Pic: Tarika Kiran
With its expansive landscapes, delicious and varied cuisines and diverse cultures, India is a land that has an continues to bewitch all who visit it. Indeed, there are plenty of stunning locations that many a Indian has not yet visited and a lot of times remain oblivious to. Thus fueled by their passion for adventure and with the desire to learn and experience these melange of cultures that make up India, Ali Mehdi from Aligarh and Deepak Gupta from Delhi decided to undetake a bike trip across India and Bhutan.
“A lot of people go abroad on holidays, but there is so much to see and experience in the country itself and this is what we want to do,” says Mehdi, during their stop over in Goa. “Although the two of us have previously ridden plenty of times in the Himalayas covering places like Nepal, Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh, we had never ridden down south before and the idea was playing in our mind for quite awhile.”
After finally getting serious about the idea, it took them about three months to plan the entire trip and the two finally began their journey on March 28 this year on two Pulsar 220 bikes. “Although we have a rough itinary in mind, of about 120 days, we are taking it one day at a time and just enjoying the whole trip,” says Gupta, a businessman.
And the trip has been pretty memorable so far. “ I went on my first camel ride!” says Gupta excitedly, while Mehdi admits that the Rann of Kutch was truly magnificient. “It is so expansive and you feel so small when you take in the vast space spread out around you,” he says. Facebook too has proved to be a great help along the way as it allowed them to get in touch with people in different places. “ One of them invited us over when we were in Udaipur and we spent time with his family and he also took us around the city,” says Mehdi. Ofcourse, they did face a few bike issues and also had a few language problems but these they say were nothing unexpected.
At the same time, they were quite amused with the reactions they got from people along the way. “People sometimes look a little stunned when they find out that we are riding on bikes around the country. Their main reaction is 'In this heat?' But this is the only free time that Deepak has” says Mehdi. “We have also been asked about the GoPro cameras which are attached to our helmets. At the same time many are also eager to click pictures with us.”
But what about the recent death of rider Veenu Paliwal? Does that bother them in any way? “That is the dark side of biking,” admits Mehdi. “ But everyone is going to die at some point or the other and she passed away while she was doing something she loves.”
