The last day of the ride. A feeling of sadness was in the air as we packed the tents and bags for the final time. Tonight we would be staying in another plantation house, so the camping ordeal was over for me, without me having spent a single night under canvas. A good result, I think! I said goodbye to the yellow sad-eyed dog, whom we'd named Ramprasad. He'd become an unofficial camp mascot during our time there, feasting on our scraps and leftovers. When not putting on heart-breakingly cowering displays of animal submission - bowing down with front legs outstretched and yawning, or tail and ears lowered when anyone came near - he was a quiet, affectionate dog who sat or lay quietly among us, letting us stroke, pet or even play with him. I'd got a bit attached to his sad face and hoped he'd survive without our food and our company. He'd survived this far, I suppose, so I'm sure he'll be fine. His natural animal whiles being of more use to him than our affection and pampering.
I rode with Dipsi again, having decided his bike's seat was the most comfortasble of all the ones I'd tried. This didn't count for much on the rough roads but it was better than nothing. Riding hairpins and curves through the forest, I was still struck by the beauty of it all. We passed huge, tall stands of giant bamboo, their slender stems spreading like the black spokes of a green umbrella above us. The light through the trees was like poetry. Branches of delicate leaves hung down over the road like drapes of green lace and the sunlight that reached the ground left splatters of pale yellow colour. The air was pure and cool on my skin, the jungle was poetic and the sensation of sweeping round the curves, as low as possible - I have a suspicion Dipsi was showing off ever so slightly, or just enjoying it - was just magical.
After some time we stopped at a viewpoint with a pier built on stilts that jutted out into the air high above the forest. Tall hills rose and fell on all sides, wooded thickly green. The heat of the day dulled them to an olive drab and the ever-present haze softened their lines. I felt lost and small in this benign green world, despite the presence of my noisy biker friends. They were in cheerful mood, snapping silly poses against the backdrop of the forest as the breeze tweaked at our hair and pulled at our 60kph T-shirts. I took photos of them and, in a moment that made me realise I'd been accepted, they took photos of me with them. We were one big happy family, enjoying the last day of the holidays.
Back on the bikes, the road was the worst it had ever been. It became a lunar landscape of yawning craters, boulders, pebbles and dust. In places all pretense at Tarmac was gone. I just clung on and tried to concentrate on the beauty around me. But Dipsi's bike was struggling. It was pulling slower and slower as we went up the hills. The harder he revved it, the less power it seemed to have. Maybe it was my extra weight causing the strain? He assured me it wasn't that and we carried on. Then on a particularly steep section, even though it was a patch of mercifully smooth, newly-laid road, the bike just couldn't make it. It growled and roared but moved not a bit. We got off and Dipsi had a look. He already knew what it was: the clutch cable, which he'd had problems with before, had finally gone.
The others came and stopped as normal and I resigned myself to testing out my new skills of patience - not the game! The problem seemed to be one that would take a while to fix, so Dipsi and a few others would stay behind.
'You're coming with me,' said Vishu. My heart sank. Back on his rock-hard saddle I could be guaranteed an uncomfortable ride. 'Ok,' I replied, raising my eyebrows as if questioning the necessity of this. Vishu read my expression instantly. 'You don't have a choice,' he said with a tight smile. He didn't want me causing any more problems than they already had and his expression put an end to all thought I might have had of argument. 'Ok,' I said, more meekly than I felt.
But Dipsi's clutch was to be only the start of the problems. Later, at a chai break, Vishu and I had already pulled into a little tea stall and were just watching the chaos that was a road crew laying new Tarmac - sadly too late for us. A mess of yellow steamrollers, trucks loaded with smoking, steaming bitumen and men in tar-hardened clothes, was half-blocking the road, just behind a blind bend. I didn't see it happen but suddenly everyone was shouting. Jaan had skidded off his bike coming round the corner and was lying half-trapped underneath it. Everybody rushed over to see if he was ok. Quickly they pulled the bike off him and he scrambled out, shaken but unhurt. All his protective gear and leg-guards had padded him successfully and he was fine. He brushed off people's concern, preferring to head for a cup of chai instead.
After that, we'd only been been going another half-hour when we stopped again at another roadside shop. I was surprised that it was time for another break already and thought grimly that, although getting off the bike was a butt-blessed relief, if we went on at this rate we'd take another week to get to our final destination. But we had not stopped for a tea break after all. It seemed we'd had another fall. This time it was Kaushik and Anu. They pulled up a few minutes later, looking shaken. Kasushik had scuff marks and littel tears all up the arm of his jacket. Anu, her hair in disarray and looking grey with fright, had holes in her jeans and had grazed her leg but was otherwise ok. She looked tight-faced and angry. She blamed herself, saying she had moved as Kaushik was cornering and had unbalanced the bike. Everyone tried to convince her that it was not her fault - or anyone's - that sometimes these things happen and you just can't control it. I could see from her eyes that she wasn't sure. When things had quietened down a bit I asked her, 'Are you sure you're ok?'
'No, I hurt my hand but I don't want them to see,' she said quietly. She took off the thick leather and fur-lined glove and I gasped to see a deep, painful-looking graze on the heel of her hand. A flap of skin was hanging off and it was full of grit. She onviously hadn't been wearing gloves at the time and had put her hand out to save herself.
'That looks bad. You need to clean it,' I said. 'No, it's alright,' she said bravely, 'I don't want them to worry about me.' Seeing her injured and shaken like that sent uneasy thoughts rushing through my mind. Riding was risky and so far, I'd been unaware of and shielded from these risks, as nothing had happened. But now I saw that anything could happen, and all in a tiny, impossibly small instant. Riding wasn't all about pretty countryside and freedom, it was also dangerous - wasn't that part of the appeal? - and danger meant that you needed to be prepared. And being prepared meant wearing protective clothing, however hot and uncomfortable. In the hot wind that day, I'd gradually taken off my layers until I had on just a T-shirt, jeans and my helmet. It felt great to feel the wind over my bare skin, but I now realised it would not feel half as great if I came off dressedlike that. It could have been me and I wouldn't have come off so lightly. Feeling guilty, I put my thick hoodie back on. It was sweltering but it it had padded arms and body, so if I fell, I would be less likely to suffer the terrible grazes Anu had.
But the thrill of that danger is what makes riding so addictive. The pleasure of it is somehow heightened by the knowledge that it could seriously injure or kill you. Knowing you are not immortal and not immune to its perils builds a heightened appreciation of the moment as you live it. The tight curve is thrilling as you bank into it, but even more so as you come out of it, intact, safe and enriched by having experienced its terrifying hazard. Similarly the dead straight, smooth, flat road: it is an urge, an invitation too irresistible to refuse, to go fast, faster, faster that you should. You know (in India at least) that a cow, a rickshaw, an ox-cart, car, bus or lorry could amble out at any moment and a second's inattention would leave you swerving, braking, skidding, falling... The tempation of fear is the invitation to find the joy on the other side. You have to pass through its clenching, heart-stopping gateway to reach the nirvana of pleasure on the other side. Fear taunts and tempts you with the promise of riches to be gained if you can overcome it.
The afternoon and the miles rolled by, uneventful and unscathed. In the afternoon we stopped again for a break, this time at a tiny shack deep in a river gorge. The stall-holder didn't seem to register any emotion - surpirse or anything else - at the sudden appearance of a large group of bikers in the midst of their quiet forest village. It could have been a normal day as far as his outward apprearance showed. He gave nothing away and no glimmer of internal stress was visible in his face.
Indians in general seem to have an extraordinarily large capacity to take things in their stride in this way. A train or bus delayed for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, rarely leads to anger and frustration as it would back home. Instead it is simply an excuse to extend the opportunity to talk to fellow passengers and sufferers. To an outsider, Indians in the suspended state of waiting all seem to already know each other. This isn;t true, but they chat away with perfect strangers about what my lack of Hindi prevents me from knowing, as if they have known each other for years. In this way, they pass the time in companionable company, rather than in the silent, boiling, seething anger that would characterise such an occurence in England.
Where does this quality come from? Primarily, I suppose, it is habit, formed by repeated exposure to such trials on a regular basis. Now the stall-holder showed the same acceptance of an unexpected situation. He simply carried on serving at his normal speed (slow), because he knew that we would be used to the wait and because he knew he'd get to us all in the end, so what was the rush? That he probably took a week's worth of takings in chai and snacks from us in half an hour he also took equally placidly.
I sat down next to Jaan. 'Bridget,' he started, 'what do you think of this?' I listened, expecting a joke, a witty comment about one of the others, something lightly conversational. But Jaan was in pensive mood. 'Don't you think,' he said, 'that the more civilised we become, the more we become like slaves?'
'How do you mean?' I asked, surprised that the consumption of a humble omlette in a bun should provoke the philosopical. 'Well, the more civilised we are, the more we are tied to home, relationships, family and work.' I thought about it for a second, not having expected to employ my philosophical intellect in the late afternoon in a jungle cafe. 'Well,' I said, 'when civilisation means we can do this' - I waved my hand about, meaning to encompass 60kph and the ride we were on - 'I don't feel like a slave.'
'But we still have to work to be able to earn the money and take the holiday to do this, so we are still slaves.'
'I don't think so,' I replied. 'Slavery is the absence of choice. All of us here have the choice whether to be part of all these things or not. Someone who is enslaved doesn't have that.' Jaan was silent, pondering this. I'm not sure he agreed but in a way it didn't matter. Conversations like this are why I wanted to join 60kph on their ride. They are why I love to meet people and get to know them and get under their skin to their deeper thoughts that don't often surface in everyday life. They are why I thrive on travel and new encounters.
That Jaan, who I didn't know too much about - other than that he was a biker, worked in a bank, had a girlfriend, supported Chelsea and was a frelance tattoo artist - should feel comfortable enough with me to share this idea was a great moment. He showed me that he - and all people - are more than the mundane sum of their parts: job, background, family, friends, culture. The beauty of such an exchange was its unexpectedness, both in content and location. I didn't expect Jaan to talk like that about that subject - and it was all the more pleasing for exactly that reason.
We had to get a move on now, as it was beginning to get dark. The sun was going down behind the hills and another beautiful sunset was in preparation.The cloudless sky was a pure, flat excpanse of pale buttermilk yellow, a colour I have never seen the sky before. In front of it the hills were the perfect complementary dove grey. The cool clarity of the grey perfectly set off by the warm yet subtle buttermilk. I couldn't take my eyes off it - the most beautiful and unusual sunset I'd seen so far on this ride. Gradually the buttermilk air deepened to apricot and the dove grey mountains to wet stone. Soon the night was upon us and still we rode on through the dark. My relief was unimaginable when we finally reached the plantaion, having taken a wrong turn and got lost somewhere along the way.
Bone-tired and aching, I forced myself to take a blissful hot shower - the first one for a week - before I was too exhausted to move. The hot water purged me and my filthy fingernails of a week's dust, grime and fatigue in muddy brown streams.
Gathered round in the chill air, wrapped in blankets snug as winter cottage open fires, conversation turned to the ride we'd just completed. Gauruv asked everyone what they thought about it, good and bad. People were very complimentary about the Bang Gang's organisation of the ride and thrilled with the scenery we'd passed through, as well as Aradhana and co's cooking. I had to agree with that. There were cheers and applaud for a god hob well done.
But then the bad had to be discussed as well... Gauruv pointed out the lack of group discipline - gaps in the line of riders were too long and weren't filled up, creating the risk that the group would split up. There were too many breaks with everyone stopping and taking off helmets, gloves, scarves etc. immediately, so everyone got delayed and quick stops turned into long ones. He was also frustrated that no-one seemed to have a map or to know the ride plan. It had all been organised for them so they knew what was going on, but everyone kept asking the organisers what was going on when they should have known. Criticisms and accusations were passed back and forth and, as usual, it was always easier to criticise that to praise. Everyone wanted to say their bit wanted everyone else to listen to it. It all threatened to get a little awkward. It was inevitable really. The 60kph family had their moments of bickering and discord, just like any other family. But this was good, as it gave everyone leave to air petty or serious concerns in the safety of the group, as there was sure to be someon there who agreed with your point of view. Thankfully no-one was at odds for long.
Then they wanted to know my point of view. Gauruv was the one to ask: 'As a non-member, what did you think of the ride? And what was your opinion of bikers before 60kph and what is it now?' I was well and truly on the spot!
So what did I think? I'd had all week to come up with my opinions and impressions and now I had to give them, however unsure or unformed they might be. I told them I was incredibly grateful to them for letting me join their anniversary ride and thanked them all, especially CP for asking me to go with him. I still couldn't believe what I would have missed out on if I'd said no! But I didn't and thanks to them, I'd had a truly amazing, eye-opening, thought-provoking week and one I would never forget.
Now came the question of my impression of bikers: "Well, I didn't really know any bikers before, so I didn't have anyone to compare you to, but I suppose I did have an opinion of what bikers were like. I thought they were all hard-drinking, hard-smoking,' and I paused, as if in thought, 'and that bit certainly hasn't changed!' I finished with a grin. They roared in appreciation. They never drank while riding, but at the end of the day they knew how to relax with a drink (or several!), and not to take themselves too seriously (low-budget Bollywood movies and all!) and that is always a characteristic I can identify with.
'Beyond the drinking and the smoking,' I said, 'I've realised that bikers are all just genuine, ordinary guys from all sorts of walks of life who leave their bakgrounds, beliefs and prejudices aside and just join together in a shared passion for riding.'
I wanted to end on a good and positive note, a calculated effect to ingratiate myself (Well, why not? You never know when I might need help or a lift in India in the future...). 'Of all my experiences in India so far, this had definitely been the best of them all.' The cheers told me I'd said the right thing. And I'd said a true thing too, one I truly believed. Riding with and getting to know the 60kph family had been the ride of my life and I wanted to be sure they knew it.
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