In life, how one finds their passion is a different story for everyone. What matters is how they go about pursuing it. That pursuit is never-ending but then, so is the fulfilment that it brings. Dr Arun Thareja’s story is an example of that never-ending pursuit and the joy it can bring to a person. 

Known as the Superbike Doctor and Doctor Speed, Dr Arun Thareja is the founder of G.O.D.S. (Group of Delhi Superbikers) and an ENT Surgeon by profession. Quite contrary to a lot of bikers, he was not into motorcycles since a young age. In school and throughout most of his college life, he was not the person he is today in terms of his love for motorcycles. 

While studying MBBS, he was staying at the hostel of the Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi. One fine day, his senior rode in on a motorcycle which had a beautiful but very distinct sound. He ran out of the room to see and there it was, a metallic silver Yamaha-Rajdoot RD350. He was gobsmacked. In his words: “Such beautiful puttering, so beautiful to look at, around 38 bhp, twin-cylinder, twin-stroke; it was love at first sight.” 

The very next day, he found himself at the British Motorcycles showroom in Connaught Place and he just stared at the bike. He pleaded with his parents but they were sceptical because he was in the final year of his MBBS and motorcycles are dangerous machines. Yet, within three weeks of seeing it for the first time, he had the Yamaha RD350 in his garage. 

This was the incident that flicked a switch for him. This made him realize that he was born for this, that he was born for motorcycling. And such is the love that he has for all his machines that he still has that very RD350 in his garage in mint condition. But that they marked the start of his journey and he has not looked back since. 

After that, the inline-4s came along with many other multi-cylinders but his passion just kept on multiplying and it still is to this day. He also told us that being humans, we all feel low sometimes. When that happens to him, he can just look at the motorcycles he has and it brings him peace. At the moment, Dr Arun Thareja’s garage is home to 22 wonderful motorcycles. Simply looking at them makes him smile, staring them up widens his grin, and riding turns him into a lunatic. They help him tide over all the obstacles in life. His motorcycles are his backup system and he loves them to the core. 

All the motorcycles in his garage are his favourite ones but there are still some out there that he’d like to add to his collection. The one most coveted by him is any model of the 90s Kawasaki ZX-7R. He’d love to do New Zealand on that motorcycle. He and his group rode in New Zealand in the November of 2019 when they stayed there for two weeks. But he’d like to go there again and ride both the islands, North and South, on the ZX-7R. 

Dr Arun Thareja has seen the Indian motorcycling scene grow in front of him. Nowadays, nearly every manufacturer is here and so are the aftermarket providers, riding gear providers and so on. In the 80s, when he started riding, the motorcycling scene was nearly non-existent. He had his RD350 and there were some RX-100s and Bajaj RTZs in his group but that was it. And they used to tour on those machines. And now, there are so many people travelling on motorcycles. 

So he has seen India growing from a country that saw motorcycles as commuters to today when we have a thriving motorcycle culture. According to him, from the 80s to today has been a phenomenal change. He thinks that we have come a long way and there’s still a long way to go but we are inching there.