Aishwarya Pissay

Some Lesser Known Facts About Aishwarya Pissay

• Aishwarya Pissay is an Indian circuit and off-road motorcycle racer. In 2019, she made history by becoming the first Indian to win a world title in motorsports as she won the FIM Bajas World Cup in the women’s category in Varpalota, Hungary.

• Aishwarya’s parents parted ways when she was 9.

• At 18, Pissay developed an interest in biking after her father kicked her out of the house for failing Class 12. Thereafter, she went on to reside with her mother. During the weekends, she used to go on bike trips with her friends. In an interview, she talked about the same and said,
  

  I did not do well in Class XII and my father kicked me out of the house. I went to stay with my mother. It gave me time to do some part-time work and study; I also started riding the bike during this time. Soon, I started taking weekend bike trips with friends.”

• Hailing from a conservative family, Pissay received criticism from her father, grandparents, and other extended family members for pursuing a career in motorcycle racing. In an interview, she talked about her family’s reaction to the sport and said,
  

  Coming from a conservative family with no background of racing, it wasn’t the easiest of career choices. My grandfather had expected me to go for a regular job and so did my father, who said that I would not make anything of my life. It was my mother, who let me discover myself and allowed me to follow my passion.”

• For a while in college, she worked as a model. She was also featured on the covers of a few magazines. In an interview, she talked about modelling and said,
  

  I used to model in college but when I started training as an athlete, it kind of trained me as a person and gave me a way of life. All these appearances on the covers of magazines were because of my success as a motorsports athlete.”

  

• In 2014, she participated in the reality adventure TV show ‘Chase the Monsoon’ on MTV in which a group of motorcyclists covered 8,000 km from the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat to Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya over 24 days.

• To hone her biking skills, she received training at Apex Racing Academy in Coimbatore in 2015 and California Superbike School in Chennai in 2018.

• In 2017, she suffered a collarbone injury following which she operated on. The doctors fixed her collarbone by inserting a steel plate and seven screws.

• She made her international rally debut in 2018 when she participated in the rally raid Baja Aragón in Teruel, Spain; she is the first Indian woman to participate in a Baja World Rally. ^[6]The Times of India The Sherco TVS team comprised of the French brother duo Adrien Metge and Michael Metge, Spaniard Lorenzo Santolino and Aishwarya Pissay. The event concluded prematurely for Aishwarya as she ruptured her pancreas in the process.

• TVS Racing signed Aishwarya Pissay on board as a factory racer in 2017, while IOS Sports signed her in 2020. Besides these two, she has also been sponsored by Mountain Dew, Big Rock Dirtpark (Bengaluru), and Scott Motorsports India.

• She came into the spotlight after becoming the national two-wheeler champion (in the women’s category) by winning the Indian National Rally Championship for girls and finishing fourth in the challenging Raid de Himalaya in the Moto Xtreme category (Group B modified class) in 2017. She was the only woman to finish the gruelling race in the ‘Xtreme’ category. ^[7]The India Express

• In 2019, she made headlines for winning  FIM Bajas World Cup (2019) in the women’s category. In the championship, Pissay won the first round in Dubai, secured the third position in Portugal, fifth in Spain, and fourth in the Hungarian Baja, and finished with a tally of 65 points. Based on these points, Aishwarya bagged the world cup in the women’s category. Meanwhile, she also clinched the second spot in the junior category, behind championship winner Tomas de Gavardo (60 points) of Chile, in which both men and women competed.

• In 2022, she became a household name when she appeared as a contestant on the reality TV show Bigg Boss Kannada Season 9, telecast on Colors Kannada. She was the first contestant to get evicted from the house in the show.

  

• She can speak Kannada, Marathi, English, and Hindi.