How bikes are landing Bihar’s youth on an aspirational highway

At the beginning of the wedding or lagan season in April, Sohan Rai (name changed), a 25-year-old migrant worker, returned to his village, Inglispur, after an eight-month stint working at a plastic manufacturing plant in Rajkot. The third among six siblings, Sohan is the highest earning member of his family, making Rs 15,000 a month. He came bearing gifts for his family, with money saved to renovate their house and to attend his cousin’s wedding.

Nestled in the vast expanse of the Bhojpur taal – a wetland that once formed the main channel of the Ganga – in the Dumraon subdivision of Buxar District in Bihar, Inglispur is a village of migrant workers, with one or more men from each of its 200 homes earning their livelihood outside the state.

Remittances from these migrant workers have become the backbone of the rapidly urbanising local economy, where the new symbols of progress – a pucca house, a motorcycle and a smartphone – have become ubiquitous. And nowhere is the demand for these new symbols more pronounced than during the bustling lagan season. A decade ago, the conventional items in a bride’s dowry were a bed, a cupboard and a fridge, but those have now been replaced with an insatiable desire for the latest smartphone and the fastest motorcycle. The glaring irony is that the villagers of Inglispur, who still can’t access their village via a pucca road, must travel at least three kilometres to buy a motorcycle of their choice from the showrooms of popular brands such as Bajaj, Hero, TVS and Royal Enfield. The bike of choice in these parts, however, is the TVS Apache.

Such is the popularity of the TVS Apache in this hinterland that the bike has been feverishly romanticised in Bhojpuri pop music

Named after the native American tribe famed for their warring skills and horsemanship, the TVS Apache ostensibly appeals to a macho sensibility – the rugged, manly ideal of the lethal horseman. Available in five variants with a cubic capacity range from 160 to 310, the cost of the Apache (in Bihar) can set one back by anywhere between Rs 1.4 lakh for the base RTR 160 model to Rs 3.2 lakh for the top end RR 310.

Such is the popularity of the TVS Apache in this hinterland that the bike has been feverishly romanticised in Bhojpuri pop music. Ranjeet Singh’s hit song ‘Nayki Apache lel (Bought a new Apache)’ from 2022, has garnered 29 million views on YouTube, while his duet with Shilpi Raj, ‘Apache servicing ka la (get your Apache serviced)’ released in 2023, has 5.4 million views. The word’s easy transmogrification into the colloquialism ‘Apachiya’, has given it tremendous recall value, adding to its allure. Social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram are awash with millions of shorts and reels with male Bihari youth showboating on their Apaches, firmly establishing its place at the pinnacle of social aspiration.

Sohan and his brother set out for Gahmar – a village in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, 45 km from Inglispur – on a friend’s newly acquired Apache, to attend the tilak ceremony of their prospective brother-in-law. After a night of revelry, Sohan and two others hopped onto the motorcycle at the crack of dawn with the intention of zipping back to Inglispur under the cover of darkness. The policemen at the inter-state border check post at Chausa, however, kept an eye out for such anomalies as ‘tripling’ and apprehended the boys. An instant breathalyzer test revealed the truth of their hedonistic night and Sohan found himself in police custody, charged with ‘possession and consumption of liquor’ under the stringent Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016.

Remittances from these migrant workers have become the backbone of the rapidly urbanising local economy

A few years ago, the Apache would have become one among thousands of such motorcycles that were seized by the police in prohibition or sharab-bandi cases but subsequent amendments to the law in 2022 and 2023, have given first-time offenders and bike owners a reprieve by allowing them to be let off by paying a penalty. And so, Sohan was set back by a few thousand rupees to extricate himself and the Apache from a needless situation, days before a family wedding, where every rupee counts.

In 2023, a total of 1.43 lakh persons were arrested for violating the prohibition law in the state. In an interview with the YouTube Channel ‘The Lallantop’ in January 2024, political strategist Prashant Kishor – on a padayatra across the state – makes a scathing indictment of Bihar’s infamous law, calling it ‘Nitish Kumar’s Amazon model’, alluding to the lack of on-ground implementation of the law and the easy availability of liquor via home-delivery services run by bootleggers, many of whom have access to fast bikes that can make quick getaways.

The youngster with the funky hairdo riding his motorcycle, is ubiquitous on the new highways of Bihar. Making a curbside pitstop to film an Instagram reel or perform a dangerous bike-stunt, all the while bopping to the auto-tuned beats of Bhojpuri pop, he has leapfrogged into the future with no landing strip in sight. The flip-side to this seemingly innocuous situation is the easy drift into listlessness and petty crime, an undesirable situation for Bihar – a place with no smooth transitions, only rough cuts.

Sidharth Singh is a Mumbai-based writer, filmmaker and sports producer

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