THE LAUGHING STOCK

A fanclub? No, just friends at a point of convergence. Here's one 'saffron brigade' you shouldn't mind at all

- By Ruman Devmane Photographs Kaizad Adil Darukhanawala

For friends, we have little in common. One restores motorcycles for a living, the other reimagines them. I feature way off this axis, instead having committed to telling stories about motorcycles, including ones they build. We don't ride together often and our expectations from our motorcycles are wildly different from each others'. Somehow, though, we all happened to buy the same motorcycle, at the same time. A happy coincidence? No, it can't be just that.

It took neither a pact nor peer pressure to arrive at this point of convergence. I'd simply attribute it to the KTM 390 Enduro R. It's a motorcycle that has enough to offer to each of us on our loosely defined trajectories, each substantially distinct from the other. Riding together isn't something we'd dreamt of — oh, how I hate to be the slowest guy in the group — and we sure haven't made towering promises to each other to do so in the future. We're just three guys who love riding motorcycles, who happen to have found love in what the Enduro promises and delivers.