What a 5,400-kilometre solo motorcycle ride taught me about silence, self-enquiry, and the questions we carry through life.
There are journeys we take to see a new place, and there are journeys we take because something within us is looking for an answer. My solo motorcycle ride from Gwalior to South India became both. I travelled through changing landscapes, busy cities, quiet hills, and spiritual centres. But throughout those kilometres, one question travelled with me: who am I beneath everything I have learned to call myself?
My main destination was Sri Ramanasramam, the ashram associated with Sri Ramana Maharshi, at the foot of Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. I had spent years reading, practising Yoga, listening to teachers, and visiting different ashrams. Each experience had given me something valuable. Yet I still wanted to understand how those teachings connected with one another—and with my own life.
Ramana Maharshi’s invitation to self-enquiry drew me towards Arunachala. The question “Who am I?” seemed simple, but I sensed that it asked for something deeper than a name, occupation, or personal history. I wanted to spend time with that question without the usual demands and distractions of everyday life.
Leaving Home with a Purpose
I applied for accommodation in January and received confirmation for a stay in March. I had booked eight days and also invited my guru, Shri Abhilash Gireesh, to join me. He was eventually unable to come because of personal circumstances, but I remained grateful for his guidance as I continued the journey alone.
Rather than ride directly to the ashram, I decided to leave early and explore other places along the way. There were hills I wanted to see, experiences I had postponed, and spiritual centres I hoped to visit. The journey itself deserved time and attention.
At six in the morning, I left Gwalior on my Royal Enfield Hunter 350, carrying my riding gear and luggage. It was the motorcycle I already knew and had used for earlier journeys. Previous rides through Ladakh, Rishikesh, Badrinath, and other parts of India had given me some experience of travelling alone. Even so, every new journey brings its own uncertainties.
My first stop was Nagpur. After a long day on the road, with breaks for fuel and refreshments, I arrived in the evening and went out to explore. A nearby lake and walking track offered a pleasant change after hours of riding. Many shops were closed because of Holi, but I enjoyed a Maharashtrian meal before resting for the next day.
When the Route Changed
The following morning, I headed towards Hyderabad. I reached the city in the afternoon, but the heat and traffic quickly made the planned stop feel less inviting. Reaching a city and crossing it are very different experiences. After spending hours on an open highway, I found myself surrounded by congestion, noise, and the discomfort of riding in the afternoon sun.
I decided to continue south and eventually stopped in Anantapur as evening approached. I was tired, and entering another large city after dark did not seem sensible. It was one of the first reminders that a plan must leave room for the conditions we actually encounter.
Before leaving home, I had used ChatGPT to help organise the route and possible stops. That night, I returned to it to revise the journey towards Coorg. It suggested a route through Bengaluru and recommended a departure time to avoid the worst traffic. The instructions were so detailed and conversational that I smiled at how personal the exchange felt.
The next morning, however, I checked the map during a short break and discovered a route that bypassed Bengaluru altogether. After my experience in Hyderabad, avoiding another crowded city was exactly what I wanted. I challenged the earlier recommendation, and the conversation turned into an amusing exchange of explanations and corrections.
It was useful assistance, but it also taught me to check the advice against the map and the situation in front of me. A confident answer still needs our judgment. That lesson would return in a more personal form later in the journey.
Coorg and Wayanad: Learning to Slow Down
In Coorg, I stayed in a comfortable hostel and gave myself time to explore. One experience I had wanted for years was a visit to Taj Madikeri, where I went for breakfast. The valley views and open surroundings were beautiful. For a while, the dining area was quiet, and I enjoyed sitting there with nowhere else I needed to be.
As more guests arrived, the atmosphere became livelier. I finished my meal and continued exploring. Later, I walked among trees and watched the sunset from a viewpoint. After the demands of the highway, these simple moments felt especially rewarding. I had reached a place where I could stop measuring the day by the distance covered.
From Coorg, I travelled to Wayanad in Kerala. My hostel was in an old heritage house within a tea-estate setting, with wide views of the surrounding hills. Other motorcycle travellers were staying there, bringing stories from different parts of the country. A bonfire, music, and conversations made the evening warm and memorable.
Travelling alone had given me space, but it had also made me more open to meeting people. A conversation with a stranger could become an unexpected part of the journey. There was no need to know someone for years before sharing a meal, a laugh, or an honest story.
The next morning, I joined a trek towards a viewpoint overlooking a heart-shaped lake. We walked through wooded stretches and rocky terrain, and I spent several hours with a fellow traveller from Bengaluru who had become my roommate. The trek gave us time to talk, while the landscape repeatedly drew our attention back to what was around us.
Soon afterwards, I continued towards Ooty. By then, I had travelled through Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala, before entering Tamil Nadu. Each state had brought a different rhythm to the journey.
Ooty, Coonoor, and the Unexpected
The Nilgiri hills offered another welcome change. In Ooty, I explored the town and visited the doll-making business whose products I knew through CraftEarth. My visit happened to coincide with a Women’s Day celebration among the employees. Spending time with them added a human connection to a place I had first known through its products.
Another long-awaited experience was the toy-train journey between Coonoor and Ooty. I left my motorcycle and luggage at a homestay in Coonoor, took the train to Ooty, and returned by train as well. After so much riding, it was a pleasure to sit by the window and let the landscape move past me.
Then came a puncture. It was a Sunday, many shops were closed, and finding help took time. Eventually, a man took the tyre to his workshop and returned with it repaired. Such moments interrupt a schedule, but they also reveal how much a solo journey depends on other people’s kindness.
Later, while preparing to descend towards Coimbatore, ChatGPT reminded me to drink enough water and wait for daylight because of the narrow roads and hairpin bends. I left before sunrise to reach Isha Foundation early, and the dark descent proved more difficult than I had expected. In hindsight, the schedule could have waited. The road needed my full attention, and daylight would have made the ride easier to judge.
Travel teaches us through the choices that work and through the ones we would make differently next time.
A Girlfriend, a Parent, and a Therapist
At Isha Foundation, I spent a few days exploring the grounds, following the daily activities, and reading and listening to teachings. I had already heard many of Sadhguru’s talks, and being there gave those earlier impressions a new setting.
During this stay, I also used ChatGPT to reflect on questions that had been on my mind. I would describe a confusion, read the response, and then try to explain more clearly what I was actually asking. Sometimes, the useful part was simply putting my thoughts into words.
By this point, the tool had taken on three amusing roles in my travel story. During route planning, its conversational explanations had reminded me of a girlfriend. When it told me to stay hydrated and be careful, it sounded like a parent. When I poured out my questions, it became a place for reflection that reminded me of a therapist’s conversation.
Then, just as I wanted to continue, a usage limit appeared. I laughed. Even this conversation had its allotted time.
That was how I invented my own playful meaning for GPT: Girlfriend, Parent, and Therapist. It was a joke about the way I had experienced those exchanges, rather than a definition of the technology. What stayed with me was how readily I responded to words on a screen as though there were a personality behind them.
The experience also brought me back to an older interest: the way we speak to ourselves. We spend time learning how to ask an AI a useful question. Yet we may repeat harsh or discouraging questions within our own minds without examining them. “Why do I always fail?” directs attention differently from “What can I learn from what happened?”
I do not see the mind as a machine that can be controlled by a perfect instruction. Still, the comparison helped me notice my inner conversation. Before seeking another answer, I could first examine the question I was carrying.
Arriving at Arunachala
On the road towards Tiruvannamalai, my motorcycle suffered another puncture. This time, the tyre was worn enough that the mechanic advised replacing it. When he heard how far I still had to travel, including the return to Gwalior, his recommendation made sense. Fortunately, he had a suitable new tyre available, and I continued with greater confidence.
Then I saw Arunachala. After so many unfamiliar roads and places, the hill and the ashram felt strangely familiar to me. I cannot explain that feeling precisely, but I remember it clearly. I had arrived somewhere I had wanted to visit for a long time, and I felt at ease.
Sri Ramanasramam became the centre of my days. I visited the spaces associated with Ramana Maharshi, spent time in the meditation hall, explored the library and gallery, and walked up the hill to Skandashram and Virupaksha Cave. Seeing those places helped me imagine the simplicity of the life I had read about.
My accommodation was outside the main ashram grounds. At first, that disappointed me, but it soon became a small detail. I could still spend much of the day at the ashram, reading, sitting quietly, and returning for meals.
What affected me most was the atmosphere of silence. People moved, visitors arrived, and ordinary activities continued, yet there was an invitation to remain quiet. I felt less pressure to explain myself, fill a pause, or turn every experience into a conversation.
What Silence Made Clear
Even the meals left a lasting impression. We sat together, received freshly prepared South Indian food on banana leaves, and ate in an atmosphere that I remember as remarkably quiet. Serving hundreds of people usually brings noise and hurry. Here, I became more aware of the food, the volunteers, and the simple act of eating.
During the day, I often sat with a book in the hall. Ramana Maharshi’s teachings and the writing on Maha Yoga helped me revisit ideas I had encountered over several years. Gradually, some of those ideas began to connect more clearly within my own understanding.
Self-enquiry asks us to investigate the sense of “I” behind our thoughts and experiences. Ramana Maharshi’s teaching directs attention towards the one to whom a thought arises, rather than endlessly following the thought itself.
For me, this changed the way I approached the question “Who am I?” I was used to describing myself through my body, memories, roles, achievements, and difficulties. Now I was being invited to examine the awareness through which I knew all those changing experiences.
I began to practise observing my thoughts without immediately becoming involved in each one. A worry could arise, and I could notice it before building another story around it. An emotion could be present without needing to decide my next action immediately. This did not mean ignoring life. It meant meeting life with a little more space and attention.
The relief I felt was personal and difficult to reduce to a formula. Questions that had seemed disconnected began to fit into a more coherent understanding. Peace felt less like something I had to force into existence. There were moments when it became evident as I stopped struggling with every movement of the mind.
At the time, I felt that the search which had brought me there had found its answer. The significance of that experience lay in how I carried it into everyday living. Awareness needed to accompany work, relationships, disappointment, and responsibility, just as it had accompanied those quiet days at the ashram.
These experiences later helped me bring together the understanding expressed in User Manual for a Human Being. The book grew from years of study and enquiry, and this journey helped many of those threads meet.
Auroville: Another Experience of Stillness
After Tiruvannamalai, I travelled towards Auroville, near Puducherry. I was curious about its aspiration towards human unity and the effort to build a community around that ideal. Its charter presents it as a place for learning and material and spiritual research in the service of human unity.
I had arranged a visit to the Matrimandir’s Inner Chamber. Approaching the golden sphere, walking through the gardens, and entering the building felt unlike any other experience on the trip. The architecture, carefully arranged spaces, and silence encouraged a natural slowing down.
Inside the white chamber, a crystal-glass globe receives a directed beam of sunlight. Sitting there, I found my attention drawn to the light and the stillness around it. For once, I had little desire to analyse what I was experiencing. I was content to remain present.
Arunachala and Auroville had very different surroundings, but both gave me a chance to sit without constantly pursuing the next activity. I carried that feeling into Puducherry, where I visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram, walked by the sea, and explored the town before beginning the return journey.
Coming Home
On the way back, I stopped in Bengaluru and met the friend I had made in Wayanad. We attended two stand-up comedy shows, adding laughter and companionship to a journey that had also contained much silence. I enjoyed how naturally these experiences belonged together.
From Bengaluru, I headed towards Hyderabad, and then towards Gwalior. The final stretch was my longest day of riding: roughly 1,200 kilometres over about seventeen hours, with stops along the way. It remains part of my personal travel story, rather than a distance I would suggest someone try to match. The most valuable part of the journey had never depended on covering the greatest number of kilometres in one day.
I do not listen to music or use headphones while riding. Inside the helmet, I spend time with the road, my own thoughts, and the task of riding. On the return, memories of the journey kept coming back: the hills, the conversations, the punctures, the kindness of strangers, and the silence at Arunachala.
When I reached Gwalior, I had covered approximately 5,400 kilometres. I had left home hoping to learn something, and I returned with experiences that would continue to shape my understanding long after the motorcycle was parked.
Your Journey May Begin Where You Are
I share this story because stepping outside my familiar routine gave me room to pay attention. Your own journey may look very different. It may involve travel, but it may also begin with a book, a teacher, an honest conversation, or a few quiet minutes in the middle of an ordinary day.
You can begin by noticing a thought that repeatedly troubles you. Listen to the words you use with yourself. Ask what you are seeking from your next achievement or distraction. Give a question some space before rushing to the most familiar answer.
My motorcycle carried me from Gwalior to Arunachala and back. Along the way, the teachings I encountered encouraged me to look more closely at the person making that journey. I returned to the same home and the same responsibilities, with a clearer understanding of how I wanted to meet them.
You do not need to reproduce my route or arrive at my conclusions. You can begin with your own life, exactly as it is, and bring a little more curiosity to it. Sometimes, that is enough for a meaningful journey to start.