THE MEDIA COVERAGE & PASSION FOR RIDING

For a change this is not a travelogue, but my experiences of getting covered by media because of my travels, my travels on this mean machine

Well what is the feeling of a common man when he gets featured in a news item?
It is something which is to be experienced.

Eventhough one might just say that, it doesn't matter much, deep inside his heart there will be that joy of being featured and thereby getting the attention of readers.

Other than the public figures and eminent personalities, common man gets featured in news mostly due to reasons which are not quite attractive, like committing crimes, by being the subject of a crime and by death/accident.

I have been fortunate to be featured in the media, because of my passion for riding, my passion for being on top of those machines with two wheels, my passion for being with a group of like minded individuals, my passion for exploring places and all the above my passion for puring riding pleasure.

Two years back, one fine sunday afternoon, I got a call from a representative of a leading magazine and was surprised when she told that she want to have an interview and photo session with our riding group next week. All my riding pals agreed and we were soon interviewed by a charming lady representing this magazine. The photo session was also a different experience and we got more excited because we had to ride our bullets to different scenic locations for the shoot.

The article was soon published and that too quite prominently titled - "Bullet crazy boys" . The fact that, it is a women's magazine added to the charm, eventhough menfolk forms the majority of its readership.

This happened in April 2007 and the magazine was "Vanitha".

The beauty of getting published is that
- people quite often recongnise us, when we go for a ride
- the mechanics who gets our machines up and running were also proud of repairing our bikes,
- our long lost friends will leave us a call and theirby renewing the friendship (the irony is that it will again soon die down)

Two years down the line, our rides continued, eventhough the excitement of getting published die down. All of a sudden on a fine tuesday morning, I was surprised when my wife announced that my name is in the newspaper again as part of an article about our riding group. This time it was quite surprising since there was no prior intimation regarding it. This news was there in the whole Kerala edition of a leading news daily. Again we went through the same emotions as that of our first "being published" experience, eventhough this time, when we said "it doesn't matter much", it was more of a truth than the first time, eventhough we still had that excitment.

This article came on "08 Dec 2009" in Malayalam daily - "Mathrubhumi".


One of our rider pals was approached by a guy from this daily for a small interview and he also took one of the photographs taken during the ride. But the news appeared atleast 6 months after the data was collected. So my friend never thought that this will be published, hence he did not tell us. So we were all taken by surprise when this news appeared.

This time too lot of calls came and I felt happy answering those calls and the excitment of being published was revoked.

On a pratical note, I might be just pure lucky to have featured in these stories. I cannot claim it as an achievement from my part to have such articles published. My love is to ride and ride gives me that satisfaction which no news paper article can give. These kind of articles just serves as an inspiration for more rides and if we could spread a message or two about safe riding practices too, then that can be called as an achievement.

How can one forget experiences like this?

"Those mountains are ready to be BULLETTED"

Pic taken from my blog on Freedom Ride

Exciting trips on Royal Enfield Bullet
Click on the links below if you are interested in viewing the trip photos and trip logs of some of the exciting Trips on Royal Enfiled Bullet

• Rider Mania 2009 - Ride Log (where 500 bulls met)
• Freedom Ride - Bulleting fun (beautiful Tamil nadu)
• Beaches in and around Kovalam (Unexplored beaches)
• Destination Unplanned But destiny - SABARIMALA (The greatest motorable roads in kerala)
• Varkala - Thumped by Silver Bulleteers (Divine Beach)
• Ponmudi - In Two Wheels (A beautiful Hill station near Trivandrum)
• Thumping to Idukki-Kulamavu (Never miss these tracks if you love nature)

If you like to be part of our bullet group join our egroup at http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/silver-bullets/

Link to article in Mathrubhumi: http://epaper.mathrubhumi.com/index.php?id=9098&cat=10&date=2009-12-08 (right bottom of this epaper)