PROLOGUE: It
all started on the lunch table. Heads came together to hatch a plan. You free…me
free…Sunday..bikes...
So off we
are…5.30 becomes 7…the sky shows us a beautiful painting of the sunrise..what a
beginning. Chai and some jabs at Cummins later, we head off to Lavaasa. Every now
and then, nature just forces us to brake. Out of the world scenes..making one
feel like this is it..this is all I want… Reaching a lake, we ‘brake’ for lunch. ‘Ramu
kaka’ cooking some pohe and pitla-bhakri gives us time for some mud packs,
observe insects walking on water, stone bounces, ‘tab se mai hi baat karri hoon’, and ‘arrey,
yeh toh hum se jyaada animals se baat karta hai’!
Now heading
to our final destination…Madeghat…Stony road…Sharp turns…can my Access take it?
Besides, the fuel gauge is threatening me!
I am just getting the feel of the bike (and too much of the road) when
suddenly..eek…my bike rams into a friend’s car! I try to remove it..its
stuck..A friend comes out and hauls the bike out. An apologetic smile is given
and observations of a dangerously hanging mud guard and safety measures are
made (something I would have failed to notice had it not been for mechanical
engineers around)..my confidence slightly punctured..we reach a
village..Huddled under a tree, a blessing is the last thing we want..It turns
out that we thought of too less. Almost on to a shoulder drops a chicken’s
foot!! Somebody casually comments on it being a sign of challenge. Leaving my
bike to recoup and conserve its energy, I get into the car. Reaching Madeghat,
after a tiny climb, everyone gets into snooze mode.
Heading
back, with friends acting as moral police to rest of the visitors, the skilled
car owner uses his ‘to’ experience and dodges stones. Until the point where a
stony patch looks unvisited. Oops!! We did not come this way. Enquiries and
reverses bring us back on the right track. Nearing the village, we are welcomed
by worried friends and ‘awesome’ news..the bull’s tire is punctured. Wow!! Just when we think that it can only get
better, it turns out that the mechanic can’t perform the surgery. The bike is
ambulanced to a nearby village in a pick-up where friends are swaying along
with the bike to keep it level across gradients. The other bike obediently
follows. As security measures, redistribution of passengers causes the
car-owner to give up his rightful ‘drivership’ to another friend. My statements
of ‘we should start’ fall on deaf ears of the one whose eyes/ears and if
possible, the nose, is also directed to his car. Manouvering buses on the
narrow paths makes my pillion want to take on the wheels of his car almost as
fast as the rate his BP is growing! All this when the only light there is, is
from stars and headlamps.
Finally
reaching the village, we come to know that the bike is already being repaired.
Long explanations of the mechanics behind it makes for educational
entertainment to some friends while the rest of us are busy enjoying a
‘bonfire’. Two errors in fixing the bike, costing us almost two hours at the
village, we finally head back. Not just head back..ride on good road..through
teeth chattering chills..pep ourselves up with some tea..and reach Chandni
Chowk at 12! Hunger calls..but all responders asleep..finally, one is discovered.
A good meal..after sudden realizations of how late it is and how one cannot
miss office the next day, we head to our respective homes.
EPILOGUE:
The door opens and I expect to see only dad awake. No, every single resident
is. I tell them what I learnt today..I won’t take the access on a road trip
again. The expected “I told you so” follows (ofcourse the comment is from a
sibling!) but there’s more…daddy quips, “Next time…what next time..” I decide
to put next times to the back of my head and go to bed after a long, eventful
and extremely contented day!
Somebody
feels extremely happy as this was something he was really looking forward to.
And with its little misadventures, it couldn’t get better!!
Somebody(tedi :p :)) gets
to ride the FZ and gets to shift in and out of this universe and a parallel one :p.
Somebody becomes an expert at car reverses.
One learnt
few more words in Hindi and felt that taking self-pics is way more entertaining than climbing up rest of the hill :p.
One learnt
more about the different screws/pins(forgive the plane jane words instead of
mechanical jargon) that go in a puncture.
And the
other story, well…it starts like this..tumne suna kya… or just an “ahem
ahem” should be good enough!
