The Best Is Not Free. Coming Back From It Costs More.

Hi there,

The first time I rode a Bullet, I already owned a bike.

A Suzuki Fiero. Paid for. Reliable. Mine.
It had taken me everywhere for years and never asked for more than petrol and patience.

Then a friend threw me his Bullet keys for ten minutes.

I came back. Parked next to my Fiero.
And for the first time in years — I actually looked at it.

It hadn’t changed. I had.

Yeh Tumhare Saath Bhi Hua Hai:

Everyone warns you about wanting the best. Nobody warns you about getting it.

You know the hunger. We all do. The best job, the best phone, the best table by the window. We skip meals for it. We rehearse interviews in bathroom mirrors for it. We tell ourselves — bas ek baar mil jaaye, phir dekhna.

And honestly? That hunger built everything. Every bridge, every vaccine, every song worth replaying came from someone who refused to settle. So no — I’m not here to call ambition the villain. It isn’t. It’s the engine.

The problem is what happens after the engine starts.

The Quiet Tax:

For a few weeks after getting the best, everything glows. You find reasons to use it, hold it, mention it. Then one ordinary Tuesday — it becomes normal. The best becomes the baseline.

And the baseline is a one-way door.

Try railway-station chai after a month of good coffee. Try economy after one upgrade you didn’t even pay for. Try an old phone screen after retina. Try any ordinary conversation after meeting one person who truly got you.

Nothing below the line tastes like itself anymore. It tastes like loss.

Psychologists call it hedonic adaptation — they tracked lottery winners and found that within months, their joy returned to exactly where it started. Worse: small everyday pleasures actually dimmed. The morning tea. The first rain. A friend’s joke. All of it registered less.

Toh Kya Karein?

I sat with this for a while. The obvious answer — live small, protect the tongue from good coffee so bad coffee stays drinkable — felt like wisdom for about a day. Then it started feeling like fear wearing wisdom’s kurta.

Because the problem was never having the best. The problem is believing best is a fixed address. A place you arrive at once and then guard like property.

Today I ride a Hero Xpulse 200.

Less chrome. Less thunder. On paper, not a Bullet. Old riding friends ask sometimes — neeche aa gaya?

I don’t have a clean answer for them yet. But the Xpulse takes me up broken mountain trails the Bullet was too heavy to attempt. Different roads. Different best. Maybe the definition just got bigger — I’m honestly still figuring out if that’s growth or just what I tell myself.

The Fiero is gone. The Bullet too. The hunger is still parked outside.