Meet Dr Arun Thareja who hasn't let his 31 Superbikes Retire, Rides Them on Rotation Every Sunday

It’s unlikely that you’ll guess it from his baritone or his day job as the Head of Department of ENT at Delhi’s Maharaja Agrasen Hospital, that ENT surgeon Dr. Arun Thareja’s real calling comes wrapped in leather, rubber, and doused in petrol. The very genial and even more humble man’s true calling, the one that speaks to his very soul, is as a biker. 

The founder of one of India’s most recognised superbike groups, Group Of Delhi Superbikers or G O D S for short, Dr Arun, as he is known to friends and family, has not sold a single motorcycle in 22 years, but has kept on adding to his garage. The result? Thirty-one incredible machines, each one a thoroughbred. It’s a story that has been unfolding for 40 years, and no one tells it like Doc does.

“My love affair with motorcycles started in 1984. I was an MBBS student at the time, and there was a senior of mine who had a lovely black Bullet. I had ridden scooters before, but never a motorcycle. He was the first one who offered to let me ride his motorcycle. So, I rode a short distance with him riding pillion, and that was it. The sensation of riding a motorcycle was so beautiful that I knew that I wanted to ride motorcycles for the rest of my life,” he remembers. 

The transition to motorcycles was all about speed; however, it happened thanks to a poster. Very specifically, a poster of a Rajdoot RD 350, which the world knows as the Yamaha RD 350. That bike was launched in ’84, and Dr Arun got a ride on it later that year or early the following year. The experience blew his mind.

“It was nothing like anything I had experienced before. The sheer acceleration and the speed felt incredible,” he says. That year, in 1985, Dr Arun brought home a fresh-out-of-the-crate red RD350 home from the British Motor Company in Connaught Place, Delhi, having parted with the enormous sum of Rs 23,000. 

It was to be the start of a story that is still being written. Two years after getting the RD350 in, which still has pride of place in his garage, albeit in a modified cafe racer form, he picked up a Kawasaki 440 LTD from West Bengal. “In those days, West Bengal used to be the hub from where a lot of these exotic machines came in,” he explains before adding, “That motorcycle was a four-stroke parallel twin and belt-driven. So it was a completely different experience from the RD350. But again, it was a lovely machine, and with its distinctive styling, it got a lot of attention on the road.”

Over the years, Dr Arun has acquired many and sold a few. “I have sold a few, but mostly they were bikes that were difficult to keep. For example, I had a Ducati 916 that was a beautiful machine, but unfortunately, the one I had was problematic. So I disposed of that,” he recounts. But ask him if he regrets selling any bike, and he says Honda Blackbird without a pause. 

The Honda Blackbird was a 1100cc superbike that was the fastest production motorcycle in the world until the Suzuki Hayabusa and Kawasaki ZX-12R came and dislodged it. Naturally, both the first-generation ‘Busa and the ZX-12R sit Dr Arun's garage. That makes him one of the rare Indians to have owned all three of the world’s fastest production motorcycles, at one time or another. 

Speaking of sitting in the garage, he is known as a man who believes in riding his motorcycles. All 31 of them, instead of letting the machines slide into static retirement. His Sunday rides have been something of a ritual for over 30 years, but you’ll rarely see him on the same motorcycle on back-to-back Sundays. “They all feel special because I ride them on rotation. Every Sunday, it’s a different motorcycle,” he laughs.

His motorcycles, however, are only a part of the reason why he is such a legend in the Indian biker world. Dr Thareja, along with two of his friends, also ended up founding the Group of Delhi Superbikers, or G O D S. Currently a club with over 120 passionate motorcycle owners and enthusiasts, the origins of the G O D S go back to his Sunday ride rituals. 

“I used to do a lot of solo rides. There were hardly any superbikers in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Then I came to know through someone that there is another rider with a Honda VFR750 Interceptor. Somehow, I got his landline and got in touch with Raees Mohammad. We met, and that’s how the journey began. Soon after Gurinder Singh of the Redline Racing Store also joined the bands, and together we started the ritual of the Sunday rides,” he narrates. 

The trio used to ride on the old Delhi-Jaipur highway for fun, and that’s how the whole thing started. Sometime in the late ‘90s, Dr Thareja came up with the idea of naming the group G O D S. “They went bonkers with the name and loved it,” he laughs. The trio continues to remain fast friends, a 27-year-old relationship going all the way back to 1998. Over time, the group expanded little by little to its current strength of 120-plus riders. As for his garage? Well, he hasn’t sold a single motorcycle since 2003!