Meet
Travelling Circus
We are Satvik & Shubra, married for 10 years and have been travelling together on our motorcycles around India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. We are currently gearing up for our next big adventure!
Shubra Acharya
Hey! I am Shubra Acharya from Bangalore, South India. I am the second child of my parents, younger sibling to my brother, the only wife of my husband, and the only mother of my dog. I was born in the city of Hyderabad and have always loved the outdoors ever since I was a child. My family moved to Bangalore when I was eight years old, and at the age of 10, being a tall kid, I was already riding scooters. My favourite sports a a child were Lagori and Choorchand. I would play on the streets with the kids everyday till someone came looking for me to drag me back home. I hated doing my
homework and didn’t fancy studying much either. I had always been interested in all sorts of sports and extra-curricular activities. I have undertaking coaching (for anywhere between a month to a couple of years) in Gymnastics, Badminton, Cricket, Athletics, Volley Ball, Skating, Swimming, Bharatnatyam, Salsa and many more activities. My interest in each of them would only last a few weeks till the shine of the new gear wears off! I even tried my hand at Karnataka’s dance form called Yakshagana.
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Of all these things I tried out as a child, I ended up pursuing only a handful- Karate & Carnatic Classical Music (vocal). I went to the National level in Karate for 8 years straight and won over 13 Gold medals for the State of Karnataka. I have performed at Classical music concerts many times in the last 26 years and am currently learning as a Vidhwath student in Carnatic music.
In 2006, I had represented Karnataka in the Republic Day Camp held annually in New Delhi, was part of the prestigious ‘Guard of Honour’ and even had the honour of being the escort for all the dignitaries including many Chief Ministers, the PM of India, and Chiefs of the Indian Armed Forces.
As little interest as I had in academics all my life, I was what they called a ‘bright’ student. I got myself a degree in Arts (Psychology, Sociology and English Literature) and went on further to get an MBA in Marketing & International Business. I had started my first business ‘Theobroma Cacao’ at the age of 19 while pursuing my college
degree. At Theobroma Cacao, we made custom-made chocolates for Corporates. This was also the time when Satvik and I fell in love!
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On my 22nd birthday, my brother gifted me a Royal Enfield Classic 500, the latest model by RE at the time and also their most powerful motorcycle at the time. Life was never the same after that. I finished my MBA the same year, and I remember having a severe shortage of attendance during that last trimester when I had got the motorcycle. It was always about taking off to some place or another.
On my first ever ride on my new motorcycle, we took a stop at a Coffee Day and we decided we would ride to Ladakh (the dream destination for all motorbikers in India at the time). As it turned out, i became the untold captain of the group which kept getting larger. Finally it was 16 of us, and after weeks of tireless planning, for the first time, I realised my strength in organising and preparing. It was a great trip that lasted 21 days where my entire family (my brother and sister on one bike, my mom and dad on one bike, and me on one bike, and Satvik on one bike) were all travelling together on motorcycle. It remains one of my most memorable trips by far.
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After the trip we all got busy with our lives and still kept travelling when we could. Satvik and I got married in the February of 2014 and for our first anniversary we did a group ride with a bunch of friends to Gujarat and Rajasthan. For our second anniversary, we did our first skiing course with a group of friends and with my mom joining us. Now that I look back to my life, my parents have never said no to me for anything. All that money I wasted as a child on those innumerable coaching classes, when I started travelling on motorbikes, when I chose to be an Entrepreneur instead of taking up a Corporate job. In fact, my family has been with me on most of my adventures too! Touch wood, I can never thank them enough for everything!
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In 2016, Satvik and I started ‘The Travelling Circus’ where we organised tours across South India, the Himalayas, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. We had the most adventurous two years where we were on the road for 400 days in total. We travelled around Sikkim, North East India, Himachal and Kashmir extensively and did many cross-country rides around India. But in 2017, we decided to take a step back from travel and start focussing more on our business. I joined my brother in Offineeds as a partner, and I currently am the COO of this business. In these seven years, I got down to working seriously, making some sacrifices travel-wise keeping in mine my long-
term goal of taking a sabbatical and travelling the world on a motorcycle. Being able to take a sabbatical in a business means I put in the best of my organising and planning skills and set up processes in place and build a system strong enough that it can sustain and thrive during my long leave of absence.
I am currently in the process of this and am proud of the success I have made thus far. In a few years, Satvik and I start off on our first RTW in South America.
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I am trying to blog extensively on everything I am doing in planning for our RTW trip, specially about the things that I myself found as hard to come by when I was researching about them.
So, that’s me, for now!
Until we meet on the roads!
Cheers!
Shubra
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Satvik Shahapur
I am yet to get down to writing 'About Me'.
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Coming soon..
