Former scribe on 28,000-km bike journey with road safety messages

As a journalist for close to four decades, Sharat Sharma set a scorching pace with his hard-hitting stories. Now past 60, he vrooms across the country spreading the message of road safety and fitness.
On March 18 this year, Sharma set out on a solo 28,000-km bike ride with an aim to cover 29 states.


“A majority of people don’t have any idea how to utilise the time post-retirement. They don’t take care of their health, thereby inviting ailments and spending huge sums on treatment,” Sharma, who was in Pune earlier this week, told TOI.

“I wanted to reinvent myself after retiring and even though I was flooded with freelancing and consultancy offers, I rejected all of them as I had passed that stage in my life. I carefully planned the solo bike ride and invested my money in planning the trip,” he said.

Sharma has covered 23 states, in addition to Bhutan until now, and it has given him, in his words, “a new dimension in life”.

Among the states Sharma has covered are Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Yanam (UT), Telangana, Karnataka, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa.

“In Kerala, I faced the floods but was lucky to have got out in time. Besides spreading awareness about fitness, road safety is something I am serious about. In 2016-17, a total of 1.50 lakh people died in accidents. Of them, 52,500 were bikers. Moreover, 18.3% of the bikers were without helmets. 46.3% of total accident victims were between 18 and 35 years, the records of the Ministry of Road Transport say. As many as 3,000 deaths happened only because the person driving was talking on mobile phone,” he said.

He said he wanted to spread the message that one should enjoy travelling on road and not think of it as a race track.

“I ride without using mobile phone, GPS and navigation tools and want to prove that bike rides can be managed and enjoyed without these. Until now, my journey across the states has been a delight and I have met and interacted with so many people. I have learnt one thing that a majority of the people are simple but their colour and the language they speak are different,” he added.

Sharma has already planned his next move.

“My journey on bike will be over by October after which I will start writing my travelogue. My wife, a professor in Delhi University, and my two sons, who are well settled, have been a great support to me throughout and I have been fortunate on that aspect,” he said.