The Winds of Change

Photography : Sundeep Gajjar, Kulpreet Singh, Aditya (addy). With sweet help from Roger (Puneet), Max Bhrigu, MG Biker and Nitinjit.

Text : Sundeep Gajjar

India with it’s population of 1.12 billion and 60% of the population under 30 years of age, is a goldmine for any company catering to an interesting product. The expending capacity of the middle class Indian is increasing along with their percentage in the Indian demography.

But, the big but, 72% of the total population of India lives in rural areas, many of them which have yet to see electricity. Do people living in these areas care about how cool is their ride? Not much can occupy one’s mind when he has to deliver some farm product 50kms away for a measly living. There runs an urban shadow to these rural heroes who make India work. These are the millions of commuters who only care about their ride carrying their weight from their home to the workplace. Fortunately for them ( and the Indian two wheeler companies ), a 100CC mobike with minimal plastics would just do fine. After all 8 odd Bhp is good enough to carry Mr.Sharma to his office at 40 odd kmph. Most roads and congestion in India would place even this double digit figure as the max attainable speed under these conditions.

So who needs the extra Bhp, that extra punch, the slick looks? Certainly not the 70% population of India and understandably neither do the Indian two wheeler manufacturers.

What chance does the average bike enthusiast have in India to influence the mindset of the top honchos sitting at the helm of millions of bucks, with thousands of sub-10bhp bikes selling each day.

Not much, except for crying hoarse.