous exercise? ``I want to be a film-maker. It is important for a film-maker to know the people and theircultural matrix especially in a diverse milieu like that of ours,'' replied Bhagirath. ``My main objective is to spread the culture of good cinema and awareness among the masses for the preservation of our cinematic culture,'' he said.

Haldar has visited eight universities so far, including Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), Garhwal University (Srinagar), Aligarh Muslim University and Jammu University.

``Good films are getting destroyed for want of proper upkeep. The future generations will be deprived of a cultural treasure. There is also need to preserve cinema-oriented books and cinematic equipment,'' he said.

Bhagirath said he was saddened to find that people in the rural areas were more interested in commercial cinema produced by the Mumbai film industry. ``Now I am concentrating on towns and universities.''

``Another thing which shocked me most is the entrenched caste consciousness among the people in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh,'' he said adding that people in the hill areas of UP had,however, no caste prejudices.

``Having started almost empty-handed, I always relied on the help extended by the people at various towns and villages. Sometimes, I had to go without food for three-four days,'' he said recounting the travails during his mission which he plans to complete in about one-and-a-half years.

He has already travelled through West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana. From the capital, he will go to Rajasthan en route to Gujarat and then to Kanyakumari along the western coast. He plans to cover the northeast in the final leg.