The festival brought in riders from different parts of the country and even abroad, on their mean machines. The sights and the festival overall amused me for a few reasons.
The number of bikers that turned up for the event was overwhelming. I say this after taking into account that most of the riders rode to Goa with their mean machines and that can really be a task. Also, the sheer number of high-end machines that people own in India just goes on to show the kind of money Indians are willing to spend on luxury products. Some of the high end bikes that turned up at festival featured some of the most sophisticated technology and engineering and thus sported a price tag of around 40-50 lakhs! Also, it is important to note that the infrastructure in India, with the exception of metros, is not really ideal for the practical use of such high-end bikes that can take you from 0-100 in 3-4 seconds and attain maximum speeds of about 300 kilometres, per hour. Add to that the poor civic sense and ill riding/driving habits of fellow road users, and a slight mistake at such high speeds can prove fatal. Hence, it is quite amusing to know that most of these mean machines are reduced to merely being objects of opulence.
From what I know, biking in its purest form is an emotion that has been fuelling the passion of riders in the West, and Europe for quite a few decades; but is a relatively new thing for us Indians. I say that because ‘biking’, apart from knowing how to ride, involves millions of other things such as responsible riding, helping fellow bikers, regardless of the disparity in the machines that you ride and respecting fellow riders for sharing the same passion of biking as you, to name a few. Now the festival makers have been promoting the event as a festival that celebrates the ‘spirit of biking’, the ‘brotherhood’ and all sorts of emotional terms associated with life on two wheels. And to be fair, while some of the riders attending the festival truly believed and lived by the aforementioned terms, a large chunk of the riders / biking groups, unfortunately, did the exact opposite and ended up creating a ruckus. Unnecessary throttle-wringing to create painfully loud sounds as if to say ‘mine is louder’, creating clouds of dust, and reckless riding on the muddy patch inside the venue seemed like a common practice that most of the riders took pleasure in indulging in.
But thankfully, there were good things at the festival too. A high number of women riders participating in the festival reassured people of the fact that biking is not a gender-specific passion. A lot of women riders had interesting tales to narrate, shared their experience of biking through difficult terrain and challenging weather, and told stories of how they took to biking (or biking took to them) in the first place. In addition to that, it was good to see experienced riders stress on the importance of safety gear while riding. All in all, it was a mixed experience at the festival and here’s signing off with the hope that things in India change for the better, to indulge in the bliss of biking.
