Shyamal Sinha, Burning tyres on the road

Inddiethumpers is one of the oldest and dedicated biker's group in India, based in Mumbai, there speciality is there bikes, only one Royal Enfield Bullet. The Indian Harley Davidson. These hardcore road runners have a history of 7 successful years with growing numbers of riders in there gang, featured in many news media Inddiethumpers are grown up and well organzied bikers, I got a luck to talk with one of the thumper Shyamal Sinha on Orkut's Hall of Fame, Shyamal is hard core rider and a hard core fun loving guy who is also a pakka tapoori and a real hero of road.

Thumpers’s Anthem:

Journey is the destination
Path follows imagination
Throttle roars
Engines growl
Restless spirits on the prowl

Road off the beaten trail
away from ringtones and voicemails
far from the corporate croud
alone we stand

BIKERS PROUD!!!!

Hear the hum, feel the thump
here we come
INDDIETHUMPERS!!

Zazo: Shyamal Sinha is a wing leader and coordinator of one of the most famous and oldest group of Enfield Bullet motorbike in Mumbai, He is also moderating Inddiethumpers community on orkut and its a pleasure for Orkut's Hall of Fame to have Shyamal here.
We will going to know more about this hard core rider and his groups activities.

Welcome Shyamal to Orkut's Hall of Fame!

Shyamal: thanx for the warm welcome!!

Zazo: Shyamal first thing I want to know is your background and since when you started riding BIKE specially Bullet.

Shyamal: Its been some 3.5 years I have been riding with the club, I was a bacha rider when i joined, but then yes as time flew by i grew up and so did the club, and yes now the mods believe in me taking the club to the next level. I am looking forward to take our club to the best level and to the highest possible peak of glory days.

As of me, I am a manipuri, but born in Gujarat and have been in Bombay since child hood, so no wonder I love vadapaav more then a burger!! get the desi feeling?? feelz good eh?

Zazo How Inddiethumpers started and when?:

Shyamal: Inddiethumpers was started 7 years back in 2001, by Daman Sidhu. He is the founder of our club, I was not there in the club back then but yes all used to meet up at carter road with lots of gappa shuppa and mazak masti. this fun loving atmosphere spread and all the more wide spread with the Thumping bullets connecting neighbouring clubs from different parts of India. Wanderlust (Nagpur) being the closest to the Inddiethumpers and similarly the brother hood grew grew and grew!!

Now we are a huge Fat club with friends and bikers all around India. how cool is that?

Zazo: definitely cool! well how many riders are there in Inddiethumpers? who is your favourite among them?

Shyamal: well we are about 250 to 300 by numbers and about 150 active members and lot of new boiz graduating in the club. How ever its our responsibility to make sure we all are riding safe on our rides and also make sure that the new boiz have the correct attitude about riding and not just showing off, coz I think there is a thin line between showing off and the real biker spirit.

When it comes to the sub question, I would say its a very difficult question to answer.Choosing one of my favorite inddiethumpers is choosing between your gal and your parents. So i would unanimously say that I love my family.

I have observed 2 eraz of Thumpers, one the old bois(vintage boiz) and the 2nd gen of thumpers. so I see that we have riders from all age groups from a teenager to an oldie, but all sharing the comman love for riding a royal Enfield. hats what binds us together and we proudly show it off!!

Zazo: Shyamal how one can be in your group? is there is any way of getting the admission into Inddiethumpers? is there any test a noob has to pass before getting in with you guys? Do you also have ragging thing as a welcome gift?

Shyamal: first of all one has to own a royal enfield, also the person has to do 2 official club rides(over night rides), and then the rider has cleared his exams.now comes the graduation when he has to come for a club meet where the new boi meets the bad boiz.

That’s when the official ritual of ragging session starts, this ragging session may vary from club meets to club rides to people and their appearance, to the way they talk ,walk any crazy thing possible. So that’s when the giggling factor binds the biker bois.Never till date has any thumper being personally offended on any ragging session. So Its a ritual and a trend that’s has eventually grown up as the club grew.

Zazo: The general physcology among the bike riders is that if you are not physically BIG than Bullet is not your cup of tea, how much you agree on this? and what is that one particular thing which makes Bullet riders different from other bikers?

Shyamal: bada hai to behtar hai does not fit every where, now i have heard many people saying saala I am so short for a bullet and it will not suit me, that’s utter bullshit. i would say, do u own a bullet for its looks?? or do you own a bullet to RIDE? This is the thin line I was talking about where people misunderstand it as a fashion thingee and some like us love it for what it is(i.e. basically riding)

So I love a bullet coz I LOVE TO RIDE and not coz it looks good or not coz how fast it goes or not coz its 350cc or 500 cc. thats where we Inddiethumpers leave the crowd behind and spit our huge fat attitude on the chindi bikers loitering around. And it would be so nice to see a biker culture spreading across due to the love of RIDING and not just for some good looking bikes. Posers saala!!

Dikhave pe mat jao apni akal lagake apni G**D khujaao.

Zazo: Shyamal share some incidents from your life, how many time you experienced accidents? and which was the first bike you ever ride and in what age?

Shyamal: so many great incidents in life and some sad ones, this is what i would called accidents. Road is Life and Life is Road. If you looks at it both have so many simillarities, each one teaches u so many things. Life teaches u so many things and so does road.

I have learnt from from every bike fall of mine and not all of them are scary but some of them are damn funny too.(I have had only 4 as of yet)

My First accident was on my way RM06(Chennai), it was a crazy left turn and there was a 18 wheeler container truck i was over taking it and suddenly a bus appeared from the other end, i braked in and by gods grace the bus didn’t touch me but the container did slightly. I fell and was lucky that neither did the container tyres touch me any where(or else I would have been handicapped by now). As soon as I feel the thumpers stopped for me asked me if all was ok, nothing serious, and saale kamine log started to sing "accident ho gaya rabba rabba", i was in pain and they were laughing at how shit scared i was, i was really scared at first but then laughed it out coz my family made me ease the pain and the fright away. No wonder it was one of the memory which will be embedded in my head for ever and again it made me learn many new things about the road. It was my first learning lesson.

my first bike was a Yamaha RX100, obviously i was a teenager back then, It was a crazy looking bike and during those days i wasnt a rider but was crazy about the sound of this bike. I was 14 and my brother used to flaunt his bike, i too used to get in the grove but couldn’t do much. i was a big show off during college days and used to be the weirdest chink in town. Weirdest boi with a weird bike!!

Zazo: How often Inddiethumpers do party and night outs? Which is the gang's favorite hang out.

Shyamal: Well Inddiethumpers party at any given time and we all just need a reason to party, But the official ones are all the more dhamaal then the unofficial ones.The reason being simple, coz the official parties are our rides and the mother of all the parties is our anniversary party. (Hey BTW we dont drink and ride, but we party hard once we PARK)

Every year 5th December is the day when each and every Inddiethumper and the rest of the bullet clubs in India know that the fattest of all, maddest of all, wackiest of all parties is celebrated by the Craziest club in India. Now there are lot of added advantages, coz December is the month of Christmas and new year party too, so every body is already in the party mood since the start of the month.

So all of us make sure we leave all our engagements behind coz we know that December month is going to the busiest time for us, coz every one will be busy PARTYING!! hahahah. Fav hangout place mine would be Pop Tates and Totoz Bandra and obviously Carter Road. Thats where our club was born

Zazo: What are the other activities Inddiethumpers are involved in? I saw you have dedicated websites and forums, any other activities or plans for future? How you look your position as a wing leader..are you going to continue with this position as much as you wish?

Shyamal: there are lots of future plans for our club, which includes many more and big ideas on riding perspective. how ever we are some responsible Bombaites so would do something to avoid public awareness, coz of the simple reason ke hum koi yahan pe dukaan khol ke nahi baithe hai, so those of them who are thumpers yes we will have many more plans coming in short, to have the rider grow in the young boiz and not just some chindithumper.

We do organize tech sessions, where tech volunteers from our club meet and and teach the rest about some basic things like a tyre change, cables changing and few more things which might help us on long rides.Also we make them aware of how to ride in a specific pattern if there is lot of traffic on the road.

On any given ride, we have some one leading the pack, one or more tailing the pack, and few winging the pack. Now it might sound a bit funny but yes we do it and it works.I guess u must have understood by the names it self. Now its some thing like this, the heading guys heads the trail, the one tailing the pack has to sweep the pack, the wingmans have to do the shepard dog work, boleto make sure all are riding safe and not doing some stupid stunts, if i see any stunt man on the ride uski to vaat lag jaayegee.

So we are not allocated these positions, but its just observed that we folks are comfortable at these positions and we volunteer to take care of the new boiz on the big ride.So thats how we plan and manage our ride and most of all RIDE SAFE

yes we do have our site and its managed by Rajiv our Mod.Also this is a very important factor to keep in touch and have announcements made, so thats one of the main reason we have the site and usefull tips be posted too.

Zazo: Some more questions about you,
Which is your dream bike?
What is your profession?
and Which car you own?

Shyamal: My dream bike would be non other then what daman own, Its a triumph rocket 3 . I work as a network admin in Cap Gemini Vikroli Bombay. Car?? no i dont own a car. May be coz riding is an adventure to get off as an addiction, but driving is another adventure which i will some day get addicted to.

Zazo: Where you see yourself in next 10years? In inddiethumper?

Shyamal: In the next 10 years i will be most probably the wierdest old chink in the club, where as i am now the wierdest chink in Inddiethumpers, So wont be anything different, but yes new riders, i would love to see the new boiz having the correct attitude towards riding and grow up as a matured rider as i did learn from my family.

It will be a dream come true to see Inddiethumpers grown up big just as its right now .Big not by numbers but my versatility!!

Zazo: Shyamal, thank you very much for making this interview rocking and wonderful same as you are, I am completely impressed by your real biker attitude and way of life like King Size.
Thanks a lot for all the days and time you were talking to me and replying my all answers by taking many "sutta" breaks, wish a bright future for Inddiethumpers.
Regards,
zazo.

Shyamal: Thanx Zaz!!

the pleasure was all mine!! Cheers bro!

Inddiethumpers community on orkut http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=21831054