Tuesday, April 24, 2012

One Crazy Ride: Motorcyle Documentary

One Crazy Ride: After watching his movie "Riding Solo to the Top of the World" - his journey on his bike to Laddakh and Beyond - I had to see this. Very highly recommended by every biker and a must watch for those who are born roadies :).
His journey to another terrain which is impossible to do on four wheels - let alone attempting it on two :) and how they do it - is simply mind blowing and amazing. You will be hooked to the 100 minutes of amazing footage shot by the members only by their hand held camera with almost no background score.
A team of 4 guys and one girl - Amazing is the ride. Gaurav Jani is the man.

Before watching these movies I used to feel I have travelled the lenght and breadth of India on my four wheels and took it as an achievement but after seeing his rides I feel have done nothing as most of my journeys were on four wheels that too on six lane highways or four lane highways or maximum on single roads but what these guys have done is a journey on "No Road" terrain that too on two wheels with almost no equipment or support of any kind.

Just imagine four guys and a girl take on the most impossible of the route to travel to the eastern most part of India - Arunachal Pradesh witout entering Assam. They started their journey bike 5 Royal Enfield Bikes from Guwahati. For these guys "Impossible is nothing" - when you see their motorcyle diaries - you will understand that.

The director and main lead is Gaurav Jani who is a film maker and has already assisted Ram Gopal Verma on couple of his movies, others are his friends working with different companies but are passionate riders, they leave their families, jobs and responsibilities behind to the journey of their life time. They are all regular people like you and me - just one thing they have got extra than us I guess is the "Passion" and that "fire to do something extraordinary".

How they finish the whole journey and shoot the video too is amazing. One of them shoots the video while the others go on the ride and then they get together again to go forward. It isnt easy to ride the bikes laden with almost 200+ KGS of load mostly containing the equipment, clothes, food items, bike spares etc. When you see their over loaded bikes - its scary just to imagine how will they be ridden and totally amazing to see them ride the same for those long distances - road or no road they just keep going forward with "never say die" attitude. Some of the scenes are scariest as unbelievable and some are a laugh riot - specially the scene where they are supposed to use a toilet which doesnt even have a commode and there is a live Pig right below to eat the shit - I was actually in splits watching it and had tears in my eyes to see what they shot.

Its a beautifully shot film and cinematography by a regular camera is simply outstanding and superb. Shots above the clouds, Super Morning Sun, Rains, Terrain, land slides, Broken Bridges, Crossing Rivers, Dirt Tracks - almost everything is so amazing. Seeing them shiver in 5 degrees temperature with no accomodation. Passing nights in their tents and makeshift accomodations. Bikes getting punctured, broken and repaired. One of their members bike develops some mechanical fault which cannot be repaired by them hence he takes off and goes back from half the way as his bike cannot be repaired but guess what - he joins them back again slightly later.
Unfortunately due to time and responsibility constraints they couldnt finish the ride on time and everybody else goes back but not Gaurav Jani :) - he could not leave it without finishing hence the guy goes on and finishes it. The journey that he does alone is totally rocking and shocking to say the least - he crosses the bridges, rivers, terrain and no mans land alone to reach the end of his journey beyond that you can enter China :). its truly amazing to see him finish the ride on his own and amazingly he shoots the whole ride on his camera single handedly. Kuds to the hard work he puts in to make it an equally amazing experience for us too. The people and tribes he meets on his way and the way they interact with him is simply mindblowing for us. He shares their traditions and beliefs - gains so much knowledge about them that it amazes me - these things do exist - we would otherwise never come to know of these places and their traditions. Plus this ride breaks those myths too about people saying "Dont go there, its not safe" - if he can do this alone I am sure others can do this too. It happens so many times that we think of doing something and right when we talk to others - our thoughts are shot down by those words that "No one has done that before, no one goes that way, so you shouldnt too". He did exactly opposite of that and does it in style.

He does the first ride alone after his friends go back and guess what???? they do it again after two years - same route same team :). its a must watch for all who believe in "Impossible is Nothing".Do not miss this at any cost.

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