Riding a motorcycle on Indian roads is no longer the sole preserve of men.
In the last few years, women have increasingly chosen motorcycles as a means of transport. On the roads, they get a mix of reactions from passersby: Enthusiastic waves, , and even hateful comments. At a personal level, it gives these women a sense of freedom and empowerment.
“India is catching up with the rest of the world. We are seeing women from west and south India buying superbikes,” Vimal Sumbly, managing director at Triumph Motorcycles, said in an interview earlier this month.
Shabnam Akram is one such woman, though she made the decision to own and ride a bike much before it became a trend of sorts.
A 50-year-old mother of two, Akram works as a communication design consultant in New Delhi and has been riding motorcycles for the last 24 years.
Akram decided to buy a motorcycle after she was sexually-harassed on a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus. At the time, her family could not afford a car. And she has not travelled on a DTC bus since.
Today, she owns a Royal Enfield Thunderbird, which she bought in 2011, and leads Bikerni—the country’s first and largest women’s motorcycle association—in north India to encourage more women to take up riding.
“My bike changed how I thought about myself. It gave me confidence, and changed my perspective towards things I could do, who I was and how little it mattered what others thought,” Akram told Quartz.
“And when I read through stories of women bikers across the globe, a theme runs true. Without fail, it’s about how riding has freed them, how everything lost its ability to scare, or its ability to paralyse.”
Although the numbers are small—Harley-Davidson, for instance, had sold about a dozen bikes to women in India till 2013—motorcycle companies, including the likes of Royal Enfield, are courting women riders.
Here is why Akram feels more women should ride a bike:
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