The Biker's diary

Disclaimer: This post has got nothing to do with Che Guevara or Marxism. It's about being a biker in India, and let me tell you, you don't feel the wind in your hair you feel the dust in face and smoke in your lungs. But again this post is not about pollution either. It's just the memoir of someone who drives a two wheeler to reach to office. Anybody who has ever ridden a bike in India would be able to relate with my post and anybody who is a keen observer on the road will understand how we roll on the manic roads of India.

So after somehow making myself agree to go to work, I take my bike and start my hike. It's a treacherous journey of 16 km or 35 mins. Driving in India involves a lot of maneuvering; it’s like a hurdle race. And every day we bikers come to the road to achieve the longest distances in the shortest time. To describe the Indian road scene in the morning, let me take an analogy of big jar with lots of big and small stones in it and then if you fill the jar with sand, see how the sand takes up all the empty spaces in the jar till it’s full. So in this analogy the jar is the road, stones are the cars and the sand is us the bikers. We reach every nook and cranny which the cars leave for us. And believe me that bugs the hell out of every carwalla from nanos to BMW owners. But you know that only makes me proud and even nosier. We somehow have forgotten the concept of space, humans don't get enough space in our country and they think their cars could take up so much space on the road nahaaaa. And the highlight of my drive becomes that moment when I can squeeze in the smallest space with my bike and eventually overtake that Audi right in front. So the frustration of having spent millions of on luxury vehicle and being left behind by a Honda scooter ouch it must hurt, so you can hear the irritation in their frantic honking and see it in their harried faces. Must be stressful...

And one of the mottos of Driving in India is that 'Lane driving is lame driving'. And this principle is religiously followed by anybody and everybody. We all sometimes look like drunk drivers only more talented. And bikers they rule the road when it comes to changing lanes. We change lanes so fast that our mamma would spot us. But it's not just me everybody does and it and that makes it right. Well if you want to get to where you are going you got to toughen up and Indian roads makes you tough, teaches you all the abuses in the world. If you don't abuse you get abused here.

I have to stay sane at least till half way through my work day. To not let the roads get to me, I become this obnoxious driver who can bug the hell out of other people and not even know about it. I put the music up 10 notches and then I drive like mad, believe 35 min is record driving time because if I have drive by the book I would reach 2 hour later, okay may be 1.5. 

And then the next thing everybody in India needs to know to make it anywhere on time are the short cuts and off road. You need to have a mind map of every galli on your route you never know when you would need to bypass a traffic jam or a traffic light. Every galli leads you somewhere; you just need to pick the right one from the maze.

So my day starts with a lot of adventure and there have been times when it turned into a misadventure. That’s inevitable sooner or later the odds catch up to you. I have had some injuries but life here is not so precious and I understand that completely, so I watch out for myself as much as I can. But I can't give up the trilling life of a biker, because all bikers signed up for living dangerously the day we bought our first bike.