On the road not taken

Manpriya Singh 

At the time, the 31-year-old city girl Sarah Kashyap started; bike was just a challenge and rallying a far off thought. “It was my brother who challenged me to ride a bike,” she laughs, when asked about her introduction to the world of motorcycles. At the time, having just got her license, she accepted the challenge. Then followed the process of turning heads on the roads, some in awe and some in disbelief. 

 “But it took me no time to fall in love with the machine,” she shares, as she  braces the Desert Storm Rally in Rajasthan. The 6 day long rally will cover a distance of over 2,000 KMs starting from NCR and crossing cities like Bikaner, Jodhpur and Jaiselmer. But she is no stranger to tough terrains and tricky weather. 

“The desert has a way of making you give up. It tests your endurance, your stamina and more importantly it just makes you give up.” Which she won't, considering it's not for the first time she's participating. “Though I participated last year as well, but back then my only motto was to reach the finish line.” As the only female participant in the foreign bikes category, she will be contesting against the likes of CS Santosh, R Nataraj, Joan Pedrero Garcia amongst others.  

The usual beginnings 

And it all started from Chetak, Lambretta, Caliber, Yamaha. “Then I moved onto Royal Enfield. Being only 36 kg and five feet tall, I'd invite a lot of attention, disbelief, admiration from all sorts of people.” As for parents, they've always been supportive, though mothers will always be mothers. “When I told my mother that I wanted to go to Ladakh on a bike, she thought I was never coming back.” Not that the stares have stopped today but for the opposite gender, they sure have reservations. “When boys come to know that I can talk and handle bikes even better than them, they feel intimidated. Some of them straightaway jump to conclusions that I must be a tom boy.” 

Petite, pretty & all things girlie!  

Today proud to be able to handle a bike twice her size, it was only three years ago introduction to Motosports happened. “SJOBA Rally back in Chandigarh was my first ever brush with rallying. It was special because I had grown up reading up about the event and never thought of participating in it,” shares the pass out from Bhavan Vidyalaya School who later went to GCG-11. She may have done badly in the event, but never mind, the beginnings are often humble. “I just about dragged myself to the finish line,” she laughs. While the rally may have done nothing to her career, it did to her life. A degree in business studies from University of Wales notwithstanding, “I found my calling.”