"I won't ever sell my bike for as long as I live"

The day was September 4, 1984; the place was the (then) Oberoi Sheraton. On the dais was Behram Dhabhar’s mother, Perviz Dhabhar, receiving the key to the third AX100 in the country from Sunil Gavaskar.

“We had to pay Rs. 500 and received a token number: my number was 52; my mother’s number was 3. Just for better chances, we had put her name in,” says Dhabhar.

When they received the key, leave alone his mother, none of the younger members of the Dhabhar family knew how to ride a bike. Luckily for them, Dhabhar’s then-fiancée (now wife) had a cousin who could, and he brought the bike to their home.

Dhabhar is, today, general manager, research and development, Mahindra and Mahindra, and he now drives a Mahindra Scorpio.

But he remains the proud owner of that Ind-Suzuki AX100 motorcycle; one of the first five bikes sold in India.

He tells us at least four times in the course of a twenty-minute conversation that he will not ever sell that bike.

The blue AX100 — registration number MAV1494 — cost Rs. 12,200,  was almost all-Japanese, except for the mirror and the tyres, and Dhabhar has still retained all the original parts.

“Many people who bought bikes at that time have changed the battery because the 6 volts battery that it comes with is no longer available. But I have not even changed that,” he says.

Dhabhar married his wife a few months after the bike came home. “One of the first photographs of my bike had me and my then fiancée on it.”

“I learnt to ride a bike on it and rode it every day to office. I worked at Premier Auto at that time.”

The bike also made longer trips. “We rode it to Nashik once and to Nausari and back in December 1990. It was extremely cold, but the bike ran flawlessly.”

“My bike is among the five that have a speedometer which shows miles-per-hour rather than kilometres-per-hour,” Dhabhar says, sounding just a little bit smug. And he adds,  just to make it clear: “And so far I have completed 41,000 miles.”

He isn’t logging long miles now, however. The last long road trip the bike made was to Pune in 1998. There it stays, because Dhabhar found it difficult to find parking in Mumbai.

Twenty five years later, the bike is not ridden all that much. “I take it out and clean it when ever I go to Pune. It is still in great shape — that is how sturdy the Japanese made bikes are; but I don’t really get a chance to ride it at all anymore. But I won’t sell. Never.”