Bike beauties make heads turn as they zoom

HYDERABAD: If the kurta-patiyala clad `Taniji' performing a wheelie in a recent Bollywood flick had the audience asking for more, they are many right here on our city roads who will floor you too. Swearing by the adrenaline rush, speed and control of their mean machines are an increasing number of young girls of Hyderabad who can take you for a ride, literally.
This group of biker beauties who leave passers-by mesmerised each time they take off their helmets to reveal kohl-lined eyes and streaked hair insists that while it is fairly common to find a girl riding a motorbike in Pune and Mumbai, this trend is now picking up in Hyderabad as well.
Reshma Verma, 23, working as a recruitment consultant with DE-Shaw has been riding a bike for six years now but says that people here are yet to come to terms with this side of her. Recently when she walked into a showroom to buy herself a Pulsar 180 cc, the showroom owner gave her a "weird smile" that she still can't forget. "It is the same `weird smiles' the cops, traffic police, parking people constantly give me," she says. But this does not deter her from taking her prized possession to office, outings with friends and even for grocery shopping. She still cherishes her adventurous Pune-Mumbai-Lonavala trip that she covered in a single day.
That Hyderabadis are not yet ready for this makeover was clear when a motorbike dealer refused to sell the vehicle to journalist Sujatha N (name changed). When he insisted that she get it registered on a man's name, "I put my foot down and refused to use anybody else's name. Now I am the proud owner of a Pulsar 180 cc and a lot of people compliment me on my choice," she says, adding that the sight of a woman on a bike would keep eve-teasers at bay.
What drives these women to choose a bike over the regular two-wheeler? Most of them say that the determination started following a challenge thrown at them by their male friends. Brushing aside the common perception that girls cannot handle these heavy machines, they reason that "bikes don't ride you, you ride the bike."
"The first time I rode my brother's Hero Honda, I could feel the kick. At once I knew I wanted one for myself," says Verma adding that she receives as many brickbats as bouquets for her `not so common' interest.
Proud to be different, these women bikers have interesting tales to narrate. While Smriti Gattu, who rides a Karizma 225 cc, recalls an interesting bike race where she beat three male friends, Shaheen Shivani fondly remembers her `Dhoom style' entry on stage before a dance performance in college. "It was a jaw-dropping experience for the audience," chuckles Shivani.
What drives these bikers is not just the pleasure of being in control of a heavy machine and flaunting it to the world but also the fact that a bike ride works as a stress-buster. "Whenever I am low or have mood swings, I go out on a long drive on my bike. It immediately relaxes me," says 21-year-old Shama Bharani who possesses a Hero Honda Karizma and keeps herself updated on the latest bike in town.
Wishing to share their passion with other city girls, these `speed junkies' will soon form a cyber community of biker girls and want to set up a club for like-minded people in future. "It will inspire more women to try biking. You have to ride it to know what it feels, it's simply great," says Bharani.
However the only complaint some of them have is, unlike the scooty, the bike has no carrier for their handbags!