Escape!

It’s been quite a while since I have gone on a meaningful ride. It’s the daily drag to the office and back in Chennai’s stupid choking traffic. I was supposed to leave for home last night by bus, but I decided to ride home like in the old days in college.

When I travel on work, preparing for the trip is brusquer and to the point. You take the bare essentials. You need no back up. Trains don’t breakdown generally! If a bus breaks down, you get onto another bus and head onwards. You take your shaving kit, your chargers, your underwear and anything else can be found wherever you go. It takes 15 minutes, maximum.

When you are going to ride to someplace, or even drive down in a car, things are certainly different. You have to get the tools, fit the luggage boxes, pack things in such a way that they fit in to the carriers. Pack your laptop so that it won’t break. Find a good rope, and fasten your stuff so that the duffel bag doesn’t fall off, and the rope doesn’t get into the wheels. You work out the route, grab a good map and memorize the distances and landmarks. Your favorite pair of jeans has to be washed and ready. Your glove must be findable. Your windcheater must not smell of moths. Your bandana must not be lost from the last trip. Your gloves must be searched. The spare bulbs, cables and oils have to be remembered and packed suitably. It gets hectic the previous evening.

It feels like preparing for an important event. Like you are going to an interview and want to make sure you turn up in your best clothes and charms. It’s almost similar to such an event. Only this time, you turn off your mobile, sit on your saddle and do some real riding. You are not making an impression on anybody, not pleasing anybody to get something. Your machine is the only thing that will listen to you, and it will decide your fate and you it’s. Then it is the open highway, racing and fun and some peace. Escape!

“I” is nothing

I rode from Vijayawada to Chennai for a last time. I was riding like I was possessed by the winds. I made 480 kms in 6 hrs flat!

Due to the heavy cross winds, I could not do more than 110 kmph. The average speed was around 100 kmph. I have never done it this quick. A Volvo does it in 7 hrs, the fastest train in 6.5 hrs. And a Royal Enfield in 6 hrs!

It was going easy, apart from the odd pedestrian who wants to die only in your hands, and the one off buffalo that wants to chew cud in the middle of a tarmac road that is burning hot.

It was a strange sense of achievement for me. What I was feeling cannot be explained in clear terms now. The fact that I could fly was one feeling I can remember always when I ride, an open road, a powerful horse, early mornings, star filled skies, the wind’s roar, frequent villages, rustic eat outs and the odd smoke and the frequent song that the mind hums within itself.

I am my God in those times. I control a machine ruthlessly. I defy fate that could be different if I had taken a train. I create risks for myself and then I beat them to safety. I create a respite for myself, a comfort zone, where I am unreachable to anyone, not liable to answering. I have Escaped, from the ordinary, from the mundane, from man. I am nothing then. “I” is nothing. But that is bliss!

2 lanes are enough

India is poised to become a superpower they say. What with the roads become golden quadrilaterals, there is no doubt that India will become one.

One of my truck customers in Vijayawada who operates trucks from Vijayawada to Calcutta told me that his fuel costs alone had gone down by 30% after the golden quadrilateral became a reality. Running time is reduced from 48hrs to 36hrs. Tyre mileage has gone up. Maintenance has come down. Accidents have come down drastically. And so on and so forth.

But for a discerning biker like me, it doesn’t matter, does it? I am looking for a good ride. Some thrills, some pleasure. In such a system of metrics the 4 laners of today fall far short of the conventional 2 lane Indian highway.

In a 4-lane road, there is no upcoming traffic, and all one has to do is keep the vehicle straight and relax. Easy overtaking, no glaring headlight beams. It feels so damn boring!

In a fast 2-lane road, there is excitement on the offing. When you overtake, there is upcoming traffic to contend with. There are these fast cuts, quite pulsating and exciting. And it can be exacting also to the driver. Drivers are usually more aggressive in these road conditions.

India has never needed a dirt track racing league or a formula series, just for this reason. For, our motoring thrills are being satisfied in our everyday lives. All it takes for an ardent motor enthusiast or a dare devil driver to get an adrenalin rush is to take his car or bike to the local highway and try to overtake and race with other cars, bikes, trucks, and quite recently, the Volvos!

You can draw out personality types from the driving styles. There are saints, good Samaritans, the monsters, the bitches, the chronic moaners, the manically sick, the patiently persistent, the timidly conscious & unconscious, the wily fox, the show off assole and so many other types.

When you pit your life against such an array of characters, it is an act of madness that results from it. Pumping heart, sometimes rage, sometimes charity. Amid all this there will be a dog who will want to cross the road to mark his territory. A sudden brake, screeching tyres, the dog yet lives. Feels like God.

The Zahir - with the Luggage Carrier

Mileage Marathon!!!!!!!!!

We had a mileage marathon last Sunday at Vizag. Meaning “we call our vehicles and competition vehicles; give them load, and do a mileage test”. The winner gets a cash prize. Simple.

Not so simple guys. We were directly challenging Tata, and we had to be careful. So we did a midnight mileage trial, with one Tata vehicle and one Eicher vehicle. As unexpected, the Tata vehicle gave a higher mileage! Lost sleep that night. Woke my boss up at 3.00 am, and we were having a discussion as to whether the event can be cancelled.

Head quarters said nothing doing. Go ahead. Be confident, and our vehicles will win. So we carried on.

As again unexpected, Tata vehicle won the next day out of the 11 vehicles that participated. We somehow managed to manage the situation! Why all this hullabaloo? Let Tata have the Tata mileage and let Eicher have the Eicher mileage.

Morals

It got really hot in Vijayawada last night. So much that I could not sleep at all the whole night. Sweat was pouring down me by the bucketfuls. I tried taking bath twice during the course of the night, but to no comfortable end. It sweated more.

It was 4.30 am and I could stand it no longer. I decided to go out to have a cup of coffee. You have to wear those bloody helmets at all times you ride a motorcycle here in Andhra. Just the other day I paid a fine of Rs. 100 at 5.30 am in the morning! So I thrust my wet head into the helmet and set out to drink some coffee.

There was a gentle breeze, and I felt revived under its caresses. I decided to hit the highway to Guntur, my favorite road. I kept riding for about 45 min at slow speed, enjoying the cool air. My back was aching from the lack of sleep, but I was not tired. My spirits were high. The headlight beams of the trucks were amusing to see in the slight fog that was enveloping the morning. The sun was just about permeating through the murky indifference of the night that was giving up so easily, as happens at this time of the year.

I decided to stop at a motel, in plain terms nothing more than a dhaba, with some cots and chairs lying dispersed by the side of the highway that was getting busier by the moment. An attendant, who turned cold only when I did not want breakfast, but just coffee, greeted me with a cold nod. I got the coffee, and I went around to another small shop to get some matches.

I was lighting my cigarette when I heard a lady’s voice asking for a cup of tea. I turned around wondering what a woman could be doing at such a place at this time. She was about 35 years of age, slightly plump, with long hair and flowers longer than them. She was wearing a very shiny saree that was but a cheap imitation of silk. Her face was all powdered; she smelled of some inexpensive perfume, her lips were colored by a shade of red that could be termed too bright.

It took some time for me to come to terms with the sight of the woman I was seeing. It took only a moment to distinguish her as someone who sells sex. I instinctively walked toward my bike, as if it could shelter me from my own notions of being near such a lady in a public setting. I felt more secure near the motorcycle.

The cold attendant never turned toward her, and she had to ask for her cup of tea more than 5-6 times, when there was no other customer to be served. The shopkeeper was just ignoring her. She then produced some coins as payment. The former satisfied as to the prudence of giving her some tea, gave it to her in the end.

I noted that there was a downcast countenance about the woman. Her eyes were nearly wet by the time she had got her cup of tea. Her face was distorted by some torment that could be discerned even in the dull setting.

I observed that there was some audio playing on a loudspeaker. It was a local made drama in Telugu, with obscenities, as would no parent warrant their children to be afflicted with. Pointed deliberations about embarrassing things, double meaning phrases. There was general laughter at some of the jokes by the truckers present and having an early breakfast.

Sex was being downgraded, sullied and sold. The person who sells it is never happy. The person who buys it is never satisfied. The onlooker is always disgusted, though one may feel all the sympathy for the woman. What is a primal need for an animal is still a primal need for man. Man has grown no more than a dog in morality, though we can state fancy phrases and concepts as accepting prostitution as a necessary evil for the society. We have grown intelligent.

The society maintains its propriety; the individual need not lose morality. For some actions can be classed as necessarily immoral, but can be ignored to avoid the sex drive of men being turned toward adultery and its complications. Aren’t dogs better in morals? They haven’t claimed to possess morals, have they? Prostitution is only an indicator of one individual’s moral decadence? No.

It is the outcome of a moderation of values that is required to make a system work. It is the systematic and cold-hearted work of ingenuity worth our applause. Give a man some easy thrills and he will never question the system. His unfathomable moral gravity will feed him with opium and put him to a guilty, yet tranquil sleep. The greater cause of a group of people or a family can thus be won too.

Feed a country with cheap liquor and opium, there will be no revolution for a hundred years. Feed a man with some thin layer of accession over his actions, and he will not mind complying with another set of morals questionably not his own. When will we grow up? When will we be perfect?

My last trip as a free man.

Last year this time.

I had just finished college. It was april 18th and the exams were over, and I went home, amid very emotional scenes in college. Everyone would be departing today, never to see each other again, may be, may be not.

I was at home for 3-4 days, when I started getting restless with the inactivity and slothfulness I was feeling for quite a long time before leaving college. I started to prepare to leave home. My parents were reluctant to let me go, since this would be last sojourn at home. I tore myself away from home, and went to Chennai, to Haree’s place.

From there I took his motorcycle, a Pulsar 150, and started planning for a week long trip to Kodai, Munnar and Cochin. I bought maps. I planned out everything. The plan was this.

Day 1: Chennai to Kodai via. Trichy. (530 kms)
Day 2: Kodai
Day 3: Kodai
Day 4: Kodai to Munnar (160 kms)
Day 5: Munnar to Cochin (120 kms)
Day 6: Cochin
Day 7: Cochin to Chennai (740 kms)

It was the peak of the summer. I started off early from Chennai and reached Kodai by late after noon. I took a bed at the TTDC dorm for a rock bottom Rs. 80 per day. I managed to bribe a room boy to give me access to a well-heated room with hot water and the works for a mere 50 rupees a day.

It was a nice 2 days at Kodai. I had nothing to do, but to loiter around in my bike, goto some cliff or precipice and wile away time, reading or meditating. It was the peak of the tourist season and there were a lot of people around me like myself, who just wanted to chill out and relax.

I left kodai on a morning, and came down to the plains and then again climbed the hils to Munnar. I have never been in a mountain road more picturesque than this one. The road between Cumbum and Munnar. 50 kms of visual delights, tea gardens, deep ravines, and near vertical gradients.

I took a very comfortable room at a place called Munnar Tourist Home, and stayed there for 2 days. Then I started off to Cochin. I had a friend there, with whom I spent a couple of days in comfort and contentedness.

Then it was the marathon ride to Chennai, 740 kms, via Palghat and Coimbatore. I have never ridden so much in a day. I started off at 9.30 am in the morning and reached chennai at 11.10 pm in the night. I never did more than 90 kmph.

I came back to Chennai, stayed for a couple of days to do shopping and equip myself for my debut as a professional. I then left for Indore to join Eicher, never again to be that free to roam around on a motorcycle. Never again to be so unstressed. Never again to be so open and free.

I recall this now, a year later, because to leave out this trip as a mere memory would be a great injustice to the innocence that governed my actions before I started working. I have never been freer in my life. I have never been so happy, again.