Life on a Bike - The Story of veteran Roadshaker, Mr. Ashok Naidu!

Did this interview in April 2012 and dug it out today.
Haven't edited it since then, but I'd love to share this story with you - it's timeless.

Thank you again, Mr. Naidu, for taking out the time to tell me about how amazing your life has been!

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Written by Niyati Bharucha

I know very well that this may sound like the first line of a very badly written movie script, but there’s something about Ashok Naidu that makes you stop and think about life. Honestly, I broke up my phone conversation with him over 2 days, and spoke to him for a total of 3 hours, and I still feel like there’s more to know. We’ll get to the hard-hitting questions later. First, you all must know, that Mr. Naidu is not afraid to say, and he is in fact very proud of it, that he talks to his bikes. He exchanges some of the sweetest and most meaningful words not only with his wife and kids, but with his beautiful Royal Enfield 1962 350cc Bullet and 250cc CZ Jawa too. It’s something I actually respect, because no one else would be open enough to admit that they talk to their tools-of-profession. Of course, he misses his family when he’s away, riding for  15 to 25 days at a time, but like he says, his bike is always his first love and it will always be a huge part of his life.

It’s surprising now to say so because of the difficulties that Mr. Naidu has gone through to be the biker he is today. I’d say the term “Roadshaker” is most apt for him. Born and brought up in Lonavala and then Pune (which is where he currently lives), Ashok wasn’t one of those kids who just took his friend’s bike and learnt how to ride. He requested his father if he could ride his bike, and for a very long time he wasn’t allowed to even touch it. It was one magical and fateful day that his father finally agreed to let him take it for a ride, and the rest is history. The bike became the symbol of who he was, and he made sure the people in his college (especially the girls) knew that! He’s been riding since 1968, which is one of the questions he gets asked the most in his interviews, and has very graciously put it up as the first line of his Info section on his Facebook profile.

Luckily, I did all my research before calling him and managed to ask him just the right questions and get some of the most amazing stories I have ever heard in my life.

His story is basically one of perseverance, bravery and a very basic happiness. “My biggest inspiration to become a biker was a movie on TV called “Mad Max” about a cop who would ride his bike around everywhere and catch bad guys… it inspired me in the days when I didn’t have a penny in my pocket!” he said with a hearty laugh at the end. Mr. Naidu obviously wanted a bike just like the one Mad Max had, but when he spoke about his father and his father’s bike, he sounded just as elated to have it. His Dad not only taught him how to ride, but also gave him his 1952 Cz Jawa which has not needed repairs since 1999.

He rode all the way to Leh, Ladakh, ‘K’ Top, Kargil, Srinagar, Jammu-Patni Top on his bikes, he’s done the Motor-Cross races and Rallies and maintains both his bikes by Genuine Engineers till today. He says, “I have to take care of my baby on my own which is a top priority. I can’t just trust any mechanic with my bike.” This is what made me ask him my next question, whether he was closer to his bike than to any person. Even his family knows what Ashok’s riding life is like. That is the balance to his personal equation.

He talks about his bike like it IS another person, a life-long companion that will never let him down, and he is lucky to have it as part of his family.

He also owns a beautiful 1962 Royal Enfield Bullet which was his uncle’s, then his father’s and now his. “It was sad when my Uncle and father passed away, but I still thank him and my father for leaving behind such beautiful things.”  He used to have one mechanic he could trust, till a few years ago when his close friend and mechanic passed away too.

The worst accident he has ever had was at a car rally in the Himalayas in 1988. How did he get to the Himalayas? He was working with Tata Motors before, and in 1983 he decided to get some fresh air for his career. He applied to the Himalayan Institute of Mountaineering where he worked for about a year. It was at this time that he heard about the car rallies and decided to participate. When he started off in 1983, he drove the Ambassador, which a nice, heavy and sturdy car. In 1986, the Maruti Gypsy had come out and he switched to that for the rest of his rallies. The rally in 1988 was the one that set him off.

Ashok wasn’t in the driver’s seat, and the chappie who was driving lost control of the car at a very crucial turn, pummeling them down 30 feet off the side of a cliff. The driver was not as badly injured as he was, and could get out of the car, but Ashok had to be rushed to the hospital. There was no water at the course, only beer, and after giving him about half a bottle (which promptly made him pass out) they drove him to the nearest medical centre. He wasn’t sure if the doctor there was crazy, or if his driver had tipped the guy off, but even though he had acute pain in his back, the doctor said he was fine and could continue the race. Here is what shocked me: he raced for another 6 days continuously, curled up in the passenger seat in a “C” shape, and found out only after returning to Pune that he had fractured 6 vertebrae and was advised 6 months of bedrest. This was one of the few times that Mr. Naidu was out of his game, and by this point, he had covered a total of 21,610kms and had finished all his MotorCross and Car rallies successfully.

Most people would stop here. One motor accident would scare them into giving up their dreams, settling down with a nice desk job, and living the life of an average human being. But Mr. Naidu is no average human being. He got back into the circuit in 1990 and took part in the Vintage Motor Cycle Rallies in Pune, Mumbai. Nasik, Hyderabad.

Till about 2000, it was pretty much smooth sailing. He restored his Jawa in 1999 and resumed Rallies the next year, but at the end of the year on 25th December, 2000, he had a heart attack while he and his wife were out at a friend’s place, and because of his angioplasty in 2001, decided to keep a low profile and stay home more till about 2004. His biker-sense then started tingling again!

Another story that I’m most thankful to hear from Mr. Naidu was his 2005 trip to Ladakh. If you’re an avid traveller, you already know that the slopes and the mountainsides of Leh and Ladakh are so steep that one can’t climb them without facing a great amount of difficulty. Well, Mr. Naidu went up those slopes with an entire pack of bikers!

The trip came to a total of more than 4000 kms, and they did an average of 350kms a day. If this wasn’t enough to make my jaw drop, Mr. Naidu went on to tell me that he went up the steepest, most slippery slope all alone; just him and his bike. Here’s the story:

He took his Uncle’s 1962 Royal Enfield for this ride, and when he got it, his dad told him that it was manufactured in England, and this is the bike that he learnt how to ride on, and also the bike he took to college to show off with to the girls!

Clearly, the bike was nothing less than lean, mean and butch. It withstood every slope, every curve and every U-bend of the mountains. It not only helped him get through some of the trickiest terrain in the world, but made him do it without a single problem. His Pune co-bikers weren’t very happy about this trip though, because he decided to do it with the team from Mumbai. But to Mr. Naidu, a bike ride is a bike ride. It’s not about who you go with, it’s about you and your bike, and making sure that no matter where you are and who you’re with, at the end of it all, they’re all bikers and must stick together.

The ride went from Ladakh to Manali, through the Rohtang Pass, into Leh, to Khardunga Top, down to the Numbra Valley, back to Leh and then all the way to Kargil in just 4-5 days. This is what he says about the terrain, “…and it was so windy, it was such a tough ride, the pine trees were bending horizontally, but we still pushed on!” About 40 km before they reached Leh, he encountered his first difficulty- one very, very steep slope. He smartly tweaked the carburettor on his bike when he realised it wouldn’t climb, and caught up to his group in just a few hours! I don’t lie when I say Mr. Naidu is not an average human being. I don’t believe anyone would have thought of changing something in the middle of nowhere, all alone.

The proceeded to Kargil and then Srinagar where they stayed on boat, and also had the opportunity to explore the rope-way, which is a bridge over a valley or river made purely out of rope with a particular trekking technique to cross from one end to the other. People were right when they said bikers were adventurers at heart.

This trip became even more memorable for Mr. Naidu because of a beautiful place he visited in Jammu, called Patni Top, and he very strongly advised me to go visit. In fact, he even mentioned that it was one spot in the world that everyone must see in their lives.

The only other trip that came close to this one was his ride from Calcutta to Bhutan in 2009.

He had even ridden from Ooty back to Pune in one night just before this trip.

His longest ride at a stretch, however, was from Tawang to Guwahati during his Bhutan ride, where he covered 786 km in one night.

By this point, he had told me about almost all his big trips in great detail, and even his little rallies and how he was punished by his mother for going for a race without her permission! Out of sheer awe, some disbelief, and a lot of curiosity, I asked Mr. Naidu, “Is there any place in India that you haven’t travelled to?!” This question actually spiked his enthusiasm further (which I didn’t know was possible because he sounded so upbeat through everything) and he told me that he’s never been to Nepal and Gujarat, but he’ll be visiting the former on 21st September this year (2011). About Gujarat, he had only one thing to say. “After my ride, I have to have my drink at the end of the day, it is most important. But Gujarat is a dry state!”

Through our conversation, Mr. Naidu didn’t once give me a chance to let my mind wander. I’m a huge bike fan, so I never needed to ask him why he chose to ride those old, now-vintage bikes instead of new, more advanced ones (this was the second most asked question through all his interviews!).

Honestly, I’m so glad that he reciprocated with the same enthusiasm I interviewed him with, and he didn’t hesitate to give me any of the “gory” details. There was one question that I just had to ask him and I’m going to quote right out of our conversation.

“So when I interviewed BulletWala Chris Harlen, I asked him a very important question: “On a bike-ride, how many pairs of underwear do you usually carry, and how many would an average biker need on one of these long rides?” to which he replied, “Underwear? Real bikers don’t wear underwear!” What’s your advice on bikers and underwear?”

Mr.Naidu, of course, let out a huge laugh when he heard this, but still answered my question with complete sincerity! “Oh, I’m a real biker and I can assure you I wear underwear! It serves as an abdomen guard and is part of riding gear, for God’s sake! It holds “everything” together! Just like you need good jackets, thick pants, if you don’t wear underwear, your balls will just get squeezed! It’s important to carry many pairs even if you don’t carry other clothes. To you, it is like having your tools for your bike- the spanners, spark plugs, accelerator cable, basically anything that can wear out. So you really do need the underwear!”

The best part of our conversation was the fluidity. Moment he had finished a story, I had a new question because of what he had just said. His statement “I’m a real biker” led me to my next: What does it mean to you to be a biker? Can you sum it up in a few sentences?

Mr. Naidu had some trouble with this. He said it had been so long and such a wonderful time that a few sentences were just not enough, and I completely believe him because we had been talking for about 2 hours by this point!

“I’m a passion rider,” he said finally,”when I decide to go somewhere, nothing and nobody can stop me.”

Again, I didn’t blink an eye before penning down his statement. Just the fact that he has completed about 2000 kms on an average on every trip, on bikes that are twice MY age, is enough to tell me that he did not only achieve everything with the bikes that he was given, but he did it in style and completed every single adventure and ride. He’s finished some of the toughest stretches of land in record time, much quicker than people with newer bikes. “Life was not easy, but I got through all of it very well. It’s been just incredible for me.”

My next and final question to him was, “What was your biggest achievement? Was it a trophy or award, or was it just an experience that you will never forget?”

Of course, Mr. Naidu chose the last one. He said his brush with fate in 1988 was his biggest achievement. He believes that to date, no other man would have been able to complete the race and withstand that much pain for 6 days. “Sitting in the passenger seat curled up like a baby and then having to race is not just any man’s job!”

Something else that he really feels for is finding his old friend’s lost bike in Pune, and his bike was also stolen (and recovered) in 2005 so he completely understood his friend’s pain and did everything in his power to bring him the bike. Unfortunately, his friend passed away 2 weeks later, and Mr. Naidu said that it could have been out of sheer excitement of having it back! That’s how much he loved that bike!

So it hasn’t been an easy, smooth ride for Mr. Naidu, but you will never see him without a smile on his face (at least not in the photographs with his bikes!) and for the 2 days that I was in touch with him, he never once dropped the excitement in his voice, or his desire to tell me more. Mr. Ashok Naidu is definitely MORE than an average human being. He’s a biker. A Roadshaker from Pune: A true legend!