The legend of 'Bullet Baba', a motorcycle revered as saviour of troubled travellers

Indians love miracles and legends especially in the age of technology, and almost anyone or anything can be elevated to the stature of a revered entity. But a motorbike was the last thing one can imagine seeing as an object of people’s devotion.

God is present in everything, and following this idea, the people of Ropar in Rajasthan found god in a 350cc Bullet motorcycle, as people from across the region come to a spot 50 kms from Jodhpur, for paying respects to ‘Bullet Baba’.

People consider it as the guardian angel of troubled travellers (Photo: Facebook/Jodhpur)

The legend of Bullet Baba began almost two decades back in 1998, when the son of local leader Om Singh Rathore died at this spot in an accident and the bike was removed from a ditch by the police and kept at the police station, only to disappear and mysteriously turn up at the accident site.

The cops then took it back, emptied the petrol tank and chained it inside the police station, and the legend says that it somehow again teleported to the site of the accident. This led people to believe that the deceased Om Banna’s spirit resides in the motorcycle.

Om Banna's spirit is said to reside in the motorcycle (Photo: Facebook/Nomadic Knights)

The reverence towards the vehicle comes from the stories that Om Banna still rides on the highway and helps people in need, after one driver whose vehicle skidded and crashed in a ditch claimed that Om Banna came and saved, as he lay there bleeding.

Now a large number of people visit the temple which has Om Banna’s bust and the Bullet, as people sprinkle alcohol on the bike as an offering to the guardian angel of road safety.

Apart from a pilgrimage, the temple has also developed the area into a popular tourist destination, as hundreds arrive to witness the following of this mysterious vehicle.