'One Life to Ride' - Book Review

 

Book: One Life to Ride

Author: Ajit Harisinghani

Publishers: Full Circle Publishing

Recently I have accidentally borrowed a book from one of my friends. Somehow it magnetized me when I saw the cover page, which had a photograph of a Royal Enfield posing in front of one of the high altitude passes in Ladakh. Being curious I flipped through the pages and had found some more pictures of the hilly terrain and eventually I got glued to the book, since Ladakh is and always will be one of my dream destinations.

The book is basically a narration of Mr Ajit Harisinghani, surprisingly a resident of Pune itself, about how he managed to ride through the toughest highways of our country – the Manali Leh highway and the Leh-Srinagar Highway. But this is not a travel guide, rather this is an account of how one could and why one should fulfill (or at least try to fulfill) his dream. Life is short and sometimes you get only one chance.

Right from the start his crisp writing would make the readers want more and simply the book is in the ‘unputdownable’ category. The introductory prologue narrating how one should respond to the call of his dream has set the tempo from the very beginning and the momentum was consistent throughout. The planning, the trial run to Goa and the journey to Ladakh itself were full of amusing anecdotes which reflect on the lighter side of life. The ample humor and the way it was presented in the book were sometimes over-the-top but the author has done a great job to maintain the sarcasm and wittiness. Till the last page the book is a proof of how incredible and diversified India is and it is the journey that keeps one going, not the destination. Though the author was riding solo, he carries the readers along through the journey with him; such is the effect of his down-to-earth but effective narrative style. And this is perhaps the USP of this book.

The best part is the narrator’s undeterred spirit and energy. Even if the odds were totally against him and his plan, he kept his calm and accepted the challenges with ease. Even if the journey got the better of him at times, he managed to keep his sanity intact. Given that he has completed the whole journey on a Royal Enfield, the readers would be hard-pressed to believe that he is close to 60 years of age!! As the cliché goes, ‘Age is just a number’.

The only downside of this book, in only my own humble opinion, is that the narrator sometimes has digressed a bit more than required. Some of the flashbacks and other stories could have been cut short to suit the interest of the readers. You could just skip them and come back to the present topic.

Final Verdict: This book is ‘Recommended’ if you are fond of travel stories and you don’t need to be a biker to enjoy this book.