On The Wings of Fate

It was the kind of day that made you yearn for beer. Hot and sultry, with a foreboding stillness in the air that had a long chilled glass of the best bitter written all over it.

You know how it is... when the sweat wanders down the nape of your neck and trickles on downwards. When there is a parched feeling at the back of the throat, and the temple throbs from the torpid sun. And all you can think of is the dark coolness of a pub, the light strumming of a guitar, and a long tall glass of Mallya's best.

It was with these blessed thoughts that I walked into Pecos that afternoon.

And all was it should be. There was hardly any crowd in, given that it was a weekday. There was no loud music, and it was just past lunchtime. The perfect place to while away a lazy indolent afternoon, and that, people, was exactly what I intended to do.

The raconteur was at his corner table, the habitual mug in front of him, half full as usual.

"Hot as hell, innit", he murmured conversationally, as I dropped onto the stool next to him.

"Haven't been there myself yet, unless outside is where the devil sets up shop nowadays," I sighed, motioning to Kiran for the much needed lifeline.

The raconteur grinned in empathy, and emptied his own mug at a gulp, and motioned for Kiran to get two, instead of the one.

"Oh I dunno, mate" he said, hunched over his stool. "Some poor bastards carry their own hell around with them."

I smiled in return, and definitely grinned as two overflowing mugs made their welcome way to our table.

"So long as that hell of theirs is left outside when they step in here," I said, looking at the mugs with reverential respect.

"Nah" he said, quietly, staring into his beer, "Sometimes, you can't get the fricking mokey off the back"

I don't think you were here, in these parts back then... this must have been what... the early '90's. Bangalore was a somewhat quieter place then, certainly in these parts. Pecos wasn't as crowded then, and you knew most everybody who walked in those doors.

I used to be here, of course, sitting in this corner, nursing my beer, but we had a different gang going then. Those guys would start dropping in at around 6 in the evening, have a couple of beers and head back home to their families. But in the afternoons, it was even quieter than it is now.

Barely a couple of people out here, near the bar, and next to no one upstairs.

And naturally, you'd end up knowing almost everybody who came anywhere near being a regular out here.

There was this guy that used to come in then, and he did that fairly regularly. Like clockwork, he was. He'd head in here a little after noon, and he'd sit here, anyplace near the bar, for about five hours or so. He'd spin out two, maybe three mugs of beer in that time, and he'd leave.

Now, the thing is, there's this I can tell you about beer drinkers. They're a pretty cheery bunch. Not like whiskey drinkers, for example. They'll tend to be a little more dignified, a little more... well, they ain't beer drinkers, and that's the holy truth.

But this guy, he'd have made Tolstoy look like a Latin American tap dancer, the way he'd just sit there, all quiet and all. Wouldn't say a word to no one, that guy, just drink his beer, sitting around here, and head off home before the guys came in.

Now this happened regularly enough for me to want to know more about the guy, so I tried to talk to him a little... you know... offer him a beer, talk about music and stuff.

But he just wouldn't bite, that guy. He'd look me in the eye, smile politely, and refuse any offers I'd make of buying him a mug. And he wouldn't talk about music either. In fact, nothing at all.

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't rude or anything... just a little on the quiet side.

I'd asked Kiran about him too, naturally.

But Kiran didn't have much to say. Apparently, this guy... Adi, his name was... Adi used to come in somewhat regularly about five months or so back. Then he kinda disappeared. But back then, he was quite the fun guy. Would drop on weekends, drink some serious beer, and all that. You know, the regular guy. But after that long break, he was this quiet withdrawn types.

And you know there was a story there, but that's all you knew.

Fairly blew me up within, because I so wanted to know what had happened, but there seemed no way to know.

And I'd resigned myself to the fact that this guy was going to be the quiet types for all Kingdom to come.

Until Yoda came along.

What a guy that nutcase was. I'd known him off and on, from a long time back. He was living in Chennai back then, and worked his way on the East Coast, making his money by doing oddball photography, writing the odd piece on life in the outdoors, and acting as a tour guide for the rich and the famous.

A hustler he was back then. Cheerful, bustling, with that infectious enthusiasm that people like him have. You know how it is... they have to seem as if they're having a ball of a time 24/7, to make it seem like that's what you're going to get out of it too. Yogesh something or the other, and for reasons known only to the Good Lord above, he'd become Yoda in college.

So anyways, this guy came back at Pecos, back in Bangalore after ages.

And a hustler he was still. Only now there was this edge to him. Don't know what it was, but he'd got a... I dunno... a nervousness around him. Or so it seemed to me.

But anyways, Yoda was back, louder, and funnier, and more of a dude than he was back then. He'd spend most afternoons in Pecos, and the evenings he'd traipse around town, making a buck here and a buck there. He got by that way, our man. But I think it was quietness that he was looking for here at Pecos. This place had that thing back then. In the afternoons, it was... peaceful. Like now, but better. Calmer.

So anyway, I don't know why, but Yoda and Adi hit it off pretty well. Yoda was a little quieter around Adi, and Adi was a little more animated when Yoda was around.

They'd both come off the extremes, y'know... find some sort of middle ground. It wasn't as if Adi would turn into some sort of a party freak when Yoda was around, but he was a little more... smiley.

He'd talk a little to the people around him, he'd nod along when Kiran chose to play a particular favourite, and he'd grin into his beer when Yoda chose to let rip into some song that was playing then.

And Yoda would take care of his new found friend.. they'd share beers, they'd share fags,three or four months down the line. Things were moving along for Adi... not by miles at a go, but he was coming out of that shell he had seemed to have built for himself. And Yoda had palyed his part, without a shadow of a doubt. Those two seemed to feed off each other, growing the better for it, each one of them.

Bloomin' buddies they were, if you'll forgive the pun.

Until that fateful day.

Yoda walked in at about three in the afternoon... which was his usual time... to find Adi hunched in a corner, sipping at a beer. I'd grinned at him when he'd walked in... but Adi was... how shall I put it... he was down that day. Not miserable, but certainly a lot quieter than I had seen him for ages. There was this leave-me-alone air that he had that day, and it wan't a pleasing feeling, looking at him like that.

Yoda sensed it too, when he walked in, and credit to the man, he wasn't his regular in-your-face that day. Sat next to Adi, smoked his fags, drank his beer, and hummed along, without speaking a word.

But an hour or so down the line, he asked Kiran to switch off the music, and he turned to Adi.

"So what happened, buddy? Today's not a good day, whassay?"

Adi didn't reply, not immediately. He sighed into his beer, hunched his shoulders even more, and seemed to want to not talk. I was about to signal to Yoda to let the damn thing slide, when Adi turned to him, smiled a crooked smile, and unburdened himself.

A year ago, Adi and his girlfriend were en route to Shimoga, early on a Saturday morning, at around four. The plan was to drive along the coast and eventually turn back to Bangalore... a nice long weekend away from it all.

But at the start of the NH4, just outside Yashwantpur Railway Station, when they were about to pass across a signal, came this bike from hell. Speeding along at some insane speed, leaving Adi no choice but to veer away sharply. Which he did, banging into a nearby wall, scraping the bar along. There was no trace of the biker afterwards... apparently he had turned tail and ran.

Adi's girl was pregnant. Both died, she more of shock than anything. Adi spent three months in the hospital, and he was just clawing back to life. Not only physically. Kiran and I exchanged glances, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I wasn't exactly dry eyed, and neither was Kiran.

Adi seemed pretty composed, but he had grown quieter as he continued talking. He'd shrunk even more, impossible though it seemed as he finished the sorry tale.

But finally, he drew breath and looked up at Yoda, a smiling grimace on his face.

"It's getting better, though", he finally said," I'm getting back to a normal life"

Yoda clapped him on the back, I remember. Chugged his beer and asked for another.

"And have you forgotten that sorry sonuvabitch?", he asked, as Kiran got him his mug.

Adi smiled.

"It's the least of my problems, Yoda. That guy I don't even think about anymore. He doesn't matter... I don't think he should."

Yoda chugged his second glass then. It's burned onto my brain, the rest.

"Had a brother" he said conversationally, to no one in particular."Died in an accident... a year ago"

Got up to leave, slung his bag over his shoulder.

"Stone drunk on a Saturday morning, the bugger. Mowed down by a truck, here in Bangalore"

Opened the door and looked straight at Adi.

"But bystanders maintained that he swerved onto the wrong side deliberately. He wanted to die."

The raconteur turned towards me, lopsided grin in place. "Now laddie, don't get all hung up on that story there. Might have made it up just now, eh?"

But our glasses were empty, and they stayed that way.

Motorcycle Diaries - VIII

Seven in the evening, and you've ridden for about ten hours. You've been through pouring rain, through a tough winding ghat, through three different states, and you've just had a hot meal, a hot shower, and an hour of lazing around.

Your body is in the pleasant ache stage, your eyelids are a little droopy, your head keeps nodding off, and all you want is a hot cuppa of something, a paperback novel, and lights off in about an hour or so.

What you do NOT want is a bike that refuses to start after you top her tank, and the prospect of driving through God-forsaken countryside through the night, so that you can report into work the morning after.

After mugh cajoling, some kicking and some pointed questions about her ancestry, the Suzuki finally deigned to come to life, revving through the r.p.m's in a decidedly reluctant manner. And we clambered on, and set off on the last final stretch. Three hundred and sixty kilometers in pitch black darkness, with a bike that is just about worn out and two riders who couldn't care less anymore. The only thing that kept us on was sheer bloodymindedness.

You don't give up on a ride and climb into a truck. The thought passed through my mind, and I'm sure bhaisaab thought longingly about it too, but neither of us gave the notion serious thought. Because.

Five minutes into the ride, we found out that the headlight on the bike was giving us next to no illumination. We could barely figure out the road ahead of us, let alone the aberrations on the surface. And aberrations there were aplenty.

The only thing to do was to tack on to a passing truck and stay behind her, using her path as a guide. Which is what we did for about a couple of hours, until that outstanding alumni of SP College, Andheri (E), Mumbai, figured out that the beam was askew because it was pointing towards the bloody sky. A couple of taps on the headlamp assembly, and it was as if God had said, "Let there be light!" .

And after which we drove on, and on and on. One hour shifts, rider crouched miserably out in the front, peering up ahead, and pillion hunched miserably at the back, eyes firmly closed, and trying to grab forty winks. Exchange and repeat.

Stop every two hours for a cup of chai, a cigarette, and some butt unclenching exercises.

And on and on and on.

An omelette here, and a paratha there, a cuppa here, and another there, until we finally reached Chitradurga, where, it was patently clear, we could not go on. There were another 200 kilometers to go, and it was about two in the morning. We figured we'd take a room for about a couple of hours, sleep and then drive on. Only to discover that the peoples of Chitrdurga are very decidedly asleep at two in the morning. Any amount of banging on the doors of various lodges across that accursed town elicited nary a single raised eyebrow, let alone an enquiring clerk.

And which is why Castellino and Kulkarni drove their tired steed into a petrol pump, paid a disbelieving watchman the princely sum of fifty rupees , and clambered into an abandoned schoolbus. Stretched out on those wondrously uncomfortable seats and tried the Good Night! Strategy.

Which did not work, because that abandoned school bus was the local watering hole for all the bloody mosquitoes in the area. Buzzing disconsolately in that excuse for a vehicle, the buggers couldn't believe their luck, and got down to work with a vengeance. About 90 minutes and a seriously depleted bloodstream later, we clambered out, clambered on, and drove out.

The good news was, the road was a lot smoother from here on in. We were able to peak the bike and let her rip into the kilometers.

One more utterly ghastly meal of Dal Rice (Oye, dude! What was that damn thing called? Khuska?) later, at six thirty in the morning, we were about 60 kilometers outside of Bangalore, with one last stretch to go.

Which we completed in due course, riding into the city more dead than alive.

Got off the bike, clicked our helmets together, grinned at each other, and made our weary way up the staircase.

Done.

1500 kilometers of the craziest bike ride that I know of. A couple of near death brouhahas, two punctures, naps on the roadside, and naps in abandoned vehicles, countless cups of chai and the most horrifying ghat in India. In retrospect, something nobody should ever attempt.

But I'm sitting here and I got a smile on my face.

Bhaisaab will read and re-read this, and he'll have a smile on his face.

And forty years later, by the fireside with a couple of glasses of scotch by our side, we'll still have a smile on our faces.

And that, my friends, is worth all the caution in the world.

I don't have that bloody switch in my head; the Good Lord missed that bit of circuitry in my cranium.

Yeah. :-)