Up Until Kolhapur

Girish behind me, and Ketan on the other bike.
Nice easy flow to the ride, it's early morning time. Hardly any traffic on the road, and now Ketan is in the front, and now I.
The road is smooth, empty, wide open and inviting.
And it is COLD!
Neither Ketan nor I are wearing gloves, and the fingers go cold, colder and numb. Up Katraj Ghat and down, beyond the last far-flung outposts of Pune, out into the open countryside, and mother of God it is cold.
Brrrrrrr.
I remember not being able to sing all the verses of "Oh Mere Dil Ke Chain".
Which has nothing to do with anything, but I remember it.
About an hour into the ride, we stop for a couple of swigs of Electral laden water, and Ketan has his first smoke of the day.
I may have touched upon this before on these pages, but let it be said once more.
On bike rides, a cigarette smoker is a wonderful animal to have. His craving for the cigarette ensures that you stop every now and then, and it also ensures that your stops are not longer than they should be. You have enough time to take a couple of swigs of water, loosen your limbs, look around and pee. By that time, bhaisaab (whomsoever the bhaisaab may be) has whittled down his cigarette to nothingness and had a couple of swigs of water himself.
Nod at each other and ride on. Ess, ess... ciggies are good things.
Beyond Shirwal, which is a town that is fabled for it's vada pavs. Beyond that part of the NH4 that is still two laned, and will be for eternity, a brief stop for some chai and bicuits, and ride on.
After the Katraj Ghat, which is not much of anything, really, the first major Ghat that hits you on the way to Goa is the Khambatki Ghat.
Long long ago, the Khambatki Ghat curved its narrow curvaceous way up the mountains and down again, a small two laned monstrosity that threatened all who dared make their tremuluous way up it's treachorous path.
Try saying that after chugging a pint.
But anyways, one day, Authority, no doubt having flirted with death by choosing to commute on the damned road, decided to do something about it. And Authority went and built a tunnel through the mountain.
So now, while going away from Pune, you have a nice long ride up the Ghat, with no threat of oncoming vehicles, and while going back to Pune, you have a lovely wide long tunnel that bores right through the mountain, the Lord be praised.
So up the mountain we went, and down the mountain we came, and we passed the bypass to go to Mahabaleshwar.
And then got screwed.
Authority, in one of it's many manifestations, had decided that the country should be connected, or at any rate, it's four metros should be, by roads that were truly world class in nature. So, Bombay was to be connected to Chennai (eventually) by a nice long four laned highway. All part of a Grand Plan that was called the Golden Quadrilateral.
But the GPtwctGQ, when under construction, was a PitA. A RPitA.
It had half built flyovers that no one could use. It had construction firms crawling all over it. It had little muddy by lanes going around the half built flyovers that every truck, lorry, van and bus in India was using. Along with two rather frustrated bikes.
But now what to do. You take the rough with the rougher.
And that is how Ketan and self rode on, with Girish hanging on to the rails for dear life, every now and then telling the Good Lord up there that Agnosticism and Atheism were for the crows. Now a burst of speed, and now a halt behind a line of vehicles. Now wide empty spaces and fourth gear and belt along, hell for leather. Now halt because a cow has blocked the excuse for a road.
On and on and on.
A small halt for some kulfi under the shade of an age old tree, and on and on again.
At around noon, we turned in to the town of Kolhapur. Into the Loksatta gates, and in search of a restaurant that would serve us some mutton.
Meeshtake. Beeg meeshtake.

P.S. Pain in the Ass. Royal Pain in the Ass. For those who were wondering.