My ride today

My ride today

This evening I went on a ride. When i started off from my hostel room, i did not know where i was headed. I go till the petrol station and find myself taking a right turn from there. So i decide to go to Kallanai. It is an old dam constructed many hundred years ago, is a marvel to conceive in those times.

I keep riding, slowly. Some school kid hitches a ride with me till some village. I tell him that i do not know any villages in this route. So he has to ask me to stop when he wants to get down. He gets down a few kilometers later and i am alone again.

I take the blind right turn, and am headed towards the dam, when i notice this bathing ghat. It has some 10 steps leading down to the river Cauvery, to take bath and draw water, only that the river is dry.

It is a wonderful sight. Its dusk and the birds are going home, the sparrows and the mynas, and the water fowl. No other people there. Absolute silence. A wonderful breeze.

I am sitting on my motorcycle. The beauty literally rolls out in front of my eyes. Sands directly under my feet. With wavy patterns and endless possibilities. Further up, there are the reeds, dark green, with white flowers. Bending to the breeze. And then there are the trees, teeming with birds, making preparations for the night. Giving life. And further up, there are the palms. Solitary and still. Permanence and poise.

I get down on to the river bed and start walking, sandals in hand and dragging my feet. There is a gentle bend to the river and beyond it I find a small puddle, teeming with egrets. They are having the final feast for the day. The water is drying out and they are choosing and picking in this abundance.

I sit down on a rock in the middle of the river bed. I then lie down on the stone. I gaze at the sky and i observe the birds. Birds, i think, are like humans. I saw one like me today! Ya, really!

He was flying alone, in full sight of a flock of birds, not caring to go too near. Yet interested in them! Having them near, just in case! How mean and selfish.

He would go near them, mix with them, then fall back and would sometimes even try to lead them. Then he would give up, and try following the flock for a change.

The flock went home, among a cluster of trees. Even then this guy was flying, seemingly without anything to accomplish. He was doing exactly what i was doing at the very moment. Hanging out, and may be even thinking! And he seemes to be a loner.

Then it started getting dark and the place a bit scary. So i start off again and have coffee and some bajji's (slices of banana or capsicum fried in oil and had with chilly or onion chutney). The ride back was fun, coz the road was full of paddy, being dried on the roads, by the enterprising Indian farmer. My motorcycle's underside is full of hay. And my mind is with that sparrow, who I think like me, needs his space, his freedom and his uniqueness.

Me and Suresh at Kodai

Me and Suresh at Kodai

I was sitting in the shop in college, having a cold drink with a friend and her dad. It was very hot.

The class scheduled for that afternoon got cancelled. So I don’t have any classes for 36 hours. Such periods of inactivity do happen, but of late they have increased in frequency.

I went back to my room, already depressed, not knowing what to do for the rest of the afternoon, other than napping or chatting on yahoo messenger.

Suddenly a flash occurs in my brain. I have cash, I have my motorcycle. Why not go on a long trip somewhere? I went to Suresh’s room and tell him that the classes are cancelled. We decided to go to Kodaikanal.

We packed up and left at 4.30 pm. We filled up gas and did some basic repairs at the workshop and off we went. The first stop was supposed to be done at a dhabha at Dindigul (some 100 km from Trichy). Some 20 km from Dindigul, we got caught in a drizzle, and we stopped for coffee. We wait there for 10 minutes and we push on.

After some time, it started raining heavily, and we pulled by at a village tea shop. The shop had a thatch roofed front sitting space, and the whole place was crowded. We somehow managed to find space for ourselves, our helmets and our backpack. We could not afford to get wet because we were not carrying any dresses in our bag. If we get wet, we have to be wet the whole of the night, and the next day we would have to buy clothes in Kodaikanal.

We sat at the shop, talking, talking and drinking coffee after coffee, and in my case, cigarette after cigarette. The breeze was cool and there was no power in that shop. Was a very nice situation to be in. Surrounded by unknown people, talking about agriculture and local gossip.

It was 8 pm by the time it stopped raining. We started off and stopped at Batlakundu for dinner. We go to Nellai Nadar Mess and have parathas and chicken. Was really spicy and hot. It was 9 pm by this time, and the hill section of the ride was yet to be negotiated. We hurried to the ghat section and traveled about 10 km in the hills, when it started raining again. So we decided to turn back and go back to Batlakundu and stay there for the night.

The biggest looking lodging house was Crystal Palace, and the room would cost Rs. 550. They do not take credit cards. So we had to ride another 10 kms to find an ATM and draw cash. We finally went to our room and slept.

We woke up at 6 am and resumed the travel. We got to Kodaikanal at 9 am, incident free and safe. We had breakfast, dosas and pongals! they taste good outside our college mess.

We first went to Green Valley View, a.k.a., Suicide Point. The whole place was misty, with the sun showing in short intervals. Whenever we could see through the mist, we were staring down a vertical fall, many thousands of feet in depth, with the monkeys hanging on at the edge by the roots and grass. They were amazing, so unscared by the dimension of the fall or its consequence of it!

The sun showed for some time and we were able to enjoy the vista for some time. Then we left for Moir Point. The name Moir comes from the British engineer, Charles Moir, who lay the foundation for a road to Munnar, which would cut down around 30 km from the travel between the 2 places.

We parked our bike on the road and we have to climb down a steep incline. The incline was slippery, due to the rain during the previous night. We were being pulled down due to the steepness of the incline. Halfway through, our legs were shaking due to the balancing and by the effort we put in to go down slowly. We got to the end of the incline.

I will describe this place. The incline ends at a dead end. There you take a left turn and a small path leads to a rock. The path itself is an open danger. There is a wall of sand on one side and there is nothing on the other side. So grab the wall and pray to god that you don’t lose your grip! Then you come to a rock, you can sit on it. You better do that. Coz there is nothing on 2 sides of it! The place is still misty so we are not able to see the other side of the rock. Slowly it clears and God, I have never seen a more awesome vista. Miles and miles of green in front of us, some thousands of feet below us though. Untouched forests. So many shades of green. No civilization exists when you see from there.

Every time I tried peer over the rock, my legs started shivering, inadvertently. Then we devised an idea to peer over into the abyss below. We would crawl over to the edge and look down and crawl back! And it worked. We were indeed looking down at an abyss, at least 3000 feet in depth, with the cliff face dotted with roots and grass. The bottom of the abyss was a vast valley, a very dense forest.

We manage to crawl back to the safety of some distance from the edge and we even managed to take some photos of ourselves in this place and of the place itself. The climb up to the road was like a punishment for all those late mornings, lazy afternoons, and heavy dinners and the many cigarettes!

After this, we did not have energy to go anywhere, to even drive the bike. So we went to the lake, found a nice spot near the water, along the road and sat down there and were talking till lunch.

Then we went to a Punjabi hotel and had a good lunch. We then went back to the same spot along the lake shore. We had planned to stay for one more day up there, but decided against it and departed from there at 4.30 pm, planning to get back to college at 10 pm.

We were barreling down the roads. Good roads, less upcoming traffic. Never stopped anywhere for 40 km. Suddenly I felt the bike wobbling a bit. Then we found that the back wheel was flat. We took out the tool kit and started to dismantle the wheel. We did not have the right spanner to remove the wheel. We finally managed to do it with a larger sized spanner, in a quite ingenious way, thanks to Suresh and a good Samaritan.

I stopped a bus and got on, to find a mechanic shop. The bus was so crowded that I had to hang on on the foot board with one foot, with the tyre in my free hand and one leg dangling outside the bus. The bus was surprisingly fast and my arm was aching like hell, hanging on to dear life, lest I should fall out!

I find a mechanic shop in a village, get the tyre fixed and I head back on another bus. I sat down near the driver to tell him where to drop me. It was getting dark and I saw a motorcycle parked sans its rear wheel, and a person standing next to it. I stop the bus and get down. The bus went away. I realize that it was not my bike, and the guy was not Suresh. I had down at the wrong place! I ran behind the bus to make him stop again. But he never heard my heart felt cries for help!

I had to beg another traveller on a motorcycle to give me a lift. He did and I got back to our spot of bother. We start fitting the wheel again, only to find that we had lost a nut without which we cannot fix the wheel! And it was dark already. We start looking for it. Crawling and feeling for it on the road and by the rocky pavement.

Two cars stop, and some 10 guys get off them. They are on a high and decide to focus their head lights and their attention to help us. So 12 people looking for a nut! Still no results.

The guys decide to leave and they hand over a candle to help our search. So we start searching using a candle and our cell phones. Then 2 guys bless us with the headlight of their Bullet. They are drunk too. When we were losing hope, they started searching and Suresh finally found the nut. Someone had kicked it to the pavement. 90 minutes of searching. The world is a nice place and people are mostly good to other people – my lesson for the day.

We quickly fit the wheel and start moving, only to find that we had not fitted the brake properly and we did not know how to fix it. So we had to drive for 30 km without brakes. We finally find a mechanic and get the whole thing fixed, and off we go, towards home and rest.

We stopped for dinner at Dindigul at 10 pm. And chicken has never tasted so good!

We reach college at 2 am, without further calamities. We had clocked 515 km in a day. Every bone, joint and muscle was aching, esp. the posterior muscles. But there was a feeling of contentment, a sense of achievement, of an adventure successful. Of being free, roaming with no one to hold me. Of the wind against my face, pure air in my system. No baggage to carry. I was feeling light, to put it simply.

Dharasuram…. Our exploits

Dharasuram…. Our exploits

I decide to go on a ride someplace. No classes. No work. No assignments. Nothing to do, but sitting at the shop and chatting up people.
I don’t know where to go. I go to Suresh’s place to get my camera and he suggests Dharasuram, a temple of the Chola era, being restored as a World Heritage Site. Its about 100 km from Trichy, near Kumbakonam.
Its about 1.30 in the afternoon and me and VVD leave college on our motorcycle. Its blazing hot. VVD starts being his own creative self, right from the first km of our ride.
“My bag goes wherever I go”, he starts off. And I know the ride is going to be fun.
We go fill up petrol and check air and off we go. After filling up petrol, I ask VVD who owns HCL Technologies, the company in which he is going to work in a month. I was not disappointed. I got a extensive report on its promoter, operations, business arms, competitive advantages and distinctive advantages. We had covered 20 kms.
There is a police check post on the way to Tanjore. A bus is waiting to pass through and I overtake it at a very slow speed. This guy spits on my feet from inside of the bus. I mutter something nasty at him, whoever that guy was. I stop at the check post and ask the constable for some water to clean my feet. I do that and the report on HCL resumes, in a poetic and intellectually inspired manner from VVD.
Just as we are done with HCL, VVD remembers that he had a Emerging Trends in IT class the previous morning. He decides to enlighten me on Dot Net, the new basher from Microsoft that will apparently eat up Java, and is doing just that. That dot net exists and means so much to the IT sector was news for me. In VVD’s style, it was like the word from the horse’s mouth. I could not question anything!
We got hungry some 40 kms from home. So we stop for coffee at a shop in a village. We ended up having parathas and chicken, made in the traditional south Indian way. This is a funny episode. The server gives us 2 parathas each and goes off to fetch the kurma. He returns and finds the parathas lying wholesome. So the server does the service of tearing them into eatable pieces and pours kurma on them. We make it into a workable mixture and manouver around the plantain leaf and eat it. The next round of parathas arrive. We sit simply, expecting him to tear the parathas. This time around, the server thinks we are bums and just pours the kurma on the untouched parathas and leaves. I look at VVD and his lower lip pouts out like a kid’s, when something of it is taken away. Such an innocent expression coming from the face of a 25 year old guy!
We move on, after a heavy lunch and a cold drink. Feeling sleepy. We cross Tanjore without calamity and reach the bypass around Tanjore. The road has so many turns and major intersections that we had to ask so many people the way around. And VVD comes to my help even now. I usually stop the bike and ask “anna, which way to kumbakonam”. But VVD shouts “Kumbakonam anna!!!!” at the top of his voice. He startled the wits of one person and he scared off a poor man struggling to pedal his rickshaw.
We had to stop again, for some refreshments, for the heat was killing us. We drink coffee and water and reach Dharasuram. We ask our way to the temple and we find that the temple opens pnly at 4 pm. It was only 3.30 then. So we walk around the stonewalls of the temple and we find a way into the temple through the construction site. The walk and the corridors of the temple are paved with stone and its HOT! We run to the nearest shade and we are not disappointed with our efforts. Its cool under the shade and we walk around the corridors.
I will describe the temple now. It is a very ancient temple and it has very intricate sculptures and very fine work on stone. It’s a Shaivaite temple, the presiding deity being Lord Shiva as Iravadheeshwarar. The shrine is protected by the Archeological Survey of India and is a UNESCO World Heritage Monument. The latter is funding the restoration work. They were giving serial numbers to the various stones and literally taking the temple apart and putting it back in shape. The pillars are carved so well and so intricately. The shrine is devoid of any visitors, at this hour. So we have it all to ourselves.
We find an opening in the ceiling, and a ladder conveniently near. So we decide to go on to the roof. We go there and take some snaps and look at the temple’s tower from close quarters. It’s so quiet and desolate. Awesome feeling it was. Then someone among the construction workers orders us down from the terrace, and scolds us for going up there. I have never been on a temple terrace before. It was definitely worth the abuses sustained, and the shaky ladder!
We climb down and generally walk through the temple. We reach the sanctum sanctorum. We pray and meditate for some time. And we sit on some steps and take photographs of ourselves. Our VVD made it a point to talk personally to every deity within the temple premises. He even became the royal DJ at the dance hall of the temple. He even mixed a new number in his vocal chords right there. Hats off to his creative mind!
In the same hall, there was a spot where there was light permeating through a small glass window on the ceiling. It created an effect of a spotlight in the otherwise dark room. VVD stood under the light, with arms reaching for the light, like a prophet or like a rock star seeking ecstasy through the light. I did the same thing, but never even got close to aura that VVD was able to create at the spot.
We walk out of the temple, thirsty and tired. There is another temple at Patteeswaram, some 5-6 kms from here. Supposedly a temple of similar dates and dimensions. But we decide not to go there and go to a shop, where I devour a liter of cold water and VVD drinks a Pepsi.
We start back and I decide to drive fast and we are barreling down the road. Overtaking everybody. I don’t know why, but every buffalo and goat near the road tried to get itself killed at my hands. Had to brake hard so many times.
We crossed Tanjore and I had to fill up petrol. I decide to do it at the next petrol bunk, rather than backtracking into Tanjore. We keep coming toward home, when a very weird thing happens. We run out of gas!
The eternal rider in me wakes up! I hitch a ride with a motor cyclist and reach the next village, buy some kerosene mixed petrol and get a lift from some truck and get back to my bike in 15 min. we start off again. We stopped at the petrol bunk. It was just 2 kms further from the spot where we had been stranded.
We get back to college in one piece. And I take a warm shower and I walk out of my room, in a clean shirt and jeans. Feels so good. To be back after a brief break, feeling fresh and new. It’s a beautiful life.