Adventures on wheels and in life.
Whenever one’s faith in life and all that it contains begins to waver, we reach out to the one that really matters to us. We escape life as we know it and take shelter in the inviting, safe bosom of their saviour. And suddenly we are able to breathe.
One CommentBelievers have their Gods. I have my motorcycle and the open road.
Back in February, I was invited to speak at the TEDx Conference at NMIMS, Bangalore. My entire exposure to TED till now had been through the remarkably interesting videos made freely available for the world to watch under the appropriate tagline – Ideas Worth Sharing. I hadn’t really thought that my own experiences were really worth being shared from such a large platform.
Leave a CommentIf at some point your do not ask yourself, “What have I gotten myself into?”, then you are not doing it right. A puny scooter.…
Leave a CommentFishing? Attending weddings? Visiting Durga Puja pandals?
The options are many. Then I saw this image.
It was way back in November that the Bullet moved last. Struck momentously by a cow’s ample rear, it smashed face first into the smooth tarmac of Spiti. So serious was the impact and so impeccable the timing that it is now four months and the Bull is still lying injured, snow covered and unable to move in Manali. At such a juncture, the rather incredulous call from a highway-hero friend (Deepak Dongre) evoked the obvious question – what will I ride? The time of the Classic 500 had come.
I don’t like the Classic. I don’t mean the looks. Those are fantastic. But the Classic is a retro styled motorcycle for weekend cruises on Marine Drive and cheekily going past the hot girl on the bus stop, not a highway ranger. While Enfield fans (like me) will make any Enfield a touring machine, the fact is it is not built for the highway rumble. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Leave a CommentThe destination was Rann of Kutch, one of the most inhospitable and unforgiving terrains in the country. Riding in the Rann is a dream I have been carrying for years now. This was going to be great!
The morning of March 3, 2012 seven motorcyclists met for breakfast at Manesar. Five proceeded to Rewari Railway Station, 90 kms from New Delhi.
Rewari Steam Locomotive Shed is the only surviving steam loco shed in India housing some of India’s last surviving steam locomotives. Built in 1893, a decade before the Old Delhi Railway Station, it was the only loco shed in North India for a long time and part of the track connecting Delhi with Peshawar, while the metre gauge track built in 1873 from Delhi towards Rewari is India’s oldest.
Leave a CommentThe signs were all there. I just chose to ignore all of them. I had just decided to go on a roadtrip to the most inhospitable of all Himalayan regions with two city slickers who wouldn’t sleep on some sticky pillows if their life depended on it. I just didn’t see it coming.
One CommentThere are a lot of romantic stories about entrepreneurship which have sprung up over the last decade. Things have started working out for people. The success stories keep you pumped up in hope of that elusive finish line. Despite everything, most entrepreneurs believe, and very strongly, that eventually things will work out. What no one prepares you for is what will happen in the meantime.
Leave a CommentA lot of people ask me why I went to Ramlila Maidan.
Why was I there?
There were more than enough reasons not to. There were questions and doubts about what will come out of the whole show. There were questions about whether this was the right way of doing things. There were questions about people’s morality. There were questions about people’s intelligence and whether they even knew what they were doing. There were doomsday predictions of the country going down the dark path towards complete anarchy.
Leave a CommentSo what if the journey back home was a nightmare I saw with open eyes. So what if the stink in me did not go away for a week. So what if I ended up getting scammed by a God-man even after I did everything to help him. So what if Tip-in Point was fogged out. It was one hell of a ride!
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