Bike dairies.

You know, Motorcycle Diaries has no incredible stories, no sudden plot twists, it doesn’t play that way. It’s about recognizing that instance of change and embracing it.
Gael Garcia BernalB

 

Bikes and Bikers

Whats the image that comes up?

Tattooed young men with the teen-Queen on the pillion?

Or a Goth clad young woman making a statement.

Well I am neither, I am a 40+ woman, and bikes have been a way of life for me until a year ago. Hope to be back on one when the surgeon clears me.

Till the age of seven the bike to me meant the Bullet that my grandfather rode, through the fields of our village. The breeze hitting on my face, and the fragrance of earth coming through.  The comfort of ride and smoothness of the Bullet and the Java that his brother owned was just too great, the changing landscape from urban township, to the winding roads down the hills, to the informal roadways of the paddy field.

When I got my first bicycle I called her Java, I rode her through the hilly terrain of manipal, like Don Quixote after windmills,  lassoing, the pigs and chicken’s  truly imagining ourselves back on grandpa’s Bullet.

I’m talking of mid seventies when girls on motored two wheelers was a definite no-no, my aunt (now in her 50’s) and I scooted past the roads of Udupi shocking people with our braids and jeans!  My own journey on the two geared vehicle, began with a Lamby went on to a Bajaj, a Hero Honda then how low did I fall to a Kinetic marvel and now to a Kinetic Honda.

To my greatest amusement my brother was mortally terrified of two wheelers, despite the fact that I ferried him to school for five years! He would pillion ride pretending to teach me how to ride, I would have my revenge my speeding and really zip-zapping through the trickiest roads.

It was only when I met my husband, did I take the pillion, that was fun too. Riding through the towns, Sunday meant a backpack with water some snack and a change of clothing and off on the bike. When we had guests it was two bikes, we would park the bike on the ferry boat till it got us across then zoom where ever  we felt like.

“baby, stand on popally”(baby stand properly) she said, in her most adult 4yr voice,  to her doll who was on the child seat of the tricycle,then she swung her toy stethoscope round her neck, tossed a battered handme down handbag from my mom on the back seat, and peddled furiously. This was my daughter and in her game she was me and her doll was baby.

When the second kid came along we bought a new Kinetic Honda for me, it was definitely more convenient to load the shopping and handle the kids. The young lady would stand between the scooter front panel and me, sing, dance, and report her day’s activity.

In retrospect from wild adventuring youth, I became part of the establishment, piloting kids, shopping bags were inconvenient on my bike, I needed a scooter. A car was a stifling alternate. I need the breeze to caress my face, and the wind to whip my hair to come alive.

Be it the winding roads from Goa to Dharwad or the ridding along the sea to Udupi my husband and I always hit the road on our bike. Currently we have a Pulsar. Even when we were excepting our first kid we biked down to Dharwad.

The day the surgeon lets me back on our bike, unless we hit monsoons, I would like to bike the twelve jyothirlingas.

 

 I’d rather be riding my motorcycle thinking about God than sitting in church thinking about my motorcycle.– Anonymous