Riding, an art of happiness

When you feel heaviness in your heart, transfer it through your blood and flow it through your veins. Bring it through your hand, twist the throttle and punch it through the engine and rush it through the exhaust into air.

The first and foremost question that people ask when talking about touring is, what is the need to cover those many kilometers on a motorcycle? And to continue, questions like why can’t you prefer the public transport, why to waste so much fuel, don’t you feel bored to keep on riding for days.

Well, the feeling of air directly to the face, the sound from the exhaust, the vibration from the engine, the unobstructed view from inside the helmet, cities and buildings and villages passing by, witnessing the barren lands and continuously changing landscapes, the freedom that we get from riding, and the sense of being independent with only one aim, that is to ride. All the questions and opinions mentioned above just disappear just like smoke rising up and up and vanishes into space.

We ride, not just for convenience, but it is about dedication
We ride, not just to slash through air, but to allow our stress to fade away
We ride, not just to travel, but to fly
We ride, not just to reach the middle of nowhere, but to find ourselves in the middle of nowhere
We ride, not just to commute, but to live and cherish the moments while we ride
We ride, to be free, for a sabbatical from the ruckus
We ride, because we love to do
We ride, because it our passion which sets our soul into motion
We ride with one heart beat (dug dug dug), we call it biking brotherhood beat
We ride and we are proud of it.

A friend of mine, once asked me a question. Why do you ride all the way for 100 km just to watch sunset, where I myself also eye at sunset just by standing in my balcony. I was silent and didn’t cross questioned him or argued with him because it was his understanding and perspective which is obviously small.

However, deep inside me, my heart always reminds me why I do that and every time I think, it makes me joyous. The answer to those who think similar to my friend is, we cannot appreciate the value of something if we don’t put the effort. Just the same way a person who won the lottery of millions and the one who worked hard and earned millions. The feeling of achievement and adrenaline of such success is on par for the one who actually put the effort. He knows the value, to appreciate it. The level of satisfaction is incomparable. The same way, I ride 100 km to watch sunset, I put in the effort initially, I meditate upon my problems and let go of things eventually that automatically takes me to the next invincible plane of consciousness, the sense of achievement and satisfaction, getting loose from the chains of life, you can’t get from balcony. In that moment, watching sun is truly an inspiration.

People would even tell why you do not prefer to go in a car drive, as it is safer than a motorcycle ride. However, in a car, you are always in a confined space observing everything passively like a TV. You don’t feel anything, merely have a glance. On motorcycle, the cabin in which you are confined is gone. You are actually in the present. You are not just watching it but feeling the very thing and that is spell bounding. The friction of tire to the tarmac, the engine revving between your legs, the oozing of air that protrudes through helmet, the thundering of muffler, the entire experience, is always there in the immediate consciousness. Unless you’re fond of hollering you don’t make great conversations on a running motorcycle. Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on a machine and the place you’re in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you’re losing time.

Back in those days, things were not the same like now. Entertainment was very expensive. If you have a motorcycle, and join a club, that becomes your entertainment. People used to ride for consecutive days in a week. However, the club had become so full that the organizers had to start giving membership for gentlemen or at least for those who appear to be. And you guessed it right, people started dressing great just to be a part of the riding clubs. That was the craze for motorcycles.

Motorcycle race has roots back in those days which is till now a great motivation to many. The race tracks were not the ones like we have now. It was with wooden planks with circular or oval race courses. This was popularly known as Board Track Racing. And the motorcycles were purely naked with horrible tires, horrible chassis and lots of horse power. How do you manage all that? You ride as long as you can until you crash and that was the competition. That is the level of passion and zeal for motorcycling which has its roots till now and will continue. The real competition was between Harley’s and Indian’s. These were the two big manufacturers of two wheeler back in those days. The racers went to tracks with no brakes going around the tracks close to 160 kmph. Ed Kretz was one of them who nailed it. He was called the Iron Man who strive to win every race. It’s been said that when the race was over, someone had to pull his hands from the handle bars because it was difficult for him to do so as he was riding at lightning speed for hours.

The first time I hopped on to a motorcycle was in my 6^th standard. It was Bajaj Chetak which had a 2-stroke engine. To my knowledge, it was the first scooter in my family and owned by my brother. It was really awesome and at the same time fascinating. I was sitting behind observing that with the twist of the hand the bike was picking speed. It was like a magic to a 10 year old child. Little do I know or had the maturity to think that it is a greatest ever inventions that the mankind has ever produced.

Later, my brother purchased a hero Honda CD 100 and it is the first motorcycle that I had the taste of riding. That feeling was a mix of fear and excitement. I was sitting in front and my brother operated it from the pillion seat. Throttle was under my control, and mind, it was totally lost in the adrenaline that it gave. I had dreams of it for consequent days about how to ride, where to go and pictures flashing in my mind about it. It was great. Later with the help of my brother and uncle I learned riding it with ease, my brother had major contribution though.

I can still remember the time, when I first took the motorcycle to my school. It was Honda Twister, a little beast in blue. All of sudden I became a celebrity in my school. It was pretty awesome for a school kid. Later, I had my first ever long bike ride from Nuzevedu (a town in Andhra Pradesh) to Hyderabad (a city in Telangana) which was about 300 km. I say it memorable because it was my first longest ride. In addition to it, that was the reason to get away with my fear of roads. I was riding at a speed of 80 kmph and all of a sudden, a truck overtook a heavy vehicle. There was no room for me to proceed and I observed my speedometer reading drastically went down to 30 kmph. Thanks to my brother for his swiftness and his quick suggestion that I pulled over the bike to rough terrain which is hard to judge for a kid of my age. By the way, I was in 8^th standard when this happened. However, road safety measures have improved a lot with awareness and understanding in people as well. Moreover, it was my seed of love for motorcycles that keeps growing in me.

When on motorcycle, you are not alone. You can find people waving at you especially the small kids from village or passing towns, appreciating and showing riding spirit even when you don’t know each other. There is always brotherhood in riding because motorcycle is not just a machine, it’s an emotion. The emotion that binds fellow riders. It’s been said that some of the best friendships are made on motorcycles. If any trouble comes, for whatever reason, you will always find a fellow rider who pulls over to help with whatever the way he can, solve the issue if it’s under his vicinity of knowledge and even help the slightest way possible to solve it. That is the level of bonding which two wheels make with human beings. Whether you’re an Engineer, or a Doctor, an Actor, and whichever the profession you are in, when on motorcycle, you are called a rider no matter what. That’s the brotherhood we share. No matter where you belong, which country you are from, the bond is always there which is universal.

Whichever the sport it is, whether its Dakar Rally, Moto GP, Isle of Man TT, Hill climbing, Endurance racing, or even touring, it is not just about the motorcycle or rider. It is a conglomerate of feeling of so many people involved into making of it. Take the case of Moto GP. A whole crew involving in making of bike to successfully making the race, it’s the feeling of everyone that will be carried by the rider. It’s the spirit of biking, the spirit of brotherhood.

When we go for touring, we ride of 1000’s of kilometers which is not an easy task and can be deemed as the toughest. You are not just riding, you are going against wind which pulls you back, the heaviness in your heart because of ruckuses in life which pulls you down and finally emerging victorious winning against all odds by meditating upon them. When we are able to do it something of this difficult, coping up with unavoidable difficulties in life will be like a hot knife through butter. Riding teaches us the way of life, to handle things with ease which are otherwise difficult to handle. Riding is not just going from one place to another, it’s a way of life.

I, as a rider, hereby pledge that I will never stop riding and continue to hand over the spirit to the coming generations.

Do read my previous blogs the links of which are mentioned below: Helmet_Stories_Mahabaleshwar (part 1), and Helmet_Stories_Mahabaleshwar (part 2).