Motorcycle Diaries Page III

Flashback time.

You see, when we arrived in Bangalore, back in the middle of 2006, we had no bikes. I had a Yamaha that was pretty much in the ICU then, and Noel had nothing.

Taking pity on our impoverishment, Noel's uncle, who lives in Coorg, cast around in his garage for a bike that we could use. He and his willing helpers found a bike that they did not use. Which he decided we could use. If you know what I mean.

Trouble is, turns out they did not use that bike for a reason.

It was light, it was flimsy, it was old, and it was ill suited for the long rides that Coorg necessitated. Poor old Uncle, while giving the bike, gave Noel a comforting pat on the shoulder and told him to chill, Noel would be using that bike for city riding only, so it was all OK.

Heh heh.

Now, the other thing that I must mention in the flashback is that the bike had tyres that had not been replaced for a long time, and the tyres carried within them tubes that, well... how shall I put this diplomatically.... were bloody well ancient. Yeah, that's a nice understated way of putting it.

I like my readership. I really do. I admire the way they discern almost immediately the direction this blog is going to take. I can see you now, nodding your heads wisely and saying "Aha! The poor sods. Course they were going have a puncture."

Sure enough, about half an hour or so after I had taken over, and I was burning some serious rubber, I went ahead and did literally that. Burnt rubber. The bike slid, and it skewed. It slithered and it slipped. It skidded and it swerved. After it did all of those thing and then some more, it finally resorted to some moves that would have impressed Prabhu Deva. At which point, the two Neanderthals astride it applied their formidable intelligence to the problem at hand.

Neanderthal 1: "There seems to be some problem"

Alarming tendency on part of the loyal steed to swerve out into the lane of a fast approaching truck.

Neanderthal 2: (Ever alert) "Huh? What?"

Definite wobbling at the back.

Neanderthal 1: (The cogs up top spinning furiously) "DUDE! I think we have a flat!"

Sharp braking, sharper twist of handlebars, and some sharp intake of breath. Loud honking, and some rapid inclusions in list of words that our Mums would never have taught us.

A quick professional, ocular inspection and comparison of the two tyres revealed that the one at the rear was decidedly flatter than the one up front. No toolkit, so no way were we going to able to remove the tyre and roll it along.

Frantic waving of hands at passing trucks resulted in zero response rate.

There was a petrol pump a little up ahead on the other side of the road that Noel visited. He woke up some people, asked if there was a puncture shop, and was told that there was one, about 3 kilometres away, back the way we had come.

So Noel stayed on that side of the road and started walking back. There was a rather large stretch of road in between us, with a divider thrown in for good measure, and then I on this side of the road, pushing for all I was worth. Pitch black darkness, and a long walk ahead.

About fifteen minutes into the walk, I noticed that Noel was nowhere to be seen. No signal on the cell, and slight "Now I be Middle Fingered" kind of feeling.

So yours truly sets off, bike firmly in grip, walking back towards Bangalore, waving desperately to every approaching truck driver, and yelling out "Noel! Noel!" every 500 metres.

Oh, the wonderful joy that is a bike ride.

About an hour later, when I'd about given up hope and was thinking of starting a small farm around those parts, I spotted what I thought was the outline of Noel, walking towards me.

And right then, if you gave me a choice between a scantily clad Angelina Jolie or the hazy outline of Noel Castellino...

I mean, think of the headlines.

"Scantily Clad Jolie and (Fully Clothed) Kulkarni To Take Up Farming in Rural Karnataka".

Wah. Wah Wah.

But to return to a more prosaic blog. We hugged and shed some tears, and went off to wake up the puncture dude, who robbed us blind, repaired the puncture, and we were off again. What was supposed to have taken a maximum of fourteen hours was now overshot by about 3 hours.

The time: 5.30 a.m.

And at six, we were at a town called Chitradurg, where we stopped for tea.

Coming up next: The Awesome Paranthas and the Sons of Bachelors.