Dedication

This Auto Bike Graphy is dedicated to my Unborn Grandchildren who will take birth in future !!

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Prologue

1. Into the Future

2. The Beginning

3. The Unusual Dream

4. The Decade

5. Trip, Tour, Journey, Voyage and Odyssey

6. Preparation or No Preparation

7. On The Highways

8. Time Travelled with Him

9. A Scary Night

10. An End of Endurance

11. Home Coming

12. Realization of Reaching Karnataka

13. Life’s Most Unforgettable Board

14. Through a Desert-like Barren Land

15. Through the Mountains

16. A Meeting with the Forest Ranger

17. The Countdown

18. The Dream Board

19. The Conclusion

More Dreams remain to be fulfilled

Foreword

I am not sorry to confess that, creative writing is not my cup of tea, and never will be. Since my friend insisted me to; so the foreword as below -

I express my sincere thanks to the Author (my friend Balraj) that he forced me to be the first reader of this so called book. Initially it did not appeal to me at all; but the emotional bonding with him kept me going. The experience of going through this book after knowing that I am the first person who is reading it; is wonderful. As I know Balraj very well, but still the Author Balraj is quite new to me.

A very simple dream to reach Goa alone by his bike at a particular kilometer reading made this book special for the author. As a reader when I was going through the middle chapters I realized the difficulty of achieving that simple dream.

In rest of the world there are hundreds of bikers who travel across countries, continents, and wander about the globe for thousands of kilometers; if this book were to be compared with those ones; undertaking a journey of few hundred kilometers to Goa, then this book is just nothing but a glow worm in front of the shining sun.

But believe me glow worm has its own unique identity, in darkness it’s a visual marvel and very truly natural, just like the glow worm, this book is a reading marvel and very truly natural. In my considered opinion this book will stand out in all the rest of the travelogues (with due respect to them) as a glow worm.

It is very important in life that if you decide something and then you follow it with all dedication and efforts to achieve it and this is the beauty of this book. Balraj has decided this journey even before he got his bike – Beaucehpalus and he made it.

What I found in this book is that, it is not a genuine travelogue; my friend the Author has made sincere efforts to bring his heart out in writing. Since it is his first book I wish, he would certainly improve himself in this field of story-telling.

I tell you, I found that the real hero of this book is not the author himself but I uncannily was thinking throughout the reading of this book is that, the real hero is the bike, in his own words his Beaucehpalus. The story revolves around the three important characters, the desirous author, Wel Come to Goa, (the Dream board) and the main Hero of the story is of course; the Bike.

I wish the readers will certainly agree with my frank and honest opinion after having read this book.

Thank you and all the best for a unique journey to be undertaken while reading this Goa Odyssey . . .

Please enjoy this unique ride !

Shridhar Padmakar Thombre

(Uganda, Kampala.)

Preface

This is an effort to reduce in writing the experience of a simple person and his life journey of 15 years and an expression of his love for a very simple bike. It is not a great adventurous story, nor does it have any romanticism with some dreamy sequences. This book deals with genuine facts and circumstances revolving around a man in the middle class family and the bike he possessed. It would be quite surprising that the bike itself is very simple and ordinary, but the emotional bond that protagonist had with the bike makes the story go.

The protagonist himself is a late bloomer in his life, struggling so hard to find solid source of some income, how this bike stood in good stead in the difficult times of the author’s personal and professional life, though he is still not a multimillionaire, he does not have a big amount of bank balance in his name. His friends have become far more richer than him, but one simple dream, and his willingness to face challenges set the tone of this book.

Going by the story line this book depicts a very simple narration of events from early childhood days; from being so rich to having tasted dust and then accepting the harsh reality of life without making any complaint against anyone and trying to solve the problems of life.

The story teller tries to undertake honest efforts to bring the picture of the events as they took place. Though the first and last chapters are absolutely imaginary and they are incorporated only to add some flavour to the story, these two chapters have nothing to do with the reality as they are totally fictitious and there just could not be any resemblance with the real people, if it were so, it is nothing but a sheer coincidence.

This Auto Bike Graphy is an attempt in the genre of its own kind that the Hero of a story could be a simple motorcycle and the events took shape around the bike and its possessor.

This book is not a pure travelogue; though the main storyline is a journey which was undertaken from Home Town Aurangabad (Maharashtra) to Goa and return.

Even it is very surprising that this particular journey is not so long enough to be recorded as a book. In a nutshell, it is some 800kms one side journey (approximately 1600kms to and fro), considering that there are so many dare devils who gone on World Tour, but with due respect to those; this book does not try to emulate the adventures of such long journeys but, having dream of reaching Goa at a particular kilometer reading on the odometer of that particular bike, seems childlike, some might think it is foolish too, but that is the madness required to make the life full of life.

So one question remains un-answered where does this book stand out, I think it is simple in narrative, the author is a simpleton, his bike is so simple, the dream was so simple to go Goa by bike alone and to reach there at 99,999kms reading on odometer and then the bike got stolen on two occasions all this simplicity itself is the USP of this book.

I am afraid if my readers might not find "The Goa Odyssey" exclusively exciting, but I believe they will never be disappointed with my efforts in accomplishing a simple desire and to make a simple dream come true.

Thank you !

Adv. Balraj "Adwitiya" Prakash Pande