A young man from Noida, Uttar Pradesh, who works as an employee at a McDonald's outlet, has set new fitness and career goals for the world after candidly filming by a filmmaker while running home at night. In the video, shot and shared online by filmmaker Vinod Kapri, the young man can be seen refusing a lift to the latter who was in a car as he wanted to finish his goal of running 10 km every night. "If you hear the reason, you will fall in love with this kid," Kapri tweeted while sharing a video of the interaction on Twitter.
The young runner identifies himself as 19-year-old Pradeep Mehra. While driving in Noida's Sector 16 at around night, Vinod Kapri happened to find Mehra huffing and sweating by the side of the road.. Kapri slowed down his car and offered Mehra a lift. But despite repeated offers, Mehra, who said he was going home from his shift at the fast-food restaurant, refused to give up his run. When asked why he was running, the young man said, "To join the army".
"These days it's hard o find time to run...I always run home." he said. Mehra, who revealed that he is originally from Almora, Uttarakhand, said that he did not get time to run in the morning because he had to wake up early to get to cook and then get to his day job by 8 am. Upon further prodding, Mehra reveals that he lives with his brother and that his mother is in the hospital for treatment.
When Kapri tells him that this video will go viral (and it did), the boy laughs and says "Sure, I'm not doing anything bad". Mehra informs Kapri that he runs 10 km to his home in Barola after his shift at McD and then goes home and cooks food. When Mehra offers to invite him for dinner, he asks, "What will my brother eat?" Mehra's elder brother, he says, works on the night shift and gets home even later.
The boy's responses seem to have Kapri's heart and also the world's. The video, posted on Kapri's Twitter profile on March 20, has over 4 million views with many feeling inspired by the video.