Started riding a bike at the age of 16,The love for biking was meant to become an example and inspiration for every female rider in the country who have been underestimated. When a friend of hers told her about his trip from North India to South India, she was motivated to set on this challenging road trip herself. But no woman in India had ever embarked on such a journey herself, and instead of getting threatened by the record she got excited to change it.
[00:00:00] I am Prajakta and this show is about Biker Divas. Today we are going to talk about Roshini Sharma. Roshini is known as the K2K because of her. She was a solo rider for the first time.
[00:00:35] A lady had completed her solo ride but before that we will know when she started biking. I have heard about Roshini when you started biking. What happened and how did you start learning about biking?
[00:00:53] Thanks to you for having me on the show and to make me part of this show. I was the oldest in my family. When I was 10 or 12 years old, I always liked motorcycles. My dream was to learn the bike and commute myself, go to school, ride a bike.
[00:01:27] My dream was to be a 10th standard bike rider. My father bought a 100cc Splendor for the first time. I am very lucky to have a family like this. My parents are very supportive.
[00:01:42] My father never pushed back and always wanted me to do something great and ride motorcycles. My father knew riding motorcycles and he said, yes, why not? I will teach you as well. I was very over enthusiastic. I was not scared of riding a bike for the first time.
[00:02:07] People get scared at first because there is so much to learn about bikes. There is a gear, clutch and this and that. If you are riding a scooter, you don't have to concentrate too much. I had a problem at first.
[00:02:20] Within a week, I was on the bike independently. One day, I had to go to tuition and my father was not there. So I thought I will try it myself and see what happens. I will fall down and that is it.
[00:02:33] Then I went to tuition on my own. At that time, I didn't know how to ride a bike straight. But I didn't know how to turn. Because I was riding on the road before. I was very scared of turning but I did it. That was a turning point.
[00:02:50] After that, I never looked back and I never thought I should do it or not do it. In the process, I had ups and downs because I was very young at that time. I fell down and some small things came but I was careful.
[00:03:05] So it all started and it went well. Now it has been 18 years or 16 years since the time this happened. I have been lucky that whatever resources I need in terms of money, in terms of opportunities, in terms of supporting family. I have everything now even after marriage.
[00:03:26] My husband is also very supportive. So where were you born and where did you go to school? And how was the society there? The society that supports all these things? So I am from western UP.
[00:03:40] There is a town called Narura and it is very near to Delhi and Noida. So it is a very small place. My parents were always supportive but the people who are from the nearby hospitals or relatives, they were very supportive.
[00:03:57] They thought that if there is a girl, why do they ride a bike? They thought that they should study and graduate and get married. Typical Indian village mentality kind of thing. But my father was very supportive.
[00:04:10] He never hurt anyone and at the same time I was also very... What did you say? That I had to do it, I had to do it. That also helped a lot. That is my story.
[00:04:28] So dad was the first person who taught you how to ride a bike. Yeah, yeah. My father has an automobile business. So he has an automobile shop. And we had a few mechanics in our shop who used to do this motorcycle workshop and things like that.
[00:04:47] So we had a guy there also and he also helped me with my confidence. So apart from my father, some credit goes to him as well. So when you started riding solo, what were the preparations you had to do?
[00:05:14] Did you have to convince your family or were they okay with it? It was not so easy. K2K's journey is very close to my heart. Because that was the first trip of my life.
[00:05:26] I took it alone and I crossed the whole country on a motorcycle by my own. So it is always special to me. I mean, I am a BTEC graduate and I did my engineering from Noida. In Noida, there was a recession in 2009-2010.
[00:05:43] So I moved to Bangalore because there were not many opportunities. So when I went to Bangalore, I did not have a motorcycle. It was my first time. I went to such a big city and I was scared that I might not be able to ride a motorcycle here.
[00:05:56] There are so many people coming from this direction and red lights and all that. But then there was an incident once happened that women's day. I came across a post where a women's day lady was riding a motorcycle rally.
[00:06:12] And then there was a girl, she was from Tamil Nadu. She told me that she rides a motorcycle but she had some injury. So she needed someone else to ride her bike. So I thought, okay, why not? Let me try this.
[00:06:26] She had a bullet, a bullet, a Thunderbird 350cc. I rode a 150cc bike, 125cc but 350cc was very big for me at that time. But then I joined that rally and I think even though it was a big bike,
[00:06:43] I was very confident and the people who praised me in the group said, you are a very good rider. So I got a lot of push from there. I got very motivated and then I thought, okay, let me buy my own bike.
[00:06:58] So then I started searching for my bike. And then I had a friend called Roshan, he's a Bangalorean. And I would say he's as crazy as me because we used to have a lot of adventures whenever we met. So I thought, okay, let's do something different.
[00:07:19] So my friend Roshan, I was telling him that I got bored in the job and I need to do something different. And then he gave me this idea that now you have a bike, why don't you try this? Tanya Kumari to Kashmir.
[00:07:31] No one has done this until today and not alone. So as crazy as I am, I said, yes, why not? Let me do this. And I had no idea about planning. Okay, there is a road pass in the north, that's when it opens.
[00:07:49] I had to take all the stuff. I had no idea about it but I said, okay, I'll do this. And yeah, and it was a month of October or November.
[00:07:59] I started doing research and then I realized that you can go to June or July in the north because all the passes are closed. So then I said, okay, let's wait and then I did the whole preparation.
[00:08:14] So preparation is also a very tricky part because if you are a beginner and if you have no guidance, then it takes a lot of time and efforts to buy this stuff and then to do some research. But I was lucky.
[00:08:30] I had this friend Roshan and then there was a guy called Kaleem. He was a retired army officer and I met him through Roshan. And he had a lot of experience in travelling solo across India. So I met him luckily. Then he helped me.
[00:08:50] We made a chart list of what things we had to buy, which gear we had to buy and from my side I paid attention to my fitness. I joined gym and basic karate skills. I was going to ask you what you did for your self-defense.
[00:09:11] To be honest, not much but I took a basic class in Bangalore where I teach you basic kicks or when someone tries to do something with you then what you can do.
[00:09:26] I mean it may sound funny but I was carrying a knife and I had a pepper spray because pepper spray is effective. I took small trips before K2K so that my body would be used to it. So I went to Tamil Nadu, then parts of Karnataka.
[00:09:49] So I did all that. Like I said, I had 4 months in my job and at that time I was a little bored in the job so I thought then I asked my company guys that I need a vacation for 1 month.
[00:10:01] For that they said we can give 20 days but if we give more than 1 month then we will see what to do next. So I left my job. Big decision. Yeah it was a big decision because it was so uncertain.
[00:10:22] And I didn't even tell my family that I knew that I would be a disaster. Since I was in Bangalore I thought it would be easy to start Kanya Kumari.
[00:10:37] But people say it's easier to start Kanya Kashmir because you cover the mountainous part in the first leg of your journey and then you are going continuously down. I thought it would be a lot of effort to start Kashmir by riding a bike.
[00:10:54] Then I thought let's do it from Kanya Kumari. And thankfully it went good. There were some challenges on the way that I crashed multiple times and sometimes the ride didn't go as I planned because I thought I would start from 9 am to 6 pm.
[00:11:15] I wouldn't have to ride at night but there were times where I was riding 11 pm. Because yeah those kind of challenges were there. You must have had some problems because of the mountains.
[00:11:30] Yeah you can say that but I was not a very tax-free person even though I am an IT person. But Google, Baya Bia, they didn't use it. And at that time it was not as popular as I would say.
[00:11:44] And in India we have this thing that when you are on travel you ask people on the street and they are very helpful most of the time. So I always followed this approach in my trips.
[00:11:56] I took a hard copy of a map which was saying you are just starting from Kanya Kumari, you are going to Bangalore, then Hyderabad, then Nagpur and so on. And I didn't do much research on road conditions. I thought let it be as it comes.
[00:12:11] So yeah after 3-4 days of ride I reached Nagpur and I had to go to Sydney. You might know Sydney maybe. It's a small town on the border of Maharashtra and MP. And between Nagpur and that Sydney town there is a national park called Pinch National Park.
[00:12:37] And it is very wild and it was famous for tigers. And so when I was in Nagpur it was already 7 o'clock and it was showing like you have more 50 more kilometers to reach to Sydney.
[00:12:51] So when I thought there were only 50 kilometers, it's okay. I will reach in 2 hours. It's okay maybe by 8 pm I will reach. But then I didn't know that it's a dense forest. So I was going, the road was also very bad.
[00:13:03] Then it was very dense forest and there was a lot of truck coming from the front here. And it was very bad and I was very scared. And more so because nobody knew about my house that I was going through this at this time.
[00:13:17] And there were moments in that time that I thought oh my god I had a you know, My IT job was so good that I was earning so much, so stable like me. What has happened to your mind?
[00:13:29] Yeah, yeah by the hell of you know I am doing this. So even though I reached Sydney at 12 o'clock and you know I didn't have any, I had a very vague idea that yes, I mean you go to the hotel in the highway and you just go directly
[00:13:42] and then you can find a room. So even though it was midnight I felt very safe and you know I had a very good rest and next day I was ready for the next challenge. Okay. So how many kilometers does it take from Kanyakumari to Kashmir?
[00:13:58] So I took the central route and I think it was around 4000 kilometers. Oh okay. You told me that your dad had a auto shop and there were some mechanics there.
[00:14:11] So did you learn how to fix the bike or did you take some training for K2K when you were about to leave? Actually I was a little bit familiar with automobiles but to be honest I didn't know much about bike repairing or any basic things about bikes.
[00:14:27] Yes when I started with K2K then the mechanic brother who I had checked up with and they said don't worry. I have done everything excellent, I have put the best engine oil and best parts and you know nothing bad will happen for another 10,000 kilometers.
[00:14:48] So he gave me that kind of confidence but at the same time I had very basic knowledge like I learned from him. For example clutch brake, what to do? Yeah if there is a little puncture then you know for another 10 kilometers how can you ride?
[00:15:04] So I had a very basic puncture kit which I was checking with pressure and I thought it was punctured for example then I will fill some air and then under 10 kilometers I can ride and then I can get the puncture fixed.
[00:15:19] And for example I have to change the engine oil or refuel and you know tighten the brake shoe for example motorcycle or lubricate the chain. So those are the very basic things I learned and that helped me a lot.
[00:15:41] In this whole trip if there is any best place that you still feel like going there then I will definitely visit that place. We have read about Kashmir since our childhood books like it's a heaven on earth and you know
[00:15:56] it's not an understatement because Kashmir is definitely a paradise, it's a beautiful place and most I liked was Gulmug. Gulmug I was so fascinated and the time I reached there it was raining a little bit
[00:16:13] and there was a lot of mist so it was very serene, like atmosphere. And when I reached Gulmug it was already been for me on my journey I think 19 or 20 days
[00:16:28] and I was kind of out of budget and the second thing my mom was like come back come back but when I reached Gulmug I was like oh my god I want to spend another 3-4 days here
[00:16:39] and I called my mom and she was like come back it's enough. So I thought okay let it be maybe I'll come here next time. So that was my first place that I loved the most and another one was Leeladak.
[00:16:51] Nugra valley and another thing in Leeladak was the lakes of that place. So I went to this lake called Pangong Lake and you know there was a sandy mountain there was this blue water lake and it was like unbelievable. I never even thought of you to feel it.
[00:17:09] And some of your favorite food joints or like we say on the way while going there was a particular dhaba where you must have eaten something. You are listening to a lot of listeners so maybe they are going somewhere from that route
[00:17:23] so what would you suggest there? What should be tried and what was best for you? You know the charm of traveling in India is to eat on the roadside dhabas right. So in the south when I was going through Tamil Nadu
[00:17:41] when I had the roadside dhabas which I of course didn't do much research but I used to suddenly stop there and have and there was this dosa and all south delicacies. They were always my favorite but when I was in MP
[00:18:03] I always heard a lot about this poha like poha is very famous in Indore. Yes poha jalebi. Right poha jalebi in MP. So yeah I stopped at I don't remember the names now but I stopped at a few places where I tried poha and jalebi and kachori
[00:18:21] so they were very tasty and good experiences but in my whole trip the place that particularly I was very excited about in Punjab because in Punjab when you cross Delhi and you are near to Amritsar there is a stretch called Murthal.
[00:18:41] Yeah Murthal and it's famous for its dhabas, it's famous for its parathas, lassi and all those kind of things. So I was very, yeah like you know it's a stretch of 10-15-20 kilometers and on the left and right there are lots of dhabas
[00:18:58] so I particularly stopped there and I tried chole bature, aloo paratha and lassi and those kind of things so I would say to every rider all So if someone is going on a solo trip then what will you say for them?
[00:19:13] See there will be a lot of people who will not be happy with your decision of solo riding or they will also be worried about you, genuinely concerned about you but you know I would say first of all you need to know yourself
[00:19:32] that are you genuinely confident, are you genuinely interested about it about a solo trip and are you prepared about it and if you can check on all these factors then you should not think twice, then you should just go for it
[00:19:52] because you know the kind of awakening or you know the confidence or the experience that you will have from such trips is like you cannot compare with any other feeling One last question I want to ask you
[00:20:07] that a message, I mean many bikers are listening to you today so what message would you like to give them? See bike riding is such a good hobby because it's like any other thing when you are on a bike you have a very unique sense of freedom
[00:20:29] and it enables you to explore places and like territories that you can't imagine on any other thing so I would say that since you are a rider then you just manage your time and you know try to explore as many as places possible
[00:20:49] try to have as many as experiences as possible and yeah and have a good life, have a good memories Okay, what is your bucket list next? Oh yeah, well I have a lot of things but I want to explore South Africa or Africa in general on my motorcycle
[00:21:11] Okay, so what is the road that you want to explore or what is your dream road, you have to go there once in your life Since now I am in Europe so in Eastern Europe we have a very difficult and very unique pass in Romania
[00:21:31] Okay, well I forgot the name right now but it's considered one of the most dangerous passes of Europe So yeah I want to go there and do it on my own Hi, I am Rajni Sharma and you are listening to me
[00:21:56] Change the tune with RJ Project on the motorcycle device