I was on a motorcycle trip to Leh last month with three of my friends. We had a lovely time, but there were some really idiotic moments too! One of the riders was riding way too fast downhill and didn’t downshift on the turns, but relied only on the brakes to slow him down. He had a few narrow misses, of which he was blissfully unaware. Everytime that happened, the two of us behind him had our hearts in our mouth.
Just before the tunnel near Kullu, his luck ran out. On one downhill turn, and in the rain, he came in too hard and lost traction. He skidded a very long way and banged to a stop against the rocky hill. If he had skidded on a left turn, he would have ended in the raging river – and that would have been the end.
Many of us do stupid things like this at some point in life – mostly during our youth. It’s a fine line between stupidity and calculated risk, but we inadvertently choose the former. It’s always cheap thrills that we seek, and for that we’re willing to take too many uncalculated risks.
I was always fascinated by the way those freestyle motorcyclist and the BMX guys defied gravity as they flew many feet in the air. I wanted to do that too, and so I built a sand ramp by a river bank and tried it out. But I conveniently forgot to do any homework on the risk involved. Needless to say, I had my share of falls and got a dislocated shoulder too. And that was just one of the many dislocations that happened over the years.
An uncle, who was a doctor, constantly used to tell me that by the time I’ll get to 40, I’ll have creaking bones and a shooting pain all over if I keep abusing my body. I did heed his advice to an extent, and that has helped me. But when we’re young and the blood is hot, we don’t give two hoots for this kind of advice. We fall, we crash, we pick ourselves up and carry on as if nothing happened.
Who the hell cares? We get our kicks out of these daredevil acts. We get high on a round of applause and a pat on the back. But these falls do take their toll, and we do end up paying the price. As we grow older, the bones do creak, and the body can’t take half as much punishment as it could once endure. Our reflexes get slower, and getting up in the morning gets increasingly difficult. It’s no fun moving around with bandaged joints and getting shots of painkillers every now and then.
If we look back honestly, and without our king sized egos, we’ll definitely realise that a majority of these mishaps were easily avoidable. Uncalculated risks, misplaced bravado, trying to raise the bar all the time – unrealistically – and thinking that we can achieve the levels of those champions overnight (something that’s taken them a lifetime to achieve) is foolhardy.
But, all said and done, won’t it make life boring if we’re cautions ALL the time? Taking calculated risks is the name of the game, and it can add so much spice to life. But bravado can lead to nasty consequences later on, so the key is to find a balance. Keep it real – that way you can enjoy much more in life.
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