An excerpt from Madhuri’s latest book, Reluctantly to Kunzum La: Motorbiking in the Himalayas in the Name of Love
But as long as I’m mentioning the bike, let me introduce that character in our procession: Shree Enfield Bullet.
In Poona, in the Commune, every guy worth his rice and dal has one. They cost absurdly little in Western terms. They are a classic 50’s style motorcycle – some say they are even pre-war, 30’s-style. What’s clear is that they are leftovers from the Raj. British-designed, Indian-made, they have a bulbous thorax and a deep, full-throated roar which is enormously satisfying to hear and to sit astride – the vibrations of the ride are earthy and grounding and powerful. (To me, a Yamaha by contrast sounds like a sewing-machine.)
This is a biiiig motorbike. It’s like sitting on a couch. The driver needs muscle and height to keep the thing upright and negotiate its startings and stoppings. Short guys look out of their depth on them, though they do persist in riding them. A big guy looks like God – at least, some version of some one of the wide variety of gods who have been booted up by and for humanity. Sitting there with his legs apart (guys like to sit with legs apart), arms both at rest and at ready on the handlebars, long legs in manfully delicious proportion to the behemoth; ready to ride the open road in a country which offers him more psychic freedom than his own – and though he looks straight-lipped and serious, he is happy to the depths of his soul.
And his soles – I can tell you, boots must be worn – heavy sturdy ones; and jeans. Not typical Indian garmenture. The exhaust pipes are hot. I wear the thick hiking boots aforementioned, and they stand me in good stead.
This vehicle does not have the shocks of a BMW, and Indian roads are potholed and scabrous and messy. But it does its best.
Anando’s has a half-height backrest, reassuring for the lady riding pillion. There’s a luggage-rack on the back all bungee’d up with load, and side-baskets carrying water and petrol, in a plastic and a metal five-litre container respectively. There are sari-guards over the back wheels – metal scrollwork to prevent the hanging tail on a woman’s sari from tangling up in the things and sending her to an Isadora Duncan afterworld.
In India, a motorbike has a different context to what it has in, for example, the States. Here an automobile is a rich man’s vehicle, and a motorbike is the highest aspiration of the middle class. Whole families ride on them – Mama sidesaddle behind Papa, and the little ones clinging wide-eyed but pacific, squashed in between or behind. It is not necessarily a tough-guy’s steed; though police and military do ride them, and other tough guys too.
But you cannot sit on one without participating in its mystique. The roar… the power, like having a river in spate between your legs. Still, since testosterone is not my overriding (so to speak) hormone, and I am no Daddy Longlegs – nor yet Mama Longlegs (though I’m told my legs are long for my 5’4”, thank you) I am happy to ride behind, and never even contemplate commanding the growling beast.
I have one of those sitting in front of me, and he keeps the wind off me, too.
This is more crucial on a long straightaway than in the mountains, of course. I love riding in the mountains – the roads are so winding that you cannot go scarily fast; you have such maneouverability on the road, valuable when there is a three-thousand-meter drop on one unprotected side, or you must share the road with a truck or something. You can stop anywhere; you are not claustrophobically confined; and you feel as safe as you feel with your lover or yourself – whoever is driving. (Anando is a good and careful driver.) In a bus or jeep or truck the guy at the wheel is probably pickled or sleepless or both.
On long straight roads I always feel more vulnerable, and can hardly wait for the stint to be over or the road to start ascending into twists and turns.
Ah, this celebrated monster, the Enfield. One thing it definitely has: sex appeal.
But here I must add: sweet Vimal on his little Honda scooter goes the same route we do, over the same rocks and pocks, under the same rainy skies, up into the same heights, down into the same valleys – and he does just fine.
Excerpted from
Reluctantly to Kunzum La
Motorbiking in the Himalayas in the Name of Love
by Madhuri Z K Akin
Paperback and colour hardback
Independently published, 3 July 2024, 347 pages
ISBN: 9781446110393
Links to buy: madhurijewel.com/KunzumLa
Review by Surahbhi on Osho News
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