In a fitting throwback, an elevator with a door that takes a wrenching action to shut, is taking me up to a small congregation of Yezdi and Jawa loyalists. It’s a group so loyal that some ride these machines to work, choosing nostalgia over the ease of modern automotive technology.
They represent the core team of Roaring Riders, a Yezdi and Jawa club from Chennai. It is over five years since I last connected with the club, and I scan the faces quickly for traces of familiarity. There are none to be found. With a bit of Rip-Van-Winkle-ish anxiety, I inquire about some of the ‘old’ members. The answer is reassuring: They are well within the fold but have taken a step back to let the millennials lead. That’s good for any club in any sphere, more so when it involves automobiles powered by anachronistic technology.
The eternal allure Of the Jawa motorbike SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
- Ideal Jawa India used the catchphrase ‘Forever Bike Forever Value’, while marketing its Jawa and Yezdi machines. However, Ideal Jawa folded up in 1996. Now, Jawa is set to hit the streets in India again as a production bike. Through its subsidiary Classic Legends Private Limited (CLPL), Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd entered into a brand licensing agreement with Jawa Moto in 2016 to gain the right to make and offer motorcycles under the Jawa brand name.
- Reports suggesting that the first machine to be born of this move will hit the streets very soon, have generated a lot of expectations among Jawa-Yezdi enthusiasts.
Roaring Riders includes young and unlikely converts. Not long ago, the 20-something Akilan Mohandoss thought ‘Yezdi’ was actually ‘SD’. Once he learnt its true name, he took a sudden shine to the motorcycle and bought one, almost badgering Srinivasan Kashyap, a senior member of Roaring Riders, for information. Today, he is a card-carrying member of the club.
Parthasarathy K, a young musician, was drawn to these bikes after having listened to their two-stroke exhaust note flowing out of twin pipes. At the time, he was not even a rider, he confesses.
Thanks to growing enthusiasm of this kind, last Sunday, when Jawa Day was celebrated across the world, India contributed richly to an album of memories, with the Roaring Riders, Mysuru Jawa Club, Beating Hearts Jawa Yezdi Motorcycle Club, Puducherry Jawa Club, and groups in Bengaluru and other parts of the country, all coming out to celebrate.
Of the Jawa motorbike
The clubs in India largely celebrate the machines that rolled out of the Mysuru factory of Ideal Jawa (India) Ltd, between 1960 and 1996. In the early 70s, the company began manufacturing the motorcycles under the Yezdi name. Machines from the parent — JAWA of Czechoslovakia — make a small part of the collection. For Indians, the Jawa-Yezdi nostalgia largely centres around the Jawa 250, commonly referred to as the ‘A’ Type, which was offered under licence, Yezdi 250 ‘B’ Type, Yezdi Roadking, Yezdi 350 Twin and Yezdi Monarch. The smaller Yezdi 175 and the Yezdi 60 Colt, a moped, also continue to have a lot of traction among classic vehicle enthusiasts and collectors.
The surviving Jawa and Yezdi machines have one thing going for them: there is powerful networking between clubs across India. Kashyap speaks of an incident from a 3,600-km ride across India, undertaken by a six-member group from Roaring Riders. The gear selector on one of the bikes broke when the Chennai riders were 40km outside Raipur. The team called Jawa-Yezdi enthusiasts at Raipur, and they promptly made arrangements for the vehicle to be attended to, on its arrival in the city.
Jawa-Yezdi enthusiasts want to capitalise on this closeness and document learnings from restorations and periodic maintenance to create a body of work, largely digital, that can serve as a guide for new entrants to the growing Jawa-Yezdi fold.
