Pablo
MEETING: Late July, 2003. I show up to the Business Standard office, nervous as all hell. Bijoy, Motoring editor, has told me that he’d like to hire me, but the final say lies with Haseeb Drabu, the paper’s resident editor in Mumbai; I’m to be introduced to him. Bijoy invites me into his cabin, and we chat, waiting for Drabu to call us; I think we discuss arthouse cinema, if memory serves me right. Bijoy’s phone rings — it’s Drabu. ‘Come on,’ Bijoy says, and leads me up to the fourth floor. Drabu is waiting next to the lift door when we step out. He looks at me but doesn’t say anything; I notice his diamond earring. He and Bijoy light up cigarettes; after a couple of deep drags, he says to Bijoy, ‘The fellow wears an earring. Hire him.’ And that’s that – I’m a Motoring team member.
DAY AT WORK: 1st August, 2003. Like an earnest newbie, I’ve come to work unnecessarily early; there are no other Motoring chaps present. I find a stack of bound copies of the magazine and flip through them, still unable to believe that I’m now a part of the team. A little later, Bijoy walks in; he seems preoccupied. ‘Oh, you’re here,’ he says, as if he’s forgotten that he’s just hired me. ‘Must find you something to do, then,’ he continues, as I wonder what I’ve let myself in for. He goes into his cabin and emerges with a key fob, which he hands me. ‘Go downstairs to the parking lot. You’ll find an orange Fiat Siena there; take it, drive somewhere and come back with some travel stories and photos.’ I wait for further details, which don’t emerge. ‘Er, that’s it?’ I ask. ‘Yes. Get out of the office,’ he replies. I leave, my mind a blur; I don’t realise it, but I’m on my way to becoming a travel writer.
REVIEW: Royal Enfield has sent us a Thunderbird as a long-termer. In 2003, there aren’t that many motorcycles to pick from in the Indian market, and to my still amateur eyes, it may as well be a Harley. Bijoy has been riding it; one day, he announces that he wants to turn it into a cafe racer — and Bijoy is a man who sees things through. He has identified a custom-bike builder — one Fahim bhai — who gets to work immediately, and we keenly follow his progress. Soon, a silver cafe racer named Thunderclap (because of its modded, ear-splittingly loud and totally illegal exhaust) is ready — and Bijoy decides he wants me to review it. We take it to a corner of the upcoming Bandra-Worli Sea Link road, and I do my best to look professional, clad in a faded Vega helmet, jeans, a denim jacket, hiking shoes and thin leather gloves; in the photos, I look stiff and awkward. Bijoy signs off encouragingly on the story, even though I still cringe at its fanboy level when I read it now. Nevertheless, I’m on my way to becoming a road-tester.
SHOOT: ‘Tell Pablo to shoot, he knows how to take a lens cap off.’ This is Bijoy’s decree, once it becomes clear that Param — the resident photographer — will be indisposed for a shoot with some Pulsars, at Bajaj’s proving grounds in Chakan. Shumi raises a doubtful eyebrow, but says nothing. ‘You can do it, no?’ Bijoy asks me. ‘Sure, no problem,’ I reply, never having been more unsure of anything in my life. Shooting photos for travel stories is one thing; the subjects are usually stationary or slow-moving. Capturing Shumi careening around a track, with an analogue camera, is quite another. I go through two rolls of slide film, and when they’re back from the studio, Param holds the positives up against the light. ‘Bike looks good, no?’ Shumi asks. ‘What $@&%! bike?’ comes the reply; both rolls look like they’ve been shot inside a coal mine. I begin mentally composing my letter of resignation, but Prashant, the art department’s Photoshop expert, says he can salvage them and duly proceeds to pull off a miracle. Close run thing, but I’m on my way to becoming an automotive photographer.
Ruman
STORY: It involved a modded Mahindra MM540 and a Maruti Suzuki Gypsy on Miramar beach in Goa, in 2010. Bijoy packed all of us into a Yeti and a GL and we were in Goa for a week, I think. I remember very little about driving those cars although the story liberally (and rather imaginatively) mentioned Chitrangda Singh who, the very next month, showed up at our annual awards! Got her to autograph that story and even posed for an awkward photograph later.
KNEE DOWN: Ha! It was at the Bajaj Pulsar 200NS (it wasn’t called the NS200 then) first-ride event in Chakan, Pune. Clueless about what to do with a test track, I went around riding as fast as I could or knew how to. Aneesh was shooting and right after we were done with the shots, it happened. A weird, spooky sensation at the knee which you hear before you feel. Rushed back into the pits, hollered at Aneesh to come get a photograph and, to my surprise, I did it again. It was a hilarious kneedown, with the NS more or less upright.
RACE: Can I skip? No? Okay, Honda flew us down to the MMRT in Chennai for the Twister Cup (that bike was so cool for its time!). Missed practice thanks to a delayed flight, attempted to qualify and didn’t. I was so slow, I wasn’t even good enough to make the grid. Sat out the entire weekend, snooped around the pits looking for old race-wrecks and flew back, crestfallen.
FOREIGN JUNKET: Bridgestone decided it would be a great idea to have a bunch of scribes spend four days in Bangkok to ‘experience’ its new Ecopia tyres. We got a joyride on a braking skidpad in a Toyota Corolla Altis (sigh!) through which they assumed we would be able to gauge said tyre’s superior performance. I don’t think anyone caught on. Over the next few days, I walked a lot, ate lots of food off carts, bought cheap t-shirts, stickers and crap parts for my RX-G and almost forgot I still had a story to write about tyres.
RIDING JACKET: I didn’t buy my own jacket several years into life as a motorcycle hack. Kartik let me have his grey/black textile DSG for the first few years and it felt awesome, putting it on. It was hot and bulky, but I couldn’t care less. In later years, he also let me inherit his Alpinestars SMX boots and his race suit, both of which I more or less destroyed. Sorry!
VIDEO: I think it was for a racing story around the Suzuki Gixxer Cup at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore. I went armed with no more than the opening line (a clever one, I believed), got friends from the grid to chip in, got barely any actual racing footage and made a video that still haunts me, seeing as it still got published on the Motoring YouTube channel. Don’t look it up, please!
Yash
CRASH: Touchwood, unlike many riders here, I’ve only had one motorcycle crash. Honestly, maybe I needed it. I was always riding with this low-key fear of crashing, like a squirrel on espresso. But my fall at Nandi Hills was surprisingly liberating. It’s like something in my brain got knocked loose… in a good way. Brain damage? Doubt it. Enlightenment? Maybe. Either way, I’m oddly grateful for that crash on the Ather 450 X. It made me realise there’s no point being scared. Just gear up, shut up, and enjoy the ride.
GOA TRIP: I’ve driven across India by road, but the one elusive journey I was yet to cover was a road trip to Goa! Maybe it’s Bollywood’s fault, or just the collective hype, but it felt like a rite of passage. And recently, I finally popped the cherry by driving the Skoda Kodiaq to the legendary land of fish curry and regrettable tattoos. With all the drama I’d built up in my head, the road trip turned out to be surprisingly chill. Still, it felt great to finally tick that dramatic, overhyped, absolutely necessary box on my bucket list.
HELMET: I must be honest, when it comes to choosing between two wheels or four, I’ve always opted for the latter. Judge me all you want; that’s just how I’m wired. But that didn’t stop me from jumping the gun and getting myself a good, expensive lid. Perhaps it was the peer pressure from friends and colleagues, or maybe some sixth sense about an impending crash (which I obviously didn’t foresee). Either way, it feels good knowing the purchase was worth it. The Scorpion EXO 1400 Evo Carbon Air has already saved me once, and I’m sure the investment will pay off again, not that I plan on testing it.
COVER STORY: I’ve been reading car magazines for years, but I never quite grasped the weight of a cover story until I started working for one. Now, I’m nowhere near photogenic enough to have my face slapped on a magazine’s cover; I’d much rather lurk behind a windscreen. But having my review picked as the top story, worthy of the coveted cover, was pretty surreal. Of all my reviews, the Mahindra XUV700 stands out as the most special; it gave me instant validation and kick-started an unhealthy obsession with chasing covers like they’re limited-edition diecast models.
BYLINE: As an intern at a car magazine, you don’t expect six whole pages liberally offered to you for your story. However, during my brief stint at evo India, I somehow ended up writing a comparison story between the Audi A3 Cabriolet and the Mini Cooper Convertible. I must admit, I fumbled through it, rewriting endlessly, frying my brain to the point of no return. Yet, it eventually came together. Even now, each byline feels like a quiet victory, and while I’ve become quicker with edits, the thrill of seeing my name in the byline never really gets old.
Kaizad
RIDE: For many, their first proper training sessions begin when they reach their early teenage years. But my dad made me ride my first ‘bike’ the same day that he taught me to ride a bicycle, which was around my sixth birthday. It was a small, kid-friendly Yamaha PW 50 motocrosser that is world renowned for being the best starter tool for kids. MotoGP champs like Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez learned to ride on the same bike. And the first ride was quite memorable, too. I straddled the small two-stroker, whacked open the throttle in our backyard, and… SLAM! Straight into a wall. Since then, we took the bike to a local flat ground and practiced riding safely, without giving my dear mother a scare.
WHEELIE: Wheelieing on a bicycle? Simple stuff. Wheelieing on a bike? Scary at first and still gives me the jitters at times. It was on a friend’s Hero Honda Street (remember that step-through?), which for a few milliseconds was incredible. However, when Bajaj launched the Pulsar N250 in 2021, it was on that bike that I actually got the hang of hoisting the front wheel.
CAMERA: Had I not had a heart-to-heart with my brother after scoring bad grades in junior college, I might have found my calling quite late. Thankfully, the parents were understanding enough and bought me a good Canon EOS 700D, a camera that started it all for me.
TRACK SHOOT: I wasn’t a photographer when Formula One had the Indian GP and Sebastian Vettel clinched the top spot for the three rounds held at the Buddh International Circuit. But when MotoGP rolled up, I knew I couldn’t miss the opportunity. Until then, media rides and drives had prepped me for the ideal shoot locations and styles for a track shoot. But a proper motorsport event, the Bharat GP was a whole new ballgame. Capturing those speedsters took some time getting used to. It was stunning to see them defy physics, a feeling that I find hard to describe in words. That’s why you need photos.
TRIP TO THE MOUNTAINS: I have only heard the call of the Himalayas once, in 2019, a few months before the world descended into chaos. But during those 10 days, breathless and tiresome ones, might I add, the serene surroundings were picturesque beyond comparison. Every single shot of the Himalayas was a masterpiece, leaving me gobsmacked. Six years later, I still dream of starry, chilly nights. Perhaps it’s time to head back there again.
Manaal
INDUCTION: I thought I’d ease into it — meet the team, read a few old issues, maybe sit at a desk before writing my first story. But that’s not how things work around here. And thank God for that. A day before I was supposed to join, a ‘welcome to the team’ text from Kartik came with an assignment — starting on day one. Before I could even find the coffee machine, I was out on the road, astride a new two-wheeler, shooting my first story. Kaizad was already setting up shots, telling me how to ride for the camera… the Motoring way. And just like that — boom — I was in. No briefings, no handholding. Just me, the S1 Air, and the camera tracking every move. I didn’t realise it then, but that was it — my first taste of freedom here. No cubicles. Just the road, some wheels, and stories to tell.
OFF-ROADING: Showing up to a shoot in a T-shirt and cargo pants was a first. No riding gear. No bugs on the visor. It felt more like a lazy Sunday drive than anything remotely adventurous. But that changed the moment I left the tarmac. Suddenly, I was second-guessing everything — should I switch to 4-High? Is that even the right thing to do here? Should I just turn around? Thankfully, the others seemed to know what they were doing — or were better at faking it. I followed their lead, and what unfolded was nothing short of magic. Mud, slush, thick greenery — and me, sitting dry, cool, and mildly stunned inside the Thar Roxx. Branches scraped past the panoramic sunroof, leaves smeared across the glass like brushstrokes. On a bike, that would’ve meant ducking and flinching. In here, it just felt cinematic. It wasn’t just off-roading. It was rediscovering the world — from behind a windscreen, but with my eyes wide open.
LONG RIDE: I knew the KTM RC 200 wasn’t the right bike for what I had in mind — a 700-km ride from Navi Mumbai to Hyderabad back in 2016. It wasn’t built for comfort, and neither was I. Smartphones were around, but mine barely qualified. So I spent a week memorising the route like it was an exam. But that turned out to be the least of my problems. What I didn’t think through was strapping a 55-litre trekking backpack to myself — packed with a week’s worth of ‘essentials’ — and riding into the monsoon. Rain lashed down. Trucks loomed in my mirrors. The road between Solapur and Umargaon practically didn’t exist. Twelve hours of heat, rain, slush, and questionable decisions later, I rolled into Hyderabad — soaked, sore, and slightly broken. But something had shifted. My body was wrecked, my butt was numb… but my spirit? That was just getting warmed up. The road had roughed me up — and set me free.
FRACTURE: You don’t realise how free you are until the smallest things become impossible. Not grand adventures — just the basics. Walking down stairs. Tying your shoelaces. Finding a way around the toilet without planning your every move. Things that never felt like freedom… until they were gone. It wasn’t just the broken bones. It was what came after — the plates, the screws, the long recovery. But the real hit wasn’t physical. It was lying still while everything else moved. Cars honking outside, dogs chasing scooters, sunlight creeping across the wall. The world spun on. I just lay there, watching. Turns out, the worst kind of imprisonment isn’t four walls or the lack of pleasure. It’s watching life roll past and not being able to follow. That silence, that stillness… it messes with you. But healing brings its own kind of freedom. The first limp. The first twist of the throttle. And finally, the first ride without pain. That’s when I realised — it’s not about taking motion for granted. It’s about never forgetting what it cost to earn it back.
TWO-STROKE: Perhaps I was the only guy in the history of Motoring World to have no experience with a two-stroke engine. Every conversation about these blue smokers made me feel like an outsider even more… until Yogi Chhabria trusted me with one of his custom Yamaha RX100 scramblers. A kick. A cloud of blue smoke. That unmistakable smell of burnt 2T oil and petrol. And then the sound — ring-ding-ding-ding — echoing through the lane like a summons. I was grinning before I even found first gear. And when I did? No amount of theory could’ve prepared me for what came next. It didn’t surge — it exploded. The throttle was a switch. The powerband was a punch. And every upshift felt like I was holding on to something slightly possessed. It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t refined. But for the first time, I understood what the fuss was about. It wasn’t just a motorcycle. It was freedom, poorly behaved but perfectly tuned.
Kartik
EDIT MEET: My first Motoring edit meet was a personal milestone. From obsessing over every single issue of the magazine right from the first one in my school days to being part of actually planning one — it was the mild terror that’s an integral part of the emotion when a dream comes true. That also explained why, for that meet and over the next whole year, I sat there in near-absolute silence, endlessly prompting Bijoy to go, ‘Why doesn’t this guy talk?! Talk, man! Say something!’ Of course, once I did eventually start talking, he had to tell me to shut up way more often. Careful what you wish for, I suppose.
LONG-TERMER: This Honda Stunner was my first proper long-termer at Motoring and I loved the thing. Getting a bike or a car for extended periods of time without having to pay for them is a privilege that feels unbelievable even after 18 years of doing this ‘job’. The Stunner and I used to scream our way across the length and breadth of Mumbai, its 125cc single’s potential always incapable of matching my 25-year old brain’s wild ambitions. Those were the days in which I never left a traffic signal without a wheelie or arrived at one without a stoppie or a rear-wheel slide. The Stunner braved it all, and I realised first-hand why the magazine’s long-term section was called Survivors.
LONG RIDE: True story — in 2010, a friend of a friend bought a BMW R 1200 GS Adventure in Mumbai and asked if I’d like to ride it to his home in Chandigarh at a day’s notice (!). He didn’t want to risk damaging the bike in transport, you see, though why he thought I’d be any safer without even meeting me is still a mystery. Anyway, in the hottest Indian summer since 1901, I found myself riding through Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab over three days, and at the end the trip meter showed a bit over 2000 km. The roads were nothing like what we have now, and I rode most of the way through utterly unfamiliar countryside. Now that I think of it, it was the stupidest thing to do. But someone had to do it. And it still remains the longest ride of my life.
TWO-STROKE SEIZURE: Nothing is more heartbreaking than an engine breathing its last. Or, in this case, breathing its several lasts. After painstakingly restoring my Yezdi Roadking in Bangalore, I put it in a Renault Lodgy, drove to Mumbai, and immediately took it out for the ride home. Of course, since the engine was freshly rebuilt, I was going to be careful with the throttle. And there was an abundance of 2T oil mixed with the petrol for extra lubrication. I’d played it as safe as possible and then some. However, every flyover I climbed on the way, I felt the engine tightening up. And about 15 minutes into the ride came that dreaded sound — trrkkkk. And then a deafening silence. With a two-stroke, desire and despair often go hand in hand. Especially if you’ve tuned it in Bangalore (altitude: 3000 feet) and brought it down to sea level without a second thought.
SUPERBIKE: You never forget the first time you ride a proper big bike. And you’ll never stop wanting one. For me, it was that eternal symbol of velocity, the Suzuki Hayabusa, and it still is the personal subject of the first two sentences. One fine day, I went to the then BSM office with the Hayabusa and peeked into Bijoy’s cabin to say hello. His response was, ‘You have the ’Busa and you’re in office? Go ride it!’ I was nowhere to be found for the next three days. And I did just about every stupid thing you can think of on the motorcycle. He expected nothing less, I bet.
STORY: Pitting the Yamaha FZ-16 and the TVS Apache RTR 160 was my first-ever story in this magazine. It was also when my colleagues discovered, without warning, that I was quite enthusiastic about doing idiotic things on motorcycles, and they goaded me on. I missed the photo of a lifetime when, trying to wheelie on a beach, the FZ got away and performed a one-wheeled run towards the sea with me running behind it. Pablo, who was shooting that day, had doubled over laughing. And this photo you see? I landed the wheelie right in front of the FZ. Ah, the good old days.
INTERVIEW: Sat in Bijoy’s cabin for half an hour, I offered to join for the same salary that my then employer paid me. Bijoy wouldn’t do it and gave me a substantial bump up. Nothing in today’s terms, but back then it meant the world to me. ‘Don’t worry about money. Just keep having fun, the money will come when it has to,’ he said, and I haven’t forgotten that to this day. And as I walked out of that door, not believing my luck, I had no idea what was in store. That was the day I came to this place which has since, for myself and many others, defined freedom and life itself.
