Greetings Cruisers,
This is a sign from Delhi.
One day
Anuji loaned me his Royal Enfield custom with 90,000 kilometers on the
clock. That was the day the carburetor decided to self-eject. An
impromptu team of passersby tried to rectify the situation, but no
avail. There were internal problems in the one-lung causing excessive
pressure to blow off the carb.
India’s
roads are dangerous and account for 6% of all the motor vehicle
accidents in the world. This truck driver survived unharmed but shaken.
When we came upon him, we offered him our food which he gladly
accepted.
One day
south of Nagpur we encountered a caravan of traveling Gypsies.
Originally from Rajasthan, these Indian Gypsy clans are the source of
all Gypsy tribes throughout the world.
Hanging
with the police force at Sleemanabad, named for Col Sleeman who wiped
out the murderous thuggee cult. On our right (outside the lens) is the
tree where Col. Sleeman hanged over five hundred rogues.
At a
festival of indigenous tribal dances, descendants of Africans living on
India's West coast dragged me on stage to accompany them in a
celebration of peacock dancing, motorcycle boots and all.
Before
we picked up the bikes, I stopped with the family at the beautiful Taj
Mahal. Said to have been once a great Hindu temple to Lord Shiva on the
banks of the Yamuna River, invaders converted it into a place of burial
for King Shahjahan’s wife, Mumtaj.
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I’m back from an awesome moto-adventure through Central India and
it’s good to be in touch with all of you once again. I wish that I
could have taken all of you with me. Just a small riding party of
100,000 of our best members at CruiserCustomizing.com cruising from the
Himalayas to the Indian Ocean!
Several Cruisers have asked me about riding India, so here’s a
snapshot. India’s deep heartland holds some of the remotest places on
earth, home to primitive tribesmen who will gladly send a spear through
any outsider who strays into their territory. My ride skirted such
tribal areas, but even Indians are not allowed to penetrate regions
reserved for the uncivilized. Anuji, an Indian rider I spent a few days
touring with, told me of his strange experience of spotting such a
prehistoric tribeswoman, who had strayed onto the road for some reason
of her own. Such people are almost never encountered by the outside
world.
I took along with me one American riding companion, a Harley rider named Fred who had read my book Motorcycle Yoga, and who sort of dared me to include him the next time I duplicate the journey outlined in Motorcycle Yoga.
Indian traffic is legendary for its dangers and her roads are
considered the world’s deadliest. We saw our share of collisions,
dozens of them, but wisdom prevailed and we managed to stay out of
harm’s way. On our slow three week drift into an ancient past we
covered only around a hundred miles per day slowing down to capture the
old world’s sense of timelessness, so different from our alarm clock
society of the West.
Caravans of camel-mounted Rajasthani gypsies passed us by as we
meandered through the forested Vindhya Hills. We stopped to feed
monkeys as we drove dirt paths through the Pench jungles where tigers
and wild buffalo roam free. We ate fresh raw vegetables and drank
just-squeezed sugar cane juice in remote agricultural areas, ending up
at a 500 year-old castle of a tribal chieftan. We throttled down to
crawling speed in villages where antelope and deer wander the nearby
fields like semi-tamed pets. We meditated in temples where worship has
continued for thousands of years, crawled into caves where austere yogis
live underground and swam in sacred rivers where quiet sages spend all
day contemplating the river of life. Once in the middle of nowhere, we
met two Italian nuns drawn there by their faith. We explored Kokha, the
ancient village of the murderous thuggee cult, and saw the tree where
the British officer Colonel William Sleeman hanged over five hundred of
them. The thuggee ringleaders captured by Sleeman received a more
arduous punishment than mere hanging; Col. Sleeman had their heads
crushed like melons underneath the foot of an elephant. (For more on
the thuggees, the origin of the English word thug, rent the 1990’s
Pierce Brosnan flick, The Deceivers.)
In one village we found ourselves as guests at the mansion of
Ramesh Gupta, the leader of a political rally and who was running for
office. During the campaign speeches, the opposition party was seen
bribing voters with bottles of country whiskey. This opposition leader
would give one bottle to all voters who agreed to vote for him, and two
bottles to those who were expected to vote against him. Why? Because
those who drank two bottles would likely be too hung over to cast any
sort of ballot the next day. Our host’s son had the men who were
passing out the free booze all arrested and their truckloads of bad
spirits were confiscated. Later, at a fair of tribal dancers, the young
men doing a peacock dance stopped their show to drag me on stage with
them. I danced in my motorcycle boots and riding vest, and a photo of
the event appeared in the next day’s local newspaper. These peacock
dancers are descendants of Africans who had settled in India over five
centuries ago, but who still cling to their customs.
One thing about motorcycles is clear; those two wheels we love
generate a language that is universal to riders all over the world.
When those wide chrome handlebars are under your control and your
shifting is smooth, there is no border, no measurement of years, and no
difference in skin color. What you do have is the earth rotating
beneath your wheels, and the sun or moon illuminating your path from
above. You’ve got wind rushing by carrying with it the intoxicating
scent of the woodlands, and the friendly waves of children along the
roadway. For Indian riders, just as it is for us, bikes are The Great
Equalizers, all riders are brothers and sisters and the ride is the
religion with the magic handiwork of God and Nature seen on all sides.
My Indian riding buddy, Sadar Anukarana Singh, is well-known among
the sub-continent’s tightly-knit society of cruising riders. Anuji, as
he is known, disclosed to us many of his favorite rides, his secret
roadways and his sacred shrines. When my Royal Enfield Bullet, which I
keep stored in India, needed a wash, tune-up, oil change, new battery,
tube, rearview mirrors and a few new parts, Anuji obtained a loaner
Bullet for me so that I could continue exploring the side roads of a
sub-continent alongside him, never to suffer any downtime or separation
from The Way. It’s good to know that the brotherhood of the biker
stretches beyond all boundaries. So much so that CruiserCustomizing is
now shipping parts to India!
For those of you who would like to know about riding India, you can order my book Motorcycle Yoga: Meditative Rides Through India
from CruiserCustomizing. Those of you who might like to cruise the
Indian sub-continent with me on a Royal Enfield 500cc single can e-mail
me at pavandas@sbcglobal.net with your questions. Let’s ride.
Miles Davis, (Pavandas)
Editor, Cruiser Customizing News
Read CruiserCustomizing Newsletter #68
