A STRESS-FREE RIDE

A love for cars and bikes is what keeps this Thaneite going. Thane Plus acquaints you with a man who's 'driven' by his passions...

THANEITE Ketan Thakkar loves his bikes and cars enough to put his money where his mouth is. His car music shop keeps him occupied not so much in terms of sales at the counter, but mainly reading to keep up with updates of various products. Ketangives us a glimpse into life...

Thaneites are very well informed and study the products in as much detail as possible before they set out to buy. For that I have stepped my reading in technological magazines especially in the fields of GPS, state of the art speakers, and audio visual equipment available.

I am on my feet practically the whole day and to strengthen my legs and improve my stamina I go for a walk in the Yeoor Hills after waking up at about six am. I am back by about 8.30, have a bath, follow it up with puja, have breakfast and am off to the shop to work. There is no fixed closing time but generally by about 8.30-9 at night we wind up. If some customer calls and fixes an appointment for later, we wait.

Big bikes... these powerful machines are my passion and I love to ride them and even take part in rallies like the ones held at Bandra flyover. Other than this, I take my four-year-old son and wife Chanda and ride out into the countryside, especially to places like Lonavala, Khandala, Mahableshwar and Panchgani. Here we experience Nature first hand. Closer to home, sometimes we just ride out on the Bhiwandi bypass. Teaching our son to preserve Nature is my main focus in life, and I feel that this topic should be taught in more detail in school.

These bike rides where I interact with Nature, takes my mind off work for a while, though sometimes I take some reading material along. To break the work monotony built up during the day, I simply take my bike out and go for a ride. Even a short spurt on the Bhiwandi bypass or a little ahead of Mumbra does wonders in refreshing me, thus keeping me alert and on my toes.

(As told to A Correspondent)