Cruising on the Golden Quadrilateral

Riding over 8,400 km covering 14 states in 42 days is no mean deal for a biker

Desires and dreams form part of human nature. But rarely, we see them attempted, especially when they involve the test of physical and mental endurance. But here is a young mind, who not only had a crack at his dream but also accomplished it in style.

Behlul Jafar Masalia, a resident of this city, dreamt of cruising along the newly built Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), since his BBA days in Pune. After two years of planning and careful charting of the route maps and gathering expedition details, he finally conquered his dream by riding on the GQ in his cruiser bike- the 350 cc Royal Enfield- Thunderbird.

He set off from Visakhapatnam on January 24, and after traversing 8,450 km., returned on March 7 to a humble gathering of family members and friends at Kurmannapalem who received him. During his 42 days of motorcycling, he covered about 14 states and touched major cities like Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra, New Delhi, Jaipur, Ajmer, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Hubli, Bangalore and Chennai.

It is not only just the passion for biking that made him take up the arduous trip all alone. He had a mission or two in hand: One to explore the vast landscape and varied culture of the country and the other was to promote the idea of safe driving.

Summing up his expedition in a few words he says, “My country is just amazing and its people are even more. I have only read about its diversity in the textbooks, now I have experienced it firsthand. The love they showered all along the route is a life-time experience. I also tried to promote road safety by wearing proper safety gear and wherever possible, explained about wearing safety gear and safe driving.”

Keeping physically and mentally fit was important for him, as apart from driving for long hours on a daily basis, he had to brave the extremities of the nature god. He experienced both harsh winter conditions in the north and the high temperatures of Rajasthan.

He feels that the GQ is a great project that connects almost all major cities, but the people lack basic traffic sense and needs to be educated in stuffs like lane discipline and rules of overtaking. Behlul also took the advantage of visiting the heritage and important sites all along the route. “Due to the tight schedule, it was not possible to visit all the sites. But I did visit many of them like the Sher Shah Suri's tomb in Sasaram, Lothal museum, Taj Mahal and a couple of majestic forts in Rajasthan. The ancient engineering marvel and the town planning brilliance of the people of Lothal attracted me the most,” says he.

For six months, he surfed through the Internet, gathered various travel details and planned his trip - carefully jotting down his daily travel progress. He was so meticulous in his planning that he even considered the opening and the closing time and the holidays of each heritage site, so that he did not miss on them for the lack of knowledge.

Behlul does not believe in community biking and that was one reason why he set out all on his own. On accomplishing the task, the biker gives credit to his parents and to the spiritual guru of their community Dr. Syedna Burhanuddin (Syedna Saheb). “His blessings pumped strength and motivated me all along the expedition,” says a humble Behlul.