2006-02-11: Shravanbelagola, Ranganthittu & Brindavan Garden

It happens once in 12 years. Its one of the most sacred rituals for our Jain Society – Mahamastakabhisheka of Lord Bahubali at Shravanbelagola.


The start
The ‘plan’ (if we can call it one) was finalized very much at EOD (end of day) of 10th. This time, yet again, it was only 2 of us, Abdulla and I. Milind had other plans. He was to go to Ranibennur for his friend’s wedding. Thanks to our unofficial Central Karnataka guide, Raghu (our colleague and mentor here, @hp), we were kind of sure that we would not be spending the entire day at Shravanbelagola. He had mentioned that we may take an alternate route via Srirangapattna. Well, we took his advise, though not exactly in the way he would have expected (more on this later). We started close to 7 in the morning on the next day on my bike. Thanks to the nearly deserted Ring Road Jn after Yeswantpur, we had crossed Nelamangala by 8am.


A known Caller

9am. We were feasting on delicious Kesari Bhaat. Just as I was waiting for Masala Dosa to pitch in, I took my cell out; it showed me having missed a call. It was a familiar no, it was Milind. I dialed back.
“Hey Milind, where are you rite now?”
“I’m taking my breakfast right now.”
“Same here, having Dosa.”
“Am at home, visiting my friend @ Ranibennur got cancelled. When are you starting for Shravanbelagola, coz I’ll also join you.”
“We are in Kunigal (~90kms from Bangalore)…”
“Oh Sh**! I missed it! Anyway, what’s your program?”
“Will be reaching Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary around 3pm, once we are done with Shravanbelagola.”
“Great! I’ll join you there then. My friend, Mohan, will also be coming along…”
“Ok, see you then!”

So, Milind was not going to be away from us after all!


The Uphill Task

Once we reached SB (enough of ShravanBelagola!!), our next job was to get the darshan of Lord Bahubali, a.k.a. Lord Gomteshwara. His Statue, the largest standing monolith in the world, is about 60 feet tall, and rests atop the Vindhya Giri hill in SB. One has to climb more than thousand steps to get to him. It took us ‘some’ effort and about half an hour before we found ourselves at his feet. Well, kind of sad, you may call us being unprepared – the temporary platform set up in front of him is accessible only to those who take a pass for INR750 in advance. All we got was a little glimpse in the ‘through-fare’. Not satisfied, but contended.


Off to Srirangapattna

We detained our plan to take lunch at SB till we found a good ‘dhaaba’. Gulped down some sugarcane juice followed by ‘badaam’ milked, and off we went. Thanks to the event occurring only once in 12 years, the government successfully managed to get the roads back in shape. All of 50+ kms were done within 1 hour. All we missed was a good place to find food. Srirangapattna came to rescue. The meal followed with a small sight seen into the capital fort city of Tipu Sultan. Though, not many photos could be taken, all my camera batteries had gone dead, and the alkaline ones were not all that promising!


Inside Ranganthittu

It was exactly 3pm when we entered the bird sanctuary. Milind called up, but the news was not all that great. He informed that it would take him another hour or more to catch us. Not waiting for him, we started for the all famous boat ride. Till we got into a boat, the only bird that we found was, well, the crow! Once onboard, I was seriously missing my SLR camera, and its new 75-300mm lens! The Siberian Cranes were the most populous of them all, though; there were quite a few other birds as well. One thing that was not to be missed was the crocodile, or the ‘magar’. I’d never seen so lazy ones in my entire life! Nothing used to flatter them – the boats and the birds treated alike. For that matter, even the birds had a sense of indifference to the humans around. They simply wore that typical ‘I don’t care’ attitude!


Enter Milind & Mohan

Milind lived up to his reputation of being as late as possible. He showed up only at 5:50pm, 10 minutes before they stop entry into the sanctuary! He was bound to miss the boat ride, and he did miss it. Even after quite a bit of persuasion, he was not successful in getting the boating guy along… We stayed there till it got dark, and then, in magnificent moon-light, proceeded towards our last stop for the day, Brindavan Garden.


The Light Show

We found ourselves at the entrance of the famous garden around 7:20pm. This was the precise time that I had come here last, with my Sis. Just like the last time, we were not allowed to go on the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam; entry is prohibited from that direction. Now, the only way to enter the park is directly near the sluice gate reservoir. The only difference this time was the timing of illumination: Monday – Friday: After dark till 7:55pm (instead of 7:25pm) Saturday – Sunday: After dark till 8:55pm (instead of 8:25pm) As usual, the lights provided a spectacular view. We noticed that the sluice gate reservoir had been completely drained out and some de-silting kind of activity was going on near the North Side of Garden.


The return journey

We started around 9pm from the Garden, and after some 1 and half hours found ourselves in Maddur, feasting on some ordinary dinner. Yes, I didn’t misuse the word – feasting we were, as all of us were just so hungry! The break was a pretty long one. Apart form this, there was only 1 break, for tea near Bidadi. Milind and Mohan parted ways with us at the beginning of Lalbagh Road. I was not home before 2:25am, as I dropped Abdulla at his place around 2:10. Exactly 420kms done for the day and bottom still not complaining! This time was really different – The ghost of bad roads (which ALWAYS accompanies Abdulla) somehow didn’t find a great company in us. May be, it was Lord Bahubali’s blessings that did the trick for us…

The photos can be found here.

2005-12-28: Karwar & Goa

9 days of furlough @hp.
4 out of 9 days already used up to visit ‘Malgudi’!
5 days remaining. Got to drive during day time only because of ongoing winter…
But one thing that never came out of our minds was GOA!


We had been waiting for this for a long time and one of two incidences were not going to keep us back…

December 28th, tripped the odometer and off we were! The ARM was devoid of M – Milind, who was off to Pune with his parents.
This time, two guys on one bike. There was simply no space for nightmares in mind, just one thing, no points for guessing – GOA, what else!

Time to deviate
We got a call from Milind, suggesting us to take a deviation to Karwar instead of directly entering Goa via Londa. I liked the idea and our ‘planned’ trip went off track. But then, this was the last GOOD suggestion that we had from Milind!

The never ending saga
Once we crossed Chitradurga, there was no sign of Hubli, our next biggest stop and the deviating point. When leaving Bangalore, I saw a board mentioning “Hubli 360kms”. According to calculations, as we had already covered ~210kms, Hubli was only 150kms! But it would not be the case, as we later found out… with all the sign boards removed from the road and Hubli being no where in sight even after 170kms, frustration was starting to tell through our faces. It was never the distance, but the ignorance that we were getting annoyed at. Then, as I saw the VRL depot, I knew that we had finally made it. So much so, that when we posed at the Hubli-Dharwad Bypass hoarding, we had surely given Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay a run for their money!

Enter Karwar
I had a silent desire to ride on this part of NH-17 on the western coast every since I had been here with Neeraj. Though we couldn’t benefit from the view it would have put forward, still was very satisfactory. Once we reached Karwar, I just happened to look at the Odometer, it said 603kms. A record for me in a day, which was soon to be bettered…

Being in Goa
This was the experience we were longing for. From hills to valleys, from villages to towns and from beaches to babes! More on this in Abdulla’s excerpt.



On our way back – Initial set back
It was ages that I’d seen a Sun Rise. Doing it on the New Year’s Day was a feeling that would long be cherished! A new beginning to life. A new beginning to my odometer too, literally, because it read 001km! we had done more than 1000 kms from the time we had set out for Goa.
Thanks to Milind’s latest suggestion (for which he was made to feel sorry later on), we took the Panjim -> Ponda -> Londa -> Belgaum -> Hubli route to Bangalore. No doubt, the Ghat section in between Ponda and Londa was just too good, but all the good things regarding this route ended here. Some time after we entered Karnataka, we suddenly found ourselves within nowhere. With only huge dumpers on road (road is a misnomer here, I should rather say, relative empty spaces in between trees, occupied with dense red dust, huge boulders and broken down vehicles), we entered straight into hell! Normal road was simply no where to be seen, nor anyone on road who could confirm that we were still on ‘an excellent’ NH-4A (as mentioned by Milind)! After some 20+ kms and nearly 1 and half hours of struggle, we reached Ramnagar. Without any second thoughts, we took the shortcut to Hubli-Dharwad, a 63 kms of non-existing road which would save at least 90kms (if we would have gone via Belgaum). After some road-hunting (analogous to treasure hunting) and more than 2 hours of concentration, we found ourselves back on the Dharwad-Hubli Bypass road.

Continuing forward
After a total of around 16 hours of drive, we found ourselves in the heart of Bangalore. Drained physically, but not mentally, we decided to drop in at Brigade Road for our last bit of photo session. 10 minutes later, I was dropping off Abdulla at his place in Jayanagar. When I reached home, the odometer said 643kms. We had done a ~1650kms in the past 5 days. I was tired, but very satisfied. Its time to let the bottoms take a mini break. But the stress would be on ‘mini’, as till I have people like Abdulla around me, no trip is big enough to hold me back for long. His sheer presence, support and sense of humor had made all the difference; this otherwise lengthy trip made to look small and easy, something impossible if he wouldn’t be around.

The photos can be found here!

2005-12-24: Malgudi Days

“Ta na na tana na na na
Ta na na tana na na na …”

This is what was on my lips when we started for Agumbe on the morning of 24th December. Shiv had come down from Hyderabad just for this trip.
“I’m planning a break for the upcoming Christmas Hols and flying down to Bangalore, but see to it that I don’t spend the entire time in Bangalore!”, were his words minutes after he got his flight tickets confirmed. I was more than happy to oblige my partner in my first ever Bike Trip (to Coorg).

Shiv had arrived on 23rd afternoon, as per his schedule. The only thing that was to be finalized was WHERE. After spending something like 5 minutes discussing the destination, Agumbe was finalized. For those who don’t know, this was the place where Shankar Nag’s famous “Malgudi Days” was shot.

The start
We started in morning, instead of the general night time, owing to the already set winter. The drive till Chickmangalur was pretty smooth and uneventful. There were some stops for taking food and of course the photographs in Sun Flower fields. It was only after Chickmangalur that we found the roads depleted. Once we entered those fantastic coffee estates, everything was good but for the road. The Bhadra River presented a spectacular view, easily enviable by the Kerela lagoons. We were starting to get worried whether we would be able to reach Agumbe to see it world famous Sun Set.

The Breath Taking Moment
As we reached Agumbe, it was already six o’clock. We thought that we had lost it; missing it by whisker. But destiny had something else in store for us. The road was fully enveloped by tall trees on either side of road with sun lost some where behind them. Then suddenly or rather miraculously, the trees got separated opening up the sky right in front of us, with the road virtually coming to an abrupt end and a giant Red Ball coming down on us. What a moment! All the 455kms done from Bangalore till now were more than justified… The two us just carried on, speechless. The Sun Set Point/Platform was around the corner, but we had already seen what we had come for. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life till now…

Night Halt
Once the sun had set, we started the climb down, negotiating those steep 13 hair-pin curves and some 10 odd kilometers before we found ourselves in Hebri. Some tedious negotiations with the Hotel guy and dumping our bag in the room, we were off for a much deserved dinner to a near by garden restaurant. What followed was one of the best dinners I have had.

Bad Beginning
We were on the road by 7am the next day. Destination – the Sitanadi River Camp (4kms from Hebri), for White Water Rafting. But we didn’t get a welcome there. We were informed that the water level in the river had fallen down enough to make rafting impossible; the Varahi Dam upstream being responsible. Now, what to do next? Thankfully, while we were trying to chalk out the itinerary for the rest of the day, we saw this house nearby. There was this very hospitable couple, Mrs. & Mr. Reddy, who gave us a warm welcome and helped us out with a plan for the rest of the day, not to forget the big bottle of water offered!

Something Fishy
We were on our way to Shringeri, up the Agumbe Ghats, around 40kms away. Once we reached there, it was a whole new experience. The place was cleaner than expected. Without wasting much time, we went in search of the famous ‘Fish Bank’. There’s this place on the banks of River Tunga, where devotees offer prasadam to the fish in water. One will be amazed to see the density and size of fishes that are there. Just unbelievable! There were just too many of them! The scene just went way beyond the hype that accompanies it. We spent more than 2 hrs here before proceeding towards our next and final stop over before returning back to Bangalore.

Good ways are back again
Once out of Shringeri, we were greeted by good road once again. We were on NH-13 and on our way to Dharmasthala, another pilgrimage of very high importance in South India. On our way, we went through the picturesque Kudremukh National Park. The evergreen forests (as we were told) were just mind blowing. We say the last of NH-13 once we came down a Ghat section on the national highway.

In Dharmasthala
We were not lucky enough to get the Darshan at temple here. The temple doors were closed till 5 o’clock and that would have been just too late for us to start back for Bangalore. Thanks to Ananth, we knew that there were other things here which would be of our interest. The Car Museum and the statue of Lord Bahubali atop a small hill were simply worth seeing.

Coming back
The journey was pretty smooth once again, thanks some major repair work taken up on Shiradi Ghats (which were literally unmotorable during my last stint, Puncture Trip). We had left a deficit of 7kms to complete 900kms when we got back home in Bangalore. This was a ‘pilot’ trip to the oncoming ‘biggie’, but never the less very exciting, and by far the biggest round trip I had done on my bike!

The photos can be found here!

Bang to Bhag! Trip of lifetime

“The train won’t be able to get you to Chennai in time. Also, its raining heavily out there. Be careful…” were the words that Satish spoke out when he heard my plans of visiting Bhagalpur, my home town. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon of 27^th October. According to my plan, I was scheduled to leave by the night train, Chennai Mail, for Chennai, where I needed to board Coromandel Express for Howrah at 9am. There was a disruption in rail traffic to Chennai due to a mishap near Bangarpet, about 60kms from Bangalore. As a result, the trains bound to Chennai were diverted through Salem, making the total journey time to Chennai double of normal time, nearly 10 hours.

It was raining ‘Bulls and Cows’ as I finally decided to make a move from office around 4pm. But I was prepared – equipped with a water resistant jacket, a Bermuda and Woodland’s sandals. Yes, that was my dress code for office that day! I went home, packed my bag, had an early dinner and was off in, well, not exactly a flash, but then, I tried my level best to be quick! By 7:30pm, I found myself at Kempegowda Bus Terminus, searching desperately for a ticket in any Chennai bound bus. After some great tussle and hustle, I finally managed to get an Airavat (a KSRTC Volvo bus) ticket for 10:10 departure. The bus left only by 10:45pm, but I was not bothered, as I trusted the bus to make it to Chennai latest by 6 next morning. I was not disappointed; I found myself in Chennai at 5:15. The bus was late by an hour but no one was complaining!

As I got down of the city bus (that I boarded from the interstate bus terminus to avoid the flooded streets), it was nearly 6. Glad to be in Chennai Central (railway station), I called up home, just to be informed that Babul Bhaiya (my cousin, staying in Hyderabad) or BB hereby, was also reaching Howrah on the same day as me, and that he would be taking the same train to Bhagalpur. I was more than glad, for I had not met him for more than 2 years! ‘What a time ahead of me!’ With the ‘worst’ part of my travel already over, I was really getting excited, wishing that the journey to Howrah would have been 4hours instead of the normal 1day and 4hours! What I wasn’t aware of was of course the great journey ahead of me… A journey 1 of its kind!!

As I entered the station, I saw never ending queues of Homo sapiens at all the ticket counters! It looked as if they were distributing free tickets!! Puzzled, as I moved forward towards the Ticket Status Enquiry phone booths, I noticed that none except one of the electronic displays was working. To my irritation, same was the case for the enquiry booths; I had to check the allotted berth (as I was wait-listed when I bought the ticket, but got a confirmation just before I started for Chennai). As I diverted my attention to the ‘last man standing’, the display board was flashing a list of all delayed and cancelled trains. ‘Ah! Just because of 1 train mishap, a hell lot of trains have been affected!’ But wait! I was about to get the first shock of the morning! The very first name was ‘Tamil Nadu Express’. Now I knew that this train was not Bangalore bound, but in fact was to go towards Vijayawada (with final destination as New Delhi), which was the precise route I was to go on… As I read the list further down, terror stuck – the last train number read as follows: 2842, Coromandel Express was also in the list! What a waste!! Firstly, they had not informed me in advance about the cancellation, and secondly, they could have delayed the train in worst case. Then it dawned to me – the queue at the ticket counter was not for getting tickets, but for getting full refund of the tickets already purchased!! ‘Why did they cancel the train just because Chennai was flooded? Once we move out of the city, it would have been fine again! I had a buffer of 8 hours of transit time in Howrah…’

Just as proceeding towards Tirupati started to take shape, someone informed that ‘Andaman Express’ (bound to Delhi via same route as Tamil Nadu Express) was about to leave from platform no 9. I was quick to grab the opportunity and with some luck found the train moving by 6:30! I called up BB to update him of my situation.

‘I’ll be there in Vijayawada by 2:30pm’

‘But my train, Falaknuma Express is also scheduled for a delayed start of around 2 hours, thanks to heavy rain in Visakhapatanam!’

So THAT was the problem of all these cancellations… I wondered.

‘If you get a train for Howrah in quick time, don’t wait for me in Vijayawada, as I may reach there only around 1 o’clock at night!’, continued BB.

‘As you say…’ I murmured.

‘Once you are about to reach Vijayawada, give me a ring.’

‘Ok.’

---More to come!

2005-10-08: The 'Puncture' trip

“Veer tum bade chalo, dheer tum badhe chalo
Samne pahaad ho, ya singh ki dahaad ho…”


This classic was the poem for the three musketeers. These three were – Abdulla, Rishi and Milind or ARM! This was the first ever bike trip for A, while the first night drive for M. As for R, it was his first solo riding trip. Yes, these guys were going on their individual bikes, no one wanted to miss out a kilometer by being a pillion for this time!

Destination – Marvanthe, to be traversed in two steps, Bangalore to Mysore and then Mysore to Marvanthe (via Hunsur, Kushalnagar, Madikeri & Manglore). To come back to Bangalore via Mangalore, Sakleshpur, Hassan & Nelmangala (NH-48). Return expected to Bangalore - around 2am on Monday.

Saturday, 3pm – For a change, NOTHING started well. My faith in the INSAT pictures shown in ‘The Hindu’ was completely shattered! Instead of a pin point stop, the entire sky went wickedly dark! Not more than 3 kms of the imposing 1000+ kms, all the sky wanted to come down on us; suddenly, we found ourselves in Bagalkot, amidst knee deep water which didn’t look to recede back. With very heavy rain and me drenched, it got only worse when I lost A & M. they were moving ahead of me; it was decided that if we get separated, we’ll all stop over after 20kms. 2kms before the newly coming up ‘Wonder Land’, I stopped. When I called them up, all I could make out was that they were behind me, and both were thankfully together. Just as I messaged them updating my location, there came a bus and my cell took a quick shower, or rather swim! Wanted to call them from a land line, so went ahead till Wonder Land deviation. To my dismay, my cell had already taken a toll by this time and my phone book was not readable. All seemed vague… till I saw a black Fiero with a familiar face under the helmet; It was A. soon M also came by and we were together again. Only one tragedy had stuck them, M had lost his headlight! After an uneventful journey, we finally reached the Mysore Palace at around 8pm.

What a view it was! Last year, when I and Mukesh had come to capture the lighting, we were ahead by one day; the lighting had started only the next day onwards. Asking a nearby shop-owner, we came to know that the Palace will be lit till 10:30pm that night. This meant that we had ample time to shoot it from around as well as from atop Chamundi Hills (about 10-12 kms from palace). Then came the mistake of the trip – we went ahead on a shopping spree, 3 identical pair of socks were purchased and were made to exchange places with our wet ones. 8:55pm, just as I took aim of the Palace, the lights went off!

“How come the lights went off, some technical problem?”
“No sir, they are switched on only till 9pm, today they have put it down 5 minutes early…”
“But we were told that it stays on till 10:30pm!”
“That’s not correct, its there only till 9”

It was all over for us, at least, for my camera! Another inspiration of returning to Mysore Dassera next year… We went in the Palace premises at a time when everyone inside seemed to go in the opposite direction – OUT. Good for us, the photos were much neater than they would have otherwise.

11:30pm. After a full meal and a trial at M’s headlight (in vain, as even though we had purchased the bulb, we didn’t have equipment to fit it on the new pulsar assembly L). We started off towards Kushalnagar, (hoping that we would find a mechanic shop open, but again didn’t succeed till next day morning). Reaching Hunsur was a pain. The last time I had traversed this road about 2 years back (with Shiv), it was really good, I had done 70kms in flat 55 minutes. And… this WAS the SAME road, untouched by the PWD. It was very difficult to find it first, and when we actually found the ‘remains’, it was difficult to traverse. Fog further marred our speed. We did a mere 20kms/hr average for the 2 hours on road after Mysore. Better this to come! I suddenly realized that the road had become narrow. “Oh God! It has gone so bad that it has got shrunk too!” The most foolish thought to get into a moderately experienced biker! I could not recognize the road. Then, a bus over took us, written on its hind side was “Kannur”, a place in Kerela, south of Madikeri. Just as I really started getting suspicious, wonder happened. We were asked to stop at a check-post.

“Where are you going at the middle of night?”
“Madikeri”
“Then what are you doing on this way?”

Gosh!! We were indeed lost!

“Ok, no harm done, you can take the next right, and continue for 5kms. You’ll hit the Mysore-Kushalnagar road.”
“Thanks a lot sir!!”

For the first time in my night travel history, I had got lost without suspecting it much!
Finally, we were back on track, and reached Kushalnagar at 4am. Just as we crossed Nisargadhama, A stopped suddenly, “Check my rear tyre!” “Confirmed, lets go back to Kushalnagar…” For the first time in A’s bike history, any of its tyres had got punctured. With not a single repair shop open, we decided to call it a err… day!

10am. We were at a repair shop. When we came out, A had a new tube for his rear tyre, and M had a new headlight. After some time, we were gazing at the amazing statues of Lord Buddha and his disciples at Namdyoling Tibetan Monastery. A quick brunch after that and we were off towards Harangi Dam. Though a bit late as we had come after the monsoons got over, the dam was still a splendid sight!

3:30pm and we were off to Kuke Subramanya. Yes. Our plans had been modified by the morning break in Kushalnagar. Instead of continuing towards Marvanthe, we headed for Kuke, an important Hindu religious shrine on the foothills of Bisle Ghat. On the way, we passed through some very scenic and unique spots. E.g. the overhead canal bridge -- carrying water from Harangi Dam towards Mysore. After negotiating some very bad roads (which had become an intrinsic part of our trip), we reached the Bisle Ghat entrance. Its closed after 6pm for the entire night due to animal movement. We were lucky! We marginally made it, at 6:15pm.

That was one of the most enjoyable stretches of the entire trip. Light drizzle and those amazing, spectacular clouds!! Oh, it still gives me those shivers… The Ghat constituted of some wicked hairpin bends, and very thin roads. So thin that at few places, the over grown grass on either side of road were cris-crossing each other. As those 28kms of Ghat came to an end, we reached a junction which said, “Kuke, 4kms” towards right.

8:15pm. After taking our dinner, we went to the temple and had a darshan. Strangely enough, we didn’t get the prasadam; “Counter has been closed for the day!”

9.00pm. All three were ready to start the last leg of our trip. All this while, we were traveling away from Bangalore. It was time that we headed back. But again, not so easily… “Hey, you have a flat tyre!” Victim – A again!! Not once in 1 and half years, and twice in a day! It was his rear tyre again. 2 hours of ordeal in finding a repair shop and getting things back, and we finally were on our way back journey.

Those 20kms of non-existent road till Gudili didn’t bother us much, as we knew that once on NH-48, we would sail through. Gudili came and Gudili went. All we got was a glimpse of good road. As soon as we entered the all famous Shiradi Ghats, it was a familiar picture. Once again, NO ROADS!! And no road it was till the next 40kms, i.e. till we reached Sakleshpur. Once there, it was the NH-48 we had heard of – smooth as silk. Fog yet again saw to it that we didn’t go beyond 60kmph. Result – an amazing mileage by my bike. Rarely has it given me more than 50kmpl on highways!

If you think the story’s over, then you are fooled J. 5am, and it was my time to get a feel of ‘puncture’ fever. “Not in nearly 3 years, and now today at this point of time. Exchanging bikes with M (owing to his feather-light built), we continued till we found a 24-hour repair shop. Some drama it was, to persuade the guy to wake up and attend to our cause!! 1 more hour down the drain and we were back on road. Only this time, THERE WAS NO PUNCTURE!! The tube was still intact. It was indeed, just a fever…

Just as we entered Bangalore, finally at 9:15am (instead of 4am), A’s bike refused to start after he had put it off (I was on call). 5 minutes (after a small wire came to our rescue to by-pass the ignition switch) and we finally headed towards our homes. That was the last piece in the big cake of adventure called our ‘Puncture’ trip!! A and I managed to resume office the same day while M took a much deserved FTO.

Photos are now at myphotoalbum.

2005-10-01: Biking in Pondicherry

My phone rang late at night; 0413-XXXXXXX was the number flashing on my cell. "Somewhere in Tamil Nadu, must be a wrong number..." As I pressed the green button on my cell and put the cell near my ears, a very familiar voice was on the other side. "Hey!! I'm here in Pondy, and you are coming here to visit me, and coming this weekend!!" It was Arnab. One trip together to Patna Rifle Shooting Competition with our parents had brought us together... that was more than 21 years back; we were still in nursery at that time!

It was already 10:30PM, and being a Friday night, it was impossible to get a bus ticket that late. Gloomy skies had already truncated any plans of riding down those ~300kms to Pondy on Bike :(. To add to it, few of my friends were coming down from Hyderabad to see me next morning... I had already given them commitment and could not turn it down now - they would have already be half way to Bangalore by now.

"I would try to start tomorrow some time, shall confirm the time before I leave." "Fine, BUT, you ARE coming!" "Ok baba, done!" It was more than two years that we had met last (in Kolhapur). That was the end of Friday.

Saturday morning, and I was done with the Hyderabad commitment by 12:15PM. By the time I reached back home, it was already 2:05PM, thanks to the EPIC, COLOSSAL etc etc traffic jam situation all over the city... Just managed to get the second last seat in a 3PM PSTC Volvo. After stuffing my bag with minimum clothes, my Camera (how can I leave it behind!!) and the Nike Cap that I had bought for Arnab while I was at Roseville. My roomie Amit volunteered to drop me to the Bus Stand. Thanks to his skillful driving, we meandered through a dead stop traffic and reached the bus JIT (yes, Just In Time!) at 3PM.

21:08PM and I was standing in front of JIPMER. After some 5 minutes, Arnab came in on his security guard's bicycle! Once we finished our dinner, it was shopping time!! With a total of 4kms of length covered within the next 50 minutes on foot and then 1.5 kms on his 'bike', we were grinning ear to ear! We had our scalp with us. One more thing to be said here... Arnab, though thinner than me, is still very fit; its not easy to tow a 90+ kgs guy on an Atlas Goldline!
As our 'gup' session finally took a break at 3AM, it was time to get some well deserved rest for what lied ahead on the next day for us.

11:45AM. After having a moderate breakfast and hunting around for my return ticket to Bangalore for a good hour, we were about to start for the Pondy Beach. We also had with us Dhur Jyoti, the roomie of Arnab at his guest house. It was time to burn some fat with us mounting these three rickety but functional 'definition' bikes - Atlas Goldline with 'Semi rickshaw tyres for extra life' at a modest rental of INR2.00 per hour. No deposits, but Arnab had to surrender his Company ID Card for that.

12:15PM. We were trying to beat the heat of a hot Pondy Sun at the beach, if you can call it a beach... mostly studded with huge boulders with a pinch of sand right in the middle of the shoreline stretch. To our ill luck, the Aurobindo Ashram nearby was closed for afternoon cleaning up. After gulping down a Choco-vanilla ice-cream cone each, we were off towards Auroville Beach, about 7kms on the Chennai bound Eastern Express Road. By the time we reached the Beach junction, we learnt that the Auroville 'city' was another 8kms from there.
All of us knew that even if we somehow managed to reach the city on our bikes, we would definitely not be able to make it back to Pondy bike rental shop... After all, riding a bike after a gap of nearly six years, and that too for such a humbling distance was no joke for us!

We had our lunch in a hut Restaurant near by Auroville Beach. The restaurant owner was kind enough to assure us that we could leave our bikes locked there, and that we will be safe there.

After negotiating with the auto rickshaw for INR 70 for dropping us to the city, we reached our destination around 3:30PM. To our disappointment, the main attraction of Auroville, the MaatriMandir - the temple for all, above all religions preaching humanity and nothing else was not accessible. The entry closes at 12:45PM on Sundays (and not at 4:30PM, like on other days of week). We went around the Information Center, and then took a mini tour of various means of them producing renewable energy. The video shown at the IC about the upcoming of Auroville was also very captivating! After grabbing Soda Lime at the cafeteria there, we started back towards the Beach.

Its one of the best beaches that I've seen in India, with pretty 'surfable' waves coming in every now and then. There were a couple of guys trying to put the waves to the exact use! Just one glitch here, not all of the beach was accessible to us, there seemed to be a restricted area right in the middle on the beach length. I was really disappointed for not able to traverse the entire length of the beach, from one end to the other. More so because we knew that it was already too late to get an entry in the Aurobindo Ashram back in Pondy (it closes at 6:15PM) as it was already 5:30PM. By the time we came back to the restaurant and started back after a cup of tea, it was nearly 6 o'clock. And this was not the end of it... Dhur's front 'Semi rickshaw tyres for extra life' gave in. Later in the puncture repair shop, it was revealed that the culprit was not one but two repairs, overlapping on each other. So in went the third layer of vulcanized rubber and we were back on track after a delay of 20 minutes. We came back to the Pondy Beach and spent some time there. The entire stretch was very well lit, with some special work around the statue of MG; wondering whether it’s always like that or because of that day being his birthday. The atmosphere was very well like a fair there.

Clicking through the place, we were finally back at the bike shop. A supreme figure of INR 48 was levied on us as the rental for our 3 bikes... After a moderate dinner, we were back at Arnab's guesthouse. Sanity returned as I took bath; the Pondy weather had taken its toll on me... being in Bangalore for six years has indeed made my body not as tough as it used to be earlier... 10:27PM, and the bus was on time at JIPMER. Morning 4:37 AM, and I was taking the morning walk from the Silk Board Jn to my house in Koramangala in Bangalore... It came and went past very quickly, but the Pondy experience was worth every bit of it!

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