Planning. And Then Some.

How does one plan for a Goa trip?
There is a certain gent in Bangalore, a roommate of mine, who might not get the gist of that question - but young, impressionable undergraduate collegians, especially people who have not ventured out on bikes before, tend to get their panties in a bunch.
As did we.
Ketan and I had been planning this trip for a while, but we had also been planning on becoming teachers of philosophy, bartenders, restaurateurs - realistic ambitions tended to float around when we conversed.
One can almost hear people who claim to be our friends say that we ourselves did some serious floating around when we conversed, but they, I assure you, are missing the point.
So anyways, to return to the tale at hand - there came a day when we were talking about this that and the other, and the Goa trip came about once again. One thing led to another - some say it was because TYBA was drawing to a close, others maintain that it happened because we were stone cold sober, but Ketan and I shook hands on the deal.
Come mid October, we would be on our way to Goa. On bikes.
We decided on mid October for a variety of reasons. One, we would have our mid term break then, so we wouldn't be missing any lectures.
Oh, Ashish. You crack me up.
Two, it would be the off season in Goa.
Three, it was around the first of October that we had this conversation.
So that gave us two weeks to prepare for the trip.
Planning for the trip involved a lot of planning.
Over the years, I've found that the best way to plan for trips is to go on them. But back then, every thing had to be documented, planned, written down and of course, argued over.
Under the pale yellow light that shone on a Sanewadi bench that hosted the annual conference of the locality's mosquitoes, Ketan and I planned for the trip. We budgeted, we made a list of items we would need, we decided on the route, we decided what time we would leave, what time we would reach. We planned on the clothes, the tool kit, the spares, the kind of glucose we would take along, the music we would include on the CD's we took along, and we planned the points in the trip we would stop to scratch our butts.
We took the bike (Ketan's bike) to a mechanic who spent a day and a half going over it with a microscope. He changed the brakes, the clutch plates, the levers, the cables and others parts on the bike that we didn't know existed back then.
Everybody who knew us was suddenly the resident expert on long bike rides. Right from an eight year old cousin to the old man behind the counter at the local Udupi restaurant, everybody had advice on what to wear, what to drink and how to pace ourselves. What route to take, where to stay, and what to do in Goa.
And naive idiots that we were, we drank it all in. We took notes, we listened, we nodded, and generally, paid more attention in those two weeks than we had in our entire academic careers.
No, I know. That's not saying much, but you get what I'm saying.
Girish asked if he could come along - and that was no problem. Shoan was offered the other seat available, but Mr. Focus had a CFA exam coming up, so...
Oy vey. Belated realisation. You guys might not know the gents in question, no?
Next post we'll have detailed biographies. Tongue in cheek and all. One's in New Zealand, one's in Amreeka and the other an avowed capitalist in Calcutta.
Far enough away for me to feel safe.

Up next: The Three Dudes.