In 2020, during India's strict COVID lockdown, 15-year-old Jyoti Kumari spent her last $20 on a hot-pink bicycle and pedaled more than 700 miles home with her injured father riding on the back. She became a global sensation overnight. Six years on, an NPR revisit by journalist Kamala Thiagarajan finds the fame came and went — and Kumari's life barely changed.
India's 2020 lockdown left tens of millions of day laborers jobless. Kumari's father drove a tuk-tuk in New Delhi; injured and unable to work, the family couldn't pay rent, and no trains were running. The 15-year-old bought the bicycle and rode for seven straight days, covering 1,200 kilometers back to their village in Bihar. Headlines followed: India's Cycling Federation invited her to try out for the Olympic team, a company bought the rights to her life story for a film, and reporters from Japan to America showed up at her door.
But fame couldn't lift the poor, lower-caste family out of its reality. In 2021 — one year after Kumari saved his life — her father died of a sudden cardiac arrest. "To see him die suddenly like this after I brought him safely from such a great distance last year, I feel very sad," she said at the time. The Olympic tryout and the film deal faded away.
Kumari still lives in Sirhulli, her small village in eastern India, where everyone on the street recognizes her as the "cycle girl." She says she is determined to stay in her native village rather than seek work in the big city as her father did — his experience showed her how precarious day labor can be: no savings, no medical support after his injury. "Whatever I do, I want to do from here," she says.
She still loves cycling as much as ever — the wind in her hair, the feeling of going somewhere, of feeling free. That's what the bike represents to her. But she barely has time to ride these days, bogged down by household chores and small but persistent everyday worries. She cycles only for family errands now, not for joy, and not as a competitive sport.
With her own progress on hold, the family has quietly set its hopes on Kumari's younger sister, who will take her 12th grade exams in mid-2027. If she passes and gets into a good college, their prospects will improve once she graduates and starts working. "There are days when I sleep because of the sheer exhaustion of it all," Kumari says. But she hasn't given up: "When you're poor, fame doesn't help. Only education can help you out of your difficulties. Otherwise, life becomes a never-ending obstacle course."