I couldn’t get a flight home for Diwali. Every option was either sold out or absurd. I sat with it for a while, then opened Google Maps, looked at the route from Pune to Bhilai, and thought: why not.
Bhilai is my hometown. 1,050 kilometres from Pune, give or take. I’d done that ride before on my Interceptor — bought it in Bhilai and rode it back to Pune, stopping overnight in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar because it got dark and I still had 250 kilometres to go. So I knew the distance was doable in a day. What I didn’t know was how the Triumph would change the equation.
I packed a bag, threw it on the bike, and left at 5 AM.
The first hour was dark, so I rode conservatively. Then first light came and something shifted. Visibility opened up, I gave the throttle a little more, and the mile markers just started flying. By 2 PM I was having lunch in Nagpur. I’d planned to stop there for the night. Sitting at that dhaba, 700 kilometres already done, it made no sense to stop. So I didn’t.
I was opening my parents’ gate in Bhilai at 6:15 PM.
Parked outside, walked straight to the kitchen. My mother was making sweets for the pooja the next morning. I stood behind her and asked — “kya ban raha hai, acha lag raha hai?” She spun around and saw me standing there with a backpack and a helmet, and for a moment she didn’t say anything at all.
That’s what this motorcycle is.
Not the 765cc triple. Not the symphony of that three-cylinder engine when it roars, or how fast it goes when you let the throttle fully open, or any of the things you’d read in a review. Those things are real, and they matter, but they’re not the point. The point is that when I decided on an impulse to ride 1,050 kilometres to surprise my parents on Diwali, the only thing I had to think about was whether I wanted to do it. The bike was never the question.
I named it Snowpiercer after the Bong Joon Ho film — the train carrying the last survivors of the human race, circling a frozen planet, never stopping. It seemed right. This bike doesn’t want to stop. It drinks fuel like it means it once you open the throttle, and I’ve made my peace with that. Two years, 25,000 kilometres, and it still feels like a dream. A few years ago, if you’d told me I’d own a sportsbike, I’d have told you to stop pulling my leg.
Crystal White. July 2024. A constant smile.
See also: Snowpiercer — The Photographs
