On the Road Again...

I’ve been working for a little more than a month now. Shorn of all else, work consists of getting up in the morning, reaching office, and going back at night. What hurts the most is the knowledge of that fact that there is a routine to follow. Knowing at the beginning of the day what you’re going to be doing at the end of it is, all said and done, a depressing thought.

That, and the fact that you’ve to stay cooped up in office.

Bangalore, for the past couple of weeks, has had the most fantastic weather. It’s dark and gloomy, windy and cool, and all in all, it’s Nature’s way of whispering in your ear “Oh, come on! Seriously? Inside?! On a day like this?”

Sometimes, Mother Nature can be quite a pain in the butt.

Which brings back memories of one of the most wonderful bike rides I’ve ever had.

For those of you not in the know, I happen to be the proud owner of a Yamaha RX-100. Those of you who do not know what a Yamaha RX-100 is, or what it implies, follow the instructions given below very carefully.

Widen your eyes, open your mouth so that it shapes into a little “O”, clamp hand over mouth and go “Wow!”

If that seems a little too feminine for your taste, resort to the tried and tested guy method.

Narrow your eyes and mutter an expletive.

Haan, so anyways, the point I’m trying to get across is that the Yamaha is a good bike. Very good, in fact.

In the December gone past, I had to reach a restaurant called Mainland China, located in a suburb in Bombay at 12 noon. Before that, I had to go pick a friend up from his place, which meant I had to be in Bombay by around 10. Which meant that I had to leave Pune at around six in the morning. Like all wise motorcyclists (and no, that is not an oxymoron), I gave myself an hour’s margin.

Do the math. If you do it correctly, it'll tell you that I had to leave Pune at five in the morning.

Winters in Pune are quite severe. Yes, yes, I know some of you have faced worse weather, and knowing my luck, there'll be an Eskimo reading this post and laughing his butt off, but where I come from, 5 degrees centigrade is called freezing cold, thank you very much.

So anyways, the sneaky laughs of all those doubting Thomases aside, the point to note is that it was freezing cold, and I was planning to go on a 180 kilometer drive at five in the morning.

I had worn a thick t-shirt, a sweater, a jacket, gloves, a monkey cap, a helmet, a pair of jeans, and thick socks with a pair of riding boots.

I might as well have gone stark naked.

I speak of course, from a functional viewpoint. The aesthetics of that maneuver we'll leave aside.

It was pitch dark, the roads were empty, the wind was biting, and it was bitterly, bitterly cold. I was doing no more than forty kilometers, because any faster was simply unbearable. My teeth were chattering, my hands were shivering, my privates were trying to climb into my body, convinced that I'd gone completely bonkers.

Distances were measured in terms of the time taken to go from the stale yellow light offered by one lamp-post to another. That cold comfort dissipated soon enough - a little while later, I hit the highway, leaving behind the city streets, and it got worse. There was no cover from the high-rises that populated either side of the streets; just a series of unkempt, unruly fields, marked at the edges by ragged little hedges. The wind blew, unhampered, wild and free, across the road, and swept effortlessly through my clothing. Trundling along at unaccustomed speeds, I would be overtaken every now and then by a contemptuous vehicle.

All you'd hear was a roar from the background, the feel of the onrushing vehicle, a temporary abeyance in the noise, and the slap of wind in your face as it rushed forward, impervious to you, and to the cold.

Buggers, the lot of 'em.

A little before Lonavla, there was a faint hint of light peering over the mountains -not so much the presence of day break as the painting of a lighter hue of black. Slowly but surely, we went through differing shades of grey, until, before you knew it, the sky could be seen in varying tints of orange, yellow and the faintest hue of blue, spreading ever wider.

I could go on and on about this, but you can't get the full import unless you've seen it for yourself.

By the time I'd crossed through Lonavla, it was already day-break, and I pulled over just before Duke's retreat for a cup of tea from a road side stall. The road below is the Expressway, below which lies a valley, spotted every now and then by a tiled roof, leading on to a grand view of the Sahyadris, with a freshly blued sky as the backdrop.

It was still miserly cold, and I was still shivering. The tea wasn't all that hot, and there was no food to be had.

But I've rarely felt more wonderful.

To motorcyclists the world over, aspiring or otherwise... Cheers.

I've got some coding to do now, reality beckons.