Once Upon a Bike: A Motorcycle Ride to The Konkan Shores And Beyond…

Author: Anand Venkatramani
Publisher: Promilla & Co, New Delhi
(Pp 166, ISBN 978-93-82337-10-2, Rs 295)

Once Upon a Bike: A Motorcycle Ride to The Konkan Shores And Beyond… is a trip purely about biking. For two bikers a motorcycle ride on the Konkan shores seems to be the most obvious way to explore the vastness of the question. They impulsively plan the route on a map but soon discover that there is a huge difference between choosing a road and being on it.

The book is a typical outdoor adventure literature with a message by the author “there are always ‘what-ifs’ in life and the best way to meet them is by chucking the thinking cap out of the window and reviving your bike! Go out there and give your life a chance to live itself! Don’t worry about whether there is a hotel to step in or not, because India always has the ‘is’ and does not have the ‘not’.

Anand Venkatramani has in a gripping narrative presented beautiful coastline of the Konkan shores and highlighting that “A bike ride means at the start of it you will die to get on the bike and at the end you will die to get off it.” Photographs at the end of the book add to its value.

– GS Jolly