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The year was 2002, my father had just welcomed his son, myself, into the world. I came out with a full head of hair and a bright yellow Kawasaki Ninja 250 waiting for me back at my new home.
Thing is though, the bike was obviously not mine. It wasn't even the Ninja that put me on the path to motorcycling. This is the story of another Ninja that inspired a lifelong passion, brought a family closer together, and even started me on a career.
Where my passion for motorcycles began
My dad is from Mumbai, India, where he had a Yamaha 100 that he shared with his twin brother and they used to commute around their busy city. He moved to the United States a few years before I was born and after working for a few months, he was looking for a more adventurous upgrade from his 1990 Ford Tempo. After some research about motorcycling in the United States, he bought the nimble Ninja 250.
The 250 stayed with my dad for a couple years and he honestly loved it. To this day he recommends that any new street rider should start on a bike similar to it. Eventually he decided that his newer job promotions called for a motorcycle of "finer capabilities." After seeing more and more Tom Cruise movies, and finally getting my mother on board for buying a bigger and faster motorcycle, he found himself on the market for a sport bike around the 600 cc family. He considered all bikes he could find, but at the end of the day, he couldn't help but gravitate back toward the Kawasaki Ninja name that he has always swooned over since he was young. Next thing you know, our house was home to a beautiful, mint condition 2002 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6.
Now, a detail I didn't mention earlier was that, during all of this, there was an annoying yet incredibly adorable son who was admiring these motorcycles. At the time my dad bought this Ninja ZX-6, I was around six or seven years old and in the phase where I was learning all the reasons why my dad was the coolest guy to ever exist. I mean, how could you blame me, not only was he the only one of his friends to have a motorcycle, but at the same time, he never failed to look super cool riding away with his shiny helmet and matching textile jacket. Between seeing motorcycles in movies ridden by some of the coolest actors, and seeing my dad ride his own bike, I was immediately in love with motorcycles and all they had to offer. For as long as I can remember, I wanted my own motorcycle to stand alongside the beautiful red ZX-6 that I viewed as the epitome of motorcycles.
My father would often take me out for small rides on his motorcycle when spring would come around, and after every ride, I was always asking something along the lines of "When can I get a motorcycle for myself?" or even "When can I ride your motorcycle?" He eventually flipped the magical, protective father switch and started to inform me how "motorcycles really aren’t that cool" and that, at the end of the day, it's really dangerous. He would try to scare my younger self about how heavy his Ninja was, and that if it ever tipped over and I got stuck, I'd have to have both of my legs cut off due to the sheer weight of the bike.
Being told what I could not do was probably the worst tactic. It in fact made me even more obsessed with motorcycling. Now I was learning that only the toughest of the tough can handle a motorcycle (or at least that's how I understood it as an eight-year-old). At this point, my dad knew that the more he rode, the crazier I'd get about the whole thing, so he decided to be the responsible parent and began to give a little more attention to the family minivan. I mean, who can blame him? There's no way he could take two kids to soccer practice on the back of a Ninja.
Caring for the neglected Ninja
As the years passed on, the ZX-6 was slowly phasing out of my dad's commuting routine and being forgotten. The bike became more of a showpiece in the garage rather than the adventurous pastime it once was, and with this also came a lack care for the motorcycle.
I took it upon myself to make sure the bike was cared for like it once was. My dad tried his best to outline all the maintenance routines as incredibly difficult and tiring procedures in order to make it unappealing for this 10-year-old, but it never worked. I was never really great in school and boring subjects in cold classrooms were never my definition of "fun," but I had a great time taking it as a challenge to learn about the motorcycle and all the tools required to maintain it. I can't remember if my dad was more impressed with my self-motivated drive to learn and work on his motorcycle, or more worried that I was going to mess it all up.
Regardless, he eventually started to get a little spark back for wrenching on his bike. I learned how to do a lot of simple, routine maintenance, such as oil changes, air filter replacements, changing the battery, and even helping my dad do a carburetor clean. It was nothing complicated, but it truly showed me how much I loved to work on motorcycles and made me feel like I was slowly becoming the motorcyclist I had always dreamed of being.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, "Wow, so things probably went really well from here for Eshan and his dad." And oh man, you would be very wrong.
When I was around 12 or 13, I did something that would completely alter the streak of success with motorcycles that I had been building all these years. My father had always told me never to sit on his motorcycle, and informed me that I was to ask him first before I even touched it. I learned that these rules were aimed towards myself and myself only, because when one of my older cousins came to visit, my dad let him stand up his motorcycle all by himself. Granted, my cousin was about six feet, two inches tall and close to 200 pounds, but I couldn't help but be insanely jealous of him.
Somehow, I was able to convince my cousin to help me stand the bike up by myself and I found I could actually do it! The dumbest part of all of this was that I started going to the garage to sit on his motorcycle numerous times a day. I think we can all see where this is going.
Obviously, my father was beyond upset and I was tasked with fixing the motorcycle because, after all, it was completely my fault — even though I tried to act like it "just fell" while I was admiring it before school.
Somehow, after an uncountable number of apologies and another five years of working from square one, I was able to remind my dad about the beauty of motorcycling and work up the courage to ask him if I could get my own. In 2019, on my 17th birthday, after hours and hours of family meetings between my parents and myself, I was finally able to get my learner's permit.
My father realized he was never going to discourage me from loving motorcycles and he was better off embracing the idea and taking me under his wing. I purchased a 2018 Honda CBR300R with my best friend, Vishnu, who my dad also agreed to teach to ride. My dad took the Ninja ZX-6 to a local shop to have it completely serviced from top to bottom. Life looked good: I had a bike of my own, my dad was excited to be back on the road and I had introduced my best friend to life on two wheels.
Fun, family togetherness and a career
We spent the entire summer riding and discovering the back roads of Pennsylvania and had a blast. Every free moment we had, we were either out on the road, or trying to find new places to ride to. We found something that not only gave us a childlike joy and rush of adrenaline, but also an escape from society where we could just think and enjoy life to ourselves.
The best part of it all: We loved how it brought us together. Along with riding together, my Dad and I loved to learn more about wrenching on motorcycles and went to all the motorcycle shows we could find.
Today, we still have the Ninja that started it all for me and we have both agreed never to sell the bike. We have bought a couple more bikes, such as a Suzuki SV650, a Honda Shadow Phantom 750, and a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-9R that we got as a project bike. My mother and little sister have also started to join us as passengers on the road and we even took a motorcycling trip to the Poconos last year as a family. We have met a lot more riders who we ride with and have even motivated some of our friends to get their motorcycle licenses, too! That practice wrenching paid off and helped me get a job at a motorcycle dealership near home where I got to learn from a great group of people about how to be a better motorcycle mechanic, while also getting to ride a huge variety of motorcycles.
Motorcycling has always been something I knew I would love, but it also gave me an even closer bond to my family — especially my dad — that I didn't know was possible. If there's a message you take away from my story, I hope it is that no matter what others might say, the motorcycling life really can bring people closer together in ways they might not expect.
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