Adversity is the name of the game

I had previously written how India has a four-wheeled fixation. Anything that has four –wheels is the shortcut to nirvana and anything on two wheels is usually shunned. Sadly, this mentality is taken to the roads too.

Anyone riding a bike in traffic is usually considered a poor monger who is on his bike only because he doesn’t have anything else as medium of commute or simply can’t afford a car. Self-righteous car owners consider themselves inherently superior to everyone around them simply because they have got those little 4 wheels, however small they might be is not of importance. For them, Bikers are not traffic. They are targets.

Predictably, these people riding the cars think that they have got the first right of the way on the road and bikers are lesser mortals who have no right to be on the road.

They can’t be more wrong.
Contrary to popular opinion, most of the bikers are on a bike simply because they choose to be. (And by bikers, I don’t mean just anyone who gets on a 100 cc and wrings the throttle.)

Most of the bikers have been riding on for years, if not decades. They usually have access to 2 or more transport choices with them but they choose bikes for the freedom and the involving experience they offer. There are bikers who have got BMWs parked at home but they simply can’t resist the lure of two wheels and the intense ride they offer.

And the saddest thing is that most of these “superior” drivers are secretly in awe of bikers and their rides. They admire them secretly but are too pusillanimous to admit it in open. If they see a biker enjoying the ride on the road, sliding around and banking too much, they will be looking at the spectacle like their eyeballs are gonna pop out but later on they will just say how foolhardy this is.

The cops are no different and they also consider Bikers to be a class lower than all and consider them as targets. Harassing Bikers seems to be their favourite pastime and I don’t think the attitude is gonna change anytime soon.

Perhaps the reason for this is that people think of Biking as an underground activity. And the word ’ underground ‘ conjures up images of everything from mafia to drugs to trafficking. People just don’t understand Biking and motorsports. Their minds are just not willing to accept biking as an activity/sport.

What really flummoxes me is that people are willing to consider figure dancing as a sport but not Biking or motorsports. Hell, people might even consider pole dancing as a sport.

A seditious change in popular mindset is needed but I don’t see it coming anytime soon. Bikers have had to face adversity since the day Bikes were invented. But I take heart in the fact that despite all the adversity from everyone, from one’s own family to cops to maybe even the pope , Biking and bikers have survived and continue to flourish. Perhaps that is enough for me.

But is it enough for biking on the whole? I can’t say.