Transmission 1 – Two Wheel Pilgrimage in India

Life in the saddle now begins on India’s west coast. 15,000 miles from home base, I’ll be calling out mantras in this ancient land. Riding from slum to city, town to temple, and seaside to mountains. Here in this vast place where one of every six human beings and millions more tourists live and find their way. The great Mother Kali writes her scriptures by the lives of the her folk. Through beggars and the thieves, as much as the traveler, the merchant, and the child, all families are her offspring, and I am for a small time part of the cast in her movie.

I am but one of the hosts of a hero’s journey, my own dharma, written out over the sprawl of the road, distilling pure experiences out of the myths and magic that are purveyed here. Monitored by the thousands of Gods and Goddesses, and the crowds of people, each with their own karma, history, traumas, needs, wants, dreams

and relationships. I am never without company, and yet on my own. One man, and one motorcycle, to make a journey as much across land, as into my own being.

This trip is one of deep healing, breaking tamasic energy, nourishing new relationships, spontaneous adventure, free-flowing instinct, and learning. It is a continuation of everything in the past, being here now, and being sensitive enough to allow spiritual guidance. Coming to know the inner Guru that has always been and always will live and breathe within me.

After biding my time in old Mumbai, and looking at several models of the Royal Enfield, while resting in cheap hostel in the busy sub districts of Andheri and Bandra, I found a Himalayan at a rental dealership with 81,000km on it. This was a diversion from the original plan of owning a bike outright. Some hardcore bureaucracy with the RTO, limits of withdrawing rupees, and laws that prevent tourists from having bikes in their own name, suggested I should seek a loophole, and a compromise was made. Shipping the bike back to North America would no longer be an option, so I opted for renting a bike for the longer term.

I considered the classic Bullet 350, or the Himalayan for a long distance trek, and my ultimatum was clear. I needed a motorbike to carry me for several months of steady use, that could move over freeway, dirt roads, rubble, and trail. To ride gracefully through town, or navigate larger urban areas with ease. It would need to withstand some harsh conditions, ford through water, climb, and overcome obstacles, while being able to carry. It also had to ride far before needing fuel, so the Himalayan with the 15L tank was my natural inclination. Higher rise on the chassis, dirt tires, tank and leg guards, pannier mounting and saddlebags built a supportable chariot for doing everything I needed. The Royal Enfields also garner a lot of respect, and the first leg of my trip would take from Mumbai, southwards on the Goa highway almost 600km to Vagator for the largest gathering of Royal Enfields in India, the Rider Mania.

The maze out of Mumbai city to the outskirts of Panvel where the long haul really starts, took a staggering amount of time, and presented its own setbacks. A couple hours into the ride, the freeway suddenly held no two-wheeler traffic, and paint on the road read ‘car’ across every lane. A highway patrolman on a sports bike stopped me with a gesture of flipping his hand revealing his empty palm, asking in Marathi tongue what I was doing there. I explained my situation and he signaled me to reverse, into oncoming traffic and ride the shoulder of the highway back to the off-ramp, then pass under the flyover towards a motorcycle permitted road. Easy enough I thought, but nerve bending, to be suddenly so vulnerable with trucks and buses coming at me, with a limited space for my bike to pass by.

I ended up in a construction area, buzzing with rickshaws, and monster trucks, the dust was heavy and laden with pollution. In the disorientation of the roadwork, and diversions, the bike tipped in some red sand as I rounded a turn. I picked myself up, and coasted in first gear to some rickshaw drivers in the shade, keeping my legs held out beside the bike to keep it balanced in the loose sand. I asked for the route to Goa, and was surrounded by a mob of men, who all seemed to have their own way of instruction but naturally in agreeance with each other. I ignored the gps, and found the route through the chaos of honking horns, and hot motors, happy to be on my way. Before long on this alternative route, a police officer waved me to pull over, and questioned me about the bike clearly intrigued, and examining my gps route and license plates. Apparently I was riding on a toll road, and was missing a front plate, while the back one was obscured slightly by my saddlebags. He insisted on baksheesh for the toll, and two other crimes I had committed unawares, but when I handed over 200 rupees, he held back his hand, and did not accept the money. Instead he directed me towards an on ramp that would take me over the flyover and on track to route 66 the real Mumbai-Goa highway.

With embarrassment mildly averted, I merged with the swarm of vehicles, as my compass point read south, and held down the throttle until sunset clothed me a darker shade, and exhaustion overtook my momentum. I parked the bike and walked into a hotel, seemingly comfortable enough from the outside facade. There was no one at the desk, and my eye caught swastika painted in someones blood on the wall, red flags were raised, and I went back to my saddle in search of something more discreet. 1km further in Nagothane, a sign read ‘hotel lodging, family garden, veg/non-veg food’, good enough for me.

I parked and gathered my saddlebags then found a room two floors up, as evening left me in this strange place. One of the young men manning the hotel sat on my motorcycle, insisting to let him ‘take it for one round’ saying how much he wanted the bike. This would not do, and I had to keep a sharp eye on him until he went home on his own second rate bike. Thieves were not as common in the country, but I had to play it safe. The power was not working in my room, and a youth explained that the men were fixing the electricity. The most bewildering sight could be seen outside my window. Across the highway, high in the cable towers were four men scaling the metal giants, and traversing the hydro wires with ropes and harnesses, evidently working on the power situation. I figured this would take awhile, and I went downstairs for chai, and dinner of aloo masala gobi. When I returned to my room, the lights were on, a kind of small miracle I thought. Ganesh mantras serenaded me into a sleepy state, and my muscles settled into the mattress for deep dreamless sleep.

After coffee the next morning and repacking my saddle bags, only ten minutes out of Nagothane, I was pushed off the road by a huge carrier truck, and into a mid speed wobble over loose sand and boulders. I lost control and crashed the bike, while tumbling over the handlebars creating my own cloud of red dust. The truck driver did not stop, I ran over to stand the bike up and brush myself off, as a herd of cows were coming my way, surprisingly the only other traffic. I stayed relatively unscathed, but the bike took some damage. The front left handlebar bent inwards at a 45 degree angle, the windshield was badly scratched, and snapped off, laying on the road, the right indicator light and head lamp had broke from their fitting, and the tank guard had been pressed in. I gathered myself and chanted om, sitting by the roadside, then rode awkwardly for a couple miles with crooked bars, until a layover, where I stopped and flagged for two another rider with a pillion to help me bend the bars back to an acceptable riding position. My pride had been injured more than my body. It was only day two, and I was looking at some serious repairs, and still 500 km to the Royal Enfield service center in Baga.

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Pushing on through the moderate size towns of Indapur, Mahad, Chiplun, Kadwai, and Rajapur, it felt good to have the wheels moving again, but the roads left much to be desired in comfort. At one point in a circuitous winding climb, the entire road was missing from a landslide. I was riding two months after monsoon season, but some of the damage rent of the rain wash was too extreme to be repaired right away. There remained a narrow trail terraced into the steep slope of the mountain, and I decided to go for it. I was a little more competent with the bike now under weight, and navigated over the boulders in low gear with sensitive torque to crawl over the rocks, like a trials course, happy to rise up the other side onto compacted flat dirt. The next twenty minutes of the trip were rode in bliss, as a deep ghat came into view, a small town terraced into the hills below surrounding an elegant temple. I experienced the nomads exaltation of true freedom, and stopped to revel in it…

Ganesh has been a primary god of this journey so far, as I realized that even through the setbacks, broken roads, traffic diversions and accident, the blocks have all been overcome. A second nights rest in a nicely lit hotel held a modest shrine to the elephant god, a repeat presence in my lodgings, and I feel drawn to leave offerings wherever I see one. Two hundred kilometers on brought me finally over the state line to Goa, riding in glory on half decent paved freeway. The vegetation changed, and new animals revealed themselves. A herd of water buffalo grazed in a marsh, monitored by egrets, and the crooning of peafowl in dense vegetation seduced their hidden beauty. Armies of Royal Enfields formed lines of bikes en route to Rider Mania in Vagator, soon I would be amongst my Indian brothers, celebrating a culture of bikers the world over.