BIKERS CLUB JANUARY 2020 ISSUE | Page 9

ISSUE 01 | JANUARY 2020 HOW IT ALL STARTED... GETTING BIKE WAS NOT EASY I am a girl from Lucknow, who loves riding motorcycle, doing stunts, love cooking and music, and my ultimate goal is to ride "Malle Moto Category in Dakar." LUCKNOW: It all started when I was very young, and when my father spotted my love for a motorcycle at the age of 5. He taught me how to ride a motorcycle, but he didn't know then that I would be taking this as my career one day. I used to get amazed by the boys who used to do wheelies and some stunts back in my home town, and I used to watch them doing them endlessly. I went to my dad and asked for a bike, he said: "You get good grades in 10th, will buy you a bike." As per pact with my dad, I passed out with good grades and asked my dad to complete his promise, to which he said, "bike is very risky for girls, why don't you go for Activa," I know how to ride motorcycle, and you only taught me; I don't want to ride activa which every girl rides, I replied. But it was a wasted effort. I got Activa, which was not what I wanted and which was not on which I could feel my passion for stunts. I used to get bullied by those boys whom I used to watch doing some basic stunts every day, but one day I told one of them that I also could do all this stuff if you could teach me the techniques. Initially, they laughed but gave me one chance when they saw me determined, with the help of basic technique which one of them taught me, I succeeded to do a wheelie at the very first attempt, to which I was also shocked, but that moment of success fuelled my passion even more. Later those boys became my friends, and often I used to practice with them on their bikes bunking my school. But then somehow, I succeeded in convincing my dad for the bike, and I got my first bike Honda Stunner 125. My dad was very supportive but unaware of the fact that why I was so keen to ride a bike. BIKERS CLUB ® | MAGAZINE | PAGE 09 But then one day, he came to know that I was doing stunts with some boys, and my bike was snatched away within a month. And I have been told to concentrate on my studies. As we all know, "The more you press the spring, the more it will bounce." I realized that if I have to follow my passion, then Lucknow is not the city, so I decided to move out, and tricked my parents by saying "I want to go out of Lucknow for higher studies after I passed 12th." Though they did not agree and wanted me to do engineering back there, that's when my aunt came to my rescue and convinced them and said, "if she wishes, she can come to Pune for higher studies, and I will look after her as a guardian," and that's how I moved to Pune. I didn't know much about Pune then; I just wanted to get away from Lucknow. It's not that I don't like Lucknow, but Lucknow has time to grow in terms of motorcycling, whereas, Pune is a biker city which I came to know later when I shifted there. But here the question was, "Where is the bike?" BIKING SCENE IN P U N E AND MY QUENCH FOR BIKE As I mentioned, Pune is a bikers city, and here the biking scene is much more advanced and professional compare to any other city in India. I saw many bikers doing freestyle stunts in a proper place and environment with fully geared up, not on the street but in an enclosed place for which they had adequate permissions from the local authorities. I was fascinated by seeing them practicing different styles, which I always wanted to do and which I have seen in the videos by professional stunt riders. I wanted to learn all those styles, but how could I without a bike? My parents did not send me a bike.