BOOK TITLE: One
Life To Ride
ISBN: 978-8175992948
AUTHOR: Ajit
Harisinghani
GENRE: Non
– Fiction / Travelogue
NUMBER OF PAGES: 240
FORMAT: Paperback
SERIES / STANDALONE: Standalone
REVIEW BY: Dhivya
Balaji
HOW I GOT THIS BOOK: I
thank Fingerprint! Publishers for this review copy.
SUMMARY:
Travelling across India on a
motorcycle is an intimate way to get acquainted with its myriad cultures, each
with their unique beliefs and lifestyle.
One Life to Ride takes you across the
hot and dusty plains of India to the highest motorable road in the world — the
fabled Khardung-La in Ladakh.
Along the way you'll meet Sufi saints,
fake fakirs and homesick soldiers.
You'll get stuck in an icy road river
and be miraculously rescued.
You'll feel the stress an average
Kashmiri experiences everyday. You'll see how blind and dangerous religion can
be if it is only followed in rituals and illogical beliefs.
You'll see how friendly and hospitable
everyone is on the roads of India.
You'll come away feeling exhilarated,
entertained and yes, also exhausted by the physical arduousness of the
motorcycle ride.
Witty, reflective and honest, One Life
to Ride is a daring, real-life adventure guaranteed to keep you turning the
pages. Maybe even make you wish you were riding pillion.
More information is available on
www.onelifetoride.com
REVIEW:
Now before I begin this review, let me
clear out a few things.
·
I am not a huge fan of nonfiction,
especially a first person narrative. But I took this book up for review because
of the unique title and intriguing summary. It did not disappoint me.
·
I am an avid biker, and really love
travelling so on some level, I could relate to the events in the book. My
impartial comments try to focus on the overall writing and presentation style.
·
My rating points are based solely on
what the book promised and what it delivered. Too much confusion seems to arise
here. If a book is called a travelogue, and I read it, I expect it to be a
travelogue and if it fits the necessary
requirements particular to its genre it is rated as good.
First Impression:
Needless to say, the title was what
intrigued me at first. When I received the book, I was impressed by the cover –
simple and photographic at the front and plain white with text at the back. The
slight embossing on the title and the author’s name are special touches. The
book’s pages are white, and the overall feel is bendy and comfortable. The font
typeset is easy to read.
Now the content:
The book is what it says it is – a
middle aged man on a Bullet, travelling through Himalayas and jotting down his
experiences as a travelogue. From describing parts of the country to the people
he has met, the author delivers every experience he remembers in his casual,
not too wordy style.
There are no main characters to speak
of. But a lot of people the biker meets on his travels, from poverty ridden
hotel managers to bicycle riding Sufi saints, this book has it all. I liked the
description of the saint and the way he carries the food suspended in the bar
of his bicycle.
The book does not only tell you the
joys of travelling, and just letting your hair against the wind – it also tells
you how difficult it is to ride a bike for long periods of time. It lets you
sympathise with a middle aged man who faces some hardships during his travels.
But it also tells you how travelling is a great experience, one not to be
missed if chanced upon.
On the up side, the writing style is
casual and interesting with slapstick humour and the occasional one liners. On
the downside, this is not very poetic and descriptive of the scenery and this
might disappoint some readers.
While the author tries to bring every
experience he had as a biker on paper, some moments have to be felt, not read
about, to gather the full impact of how it felt. The journey over the Himalayas
came to him easily, but the journey from biker to author, though pleasant,
fails to elicit the awe he must have surely felt while he saw the sights in
person.
Overall, good attempt. But it might
interest only those people who have an enthusiasm for this genre.
WHAT I LIKED:
·
The book’s look and feel. Mentioning
it again because that was one of the reasons I continued reading this for a
stretch of time even when the content bogged the speed down.
·
The down to earth, casual, sometimes
satirical description of all the people the author met.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER:
·
Lacks the wow factor – somehow, the
overall experience of having travelled with the author leaves one with a
frustrated whimsical feeling of needing to go there to experience it in person.
·
The experiences seem like pages of a
journal, some things are left unsaid – this might be a deal breaker for some
readers.
VERDICT: A
book for travel enthusiasts – if you either don’t love your Royal Enfield
Bullet, or the simple sheer joy of being a solo traveller, you would find little
to interest you here.
RATING: 3.8/5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
In
the author’s own words, taken from his website (http://www.onelifetoride.com/index.html)
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I am Ajit Harisinghani and I live in Pune, India.
I am fairly non-ambitious, easy going kind of guy, who finds
life a breeze and who enjoys living in India precisely because it is a place
of surprises, thrills and chills!
I believe in JRD Tata's adage "Live Life a little dangerously".
I believe that an obsession with 'security' is the hallmark of an insecure mind. By profession I am a speech therapist, trained in Mumbai and later on in various locations in the USA. www.speechfoundation.com is my work-website which focuses on helping young adults overcome speech problems like stammering, unclear speech, etc. I have travelled overland across the USA, around the world on the hippie-train in the late 70s, and on a motorcycle from Pune to Ladakh (North-most), Thimpu, Bhutan (North-East) and Kanyakumari - the southern most tip of India, with numerous rides to Goa. Next year (presuming one is alive), I plan to ride to north-western India - through the blazing deserts of Rajasthan to Jaisalmer. There I shall walk amidst the forts and imagine I'm a Rajput king! |
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EDITIONS AVAILABLE: Paperback,
Kindle.
PRICE: Rs.
175 for Paperback
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