I will not buy a second-hand Hayabusa

I was kind of a petro-head growing up. I used to follow all the new car/bike launches. I used to buy those Navneet notebooks with pictures of Superbikes on the front cover and the performance stats on the back cover. During undergrad, I used to buy the new issue of TopGear every time we visited Crossword. I even won an auto quiz in the college fest.

I used to dream of being part of a biker gang, going on long rides on my superbike, and being best buddies with the bike mechanic. My favorite bike was the Suzuki Hayabusa and since it costs around 16 Lakh rupees, my middle-class dream was to someday buy a second-hand one.

So, when I was contemplating buying a two-wheeler a few weeks ago, my first instinct was to get the best bike I can afford. (Something like R15 or Pulsar 200) and start my superbike “journey”. Big surprise: I ended up buying a used Honda Dio Scooter.

You cannot be everything you thought you would be.

When I really thought about it, I realized I am not really a petro head anymore. I don’t follow the industry. I barely have any idea about the new technological developments in bikes Hell, I don’t even know how to ride a geared motorcycle that well. And it makes more sense to buy a scooter for daily commute to the office. But it’s hard to think along this line when you are watching the 10th Suzuki Gixxer 250 review video of the day. We grossly overestimate the joy we will get from something when we are contemplating buying it.

It was hard to let go of my fantasized biker gang, mechanic buddy, and second-hand Hayabusa. It’s difficult not to be burdened by your past self’s expectations, but it is important to recognize your present self is a fairly different person than the past one. Sure, I am not a petro head anymore but there are so many more interests and hobbies I got into after I finish undergrad: Reading, Writing, Running, and Cycling to name a few. The petro head had to go to make space for book-head and cycling-head and run-head (are these even real words?). There are only so many things that can excite me at a given time.

So, I have made peace with the fact that I will never buy a second-hand Hayabusa. I don’t want it to be happy anymore, and good for me because you should be reducing things that make you happy anyways.