der lagi lekin....

der lagi lekin...

What a superb song...from such a classic movie - "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara". If heard a few times you’ll probably understand one way of living life and most likely be able to strike it off your to do list just like that….I did that already..

October 15th, 2011 - a day that I will remember for the rest of my life.

On this day I was pronounced a free man, a single man, out of all the crappy baggage (read marriage) that I was carrying around for a few yrs. The feeling I had towards the end of this day is still raw and fresh in my heart, almost unreal, unbelievable, sheer joy!!! it's completely astonishing how circumstances are affected by people so dramatically that the very reference of those people is resentful and yet we blame the circumstances for it after all!!!

The worst part about it; the baggage was loaded over to my entire family and extended family; the good part.. …from this day on; no more baggage at all, what so ever!!!

I will remember this day as my “diem Liberationis”.

Certain incidents, certain people in our life come in and stay with us and then sooner or later they leave. Some you wish never leave and some you wish you had never allowed in.

If you are really listening; both kinds teach you something; some are your choice to learn directly, some you wish you hadn’t learnt at all….too expensive a class that turns out to be for you sometimes…

At times life leaves you with sore n brutal memories…erasing memories isn’t easy, but over-writing them is always an option that needs to be pursued!!!

As they say look at the positive side, and f**k the other crappy shitty side, dhat side is no good :)

As I understand it, smart thing to do is to live a life where you don’t give too much control of yourself to any one. ANY ONE.

Be passionate not pathetic....

God Speed...

A holiday called 15th august....

It surprises me how situations and circumstances change our definitions for us.
15th august, a festival we have done so many diff. Things since school days....so here's. A run down of how this day has changed for me in the past 25 odd years...
@ the very first since I can rememeber, It was a school holiday, yeah another day I get to play! Run around in the aparment grounds
Then, It was a flag hoisting thing, proud to be doing it @ the school grounds in boy scout uniform with glimpses of some patriotic movie in front of the eyes
It was now a day where I realised thanks to history lessons wht it means to over throw british raj and have "freedom" so was all abt. Respect for the freedom fighters
It meant a lot when you are so far far away, all patriotism, respect and regard for the country comes to mind suddenly while watching the desi tv programs and those small celebrations on the american streets

This year I sit and think do we really have a reason to celebrate/congratulate/wish each other? What have we gained today that's worth that emotion? Lemme make tht list:
We can vote!
We have the right to do whtever bussiness we want
We have our own jurisdiction/ law made by indians
We have our own taxation system
We can say whtever we want
We can demand justice from the biggest authority

And here's wht the reality for me has been:
Vote, and bring who on board? Criminals? Hooligans? Ppl who have no decency in their behaviour even on camera! I can imagine wht they'd be doing in their day to day bussiness!!!
Bussiness, is good, cut throat compitition and so much of preasure, labour is expensive, raw material is just not affordable, everything is simple becoming unaffordable!! Independence has nothing to do with it, but curroption, stocking of grains and controlling the pricing sure does
Laws, jurisdiction - ya true we have it, and we have it drafter per our indian requirements, but my friend where is the implementation of that bit? Who da hell cares abt law and order in a country where u can find loop holes and always plan a exit strategy! And if tht doesn't work there's always bribing, you throw money and u can "buy" justice for yourself, or atleast delay the hearing by like 60 years and I say this from personal experience!!! And at the same time you have terrorists living eating breathing on our tax money!!
Where builders get away with making 20+ floory sky scrapers tht have no parking, recration, or even fire safety exits, no electricity generators nothing! But on paper its still an "approved" building with OC et al!!!
The govt. Gets taxes here
to make summer only roads, (they should all have sign boards: "Spill no water, easily soluble"),
To not make drainage channels for the entire city, so all garbage and filth always stays "easily accessible"
To keep the dumpsters always over flowing so that diseases can spread very easily
To not make any parks, recreation areas in a city that's so densly populated that we really don't see the point of a "park" any more!!
Can u? Can u really say wht you feel? Try it and tomm. Some "supporter" will come and give you his peace of mind for hurting his feelings!!! In bombay u are still ok but really don't try it in any non-metro areas u'll pay the price
Justice again, as I said before "justice" has become a commodity, tht sells for a price, a very high price, even if you are not the guilty party! I know this 'coz I've well, spent more than my share of time in diff. Types of courts already!
U pay the price and close the matter, tht seems to be the option and the only one!! Unless u are ready to motivate yourself everyday, to drag yourself to a conglomeration of disheartened folks, filthy criminals, crooks n spineless humans in black suits and khakhi uniforms amidst some decent ones. This sounds tough on paper, in practice its worst!
Its not anarchy, I mean it could've been worst, a lot worst (check out any middle easter country where there's anarchy today, or even pakistan if u don't wanna go too far) however I still don't see too much good come out of our independence. On records and paper we have a lot of achievements a lot obtained within the country as well as on international fronts but what we lack is a fullfilling life for the masses. There are a few demons that engulf our nation today and to me they are bigger, more fatal than the autocratic reign we were in once upon a time. And guess what, we no longer have the men of steel tht existed back then, with only one wish in their hearts, to throw british raj...they don't make them anymore...
Atleast I've not seen one alive yet....
They fought for us, they brought us freedom, but I feel it was a bit too soon. We had or even have no clue of the possibilities we can soar to if we truely realize the potential of all the benefits we have as a free nation. I am no expert on anything, neither do I claim to know of all issues or achieemnts in depth, but I know this for sure that we could surely do away with a lot of preasure from the entire nation with implementation of a few rules, laws regarding quality of products, services, with stricter anti-curroption law implementation, with aggressive population and immigration controls. I mean cleaning up should start somewhere, if it requires a bomb blast even then that's understood, sometimes a shock is required, but wait we've already had 3 or mor of those recently! So what are we still waiting for?
To me this day is a government holiday, and I only feel apathetic towards my countrymen. This false bubble of happiness and feeling good abt. The independence is all useless to me. It's another day of loss of constructive thinking and since the past 50+ yrs. No political leader seems to have done anything to really leverage the independence of our nation.
Some may say am confusing patriotism with politics, well with todays life and state of affiars it's bound to, infact days when I get reminded of patriotic values, remind me of how sad those great fighters might be feeling when they look down from the heavens to see what they fought for and what we made of it, our country!!!
To me patriotism today has become a mere distraction that the government officials use to distract the common man and perhaps bargain some sympathy from him.

One doesn't become patriotic by changing status on facebook, twitter and one doesn't become patriotic by fwding/sending sms, hell one doesn't become patriotic by even blogging abt it. I m no politician and will never be, but don't give me that shit that if I can't help the system then I should blame it for the state it is in. It is in this state becoz my leaders have cheated me and the nation so if I were to manage wht they do, why did I elect them anyways! We cud do ok even w/o a government! Hell we'd do awesome with a monarch for all tht you may know!
If you really want to feel patriotic, gather the civic values of a citizen of India and implement them in the hope that one day everyone will follow, that to me is worth more than flashing the tri-colour around.

I wish to see common mans life be easier and independent of those worries I spoke abt earlier, give my friends a beTter quality of life, one filled with honesty, without tensions and preasures, with peace and trust in the govenrment of the country and then I'll wish a "happy independence day" to my fellow indians.
(I hope tht day comes in my lifetime atleast as I would surely like to wish u all a true independence day someday.....)
thumped...

To gods own country and back...

So June 20th, 2011, I start on a voyage that was simply too big to even comprehend initially. the thrills involved, the ups and the downs, the fun and the risks, the long tar stretches, so after a few initial attempts, i simply dropped the idea of even imagining my life for the next few days.

I was going to Leh- Ladakh: the serene country side in the himalayas.....and it was on my Royal Enfield. riding all the way from Mumbai upto New Delhi and then joining there with another 70 odd lot with a single wish - to ride the Himalayas on their royal bullets....(and hopefully to meet God somewhere on the way...)

The three of us me, Vinit and Nikhil started off at like 4:00 AM form Mumbai and the plan was to stretch it out up to Ahmadabad that day or even further as much as we could. We had a decent idea of each ones riding capabilities and we appreciated each others riding patterns enough to give ample space and understanding on long stretches of roads. We knew when to stop, where to stop and this made the journey pretty easy, no unnecessary breaks, no time waste (quite critical for long journeys)...and with gods grace and careful riding, no breakdowns as well!!!

no sooner than we passed fountain hotel, it started to rain and we were soaked, it was dark and rainy and slippery and roads were very unpredictable. the muck was coming up right into our face and were barely able to see the road, we pulled through though....after a while we had to stop for day break as it was gettign pretty risky...neverthless rains were with us only up to 100 odd kms from home and then were were into Gujrat! the land of Osum roads :)

Riding in Gujrat in the heat was takign the toll on us. We had to stop 80 kms short of Ahmadabad for food and "hydration" but after that 2 hr. logn break, we reached Ahmadabad in good time, our rider friend Biren had made arrangements for the nights stay, after doing 580 odd kms, that he was nothing less than God-sent to have made that arrangement for us, after a great dinner and some Osum gujju Joks, we retired and started off the next day

the plan was to reach into the heart of the mewad-state "Rajasthan" and make the 3rd days ride as easy and short as possible. with the heat catching up on us we knew that it wont be an easy ride once the bright star was up above our shiny helmets, so we ripped...we ripped through the tar so very well laid on the ground under the bikes rubber, that the needle was never allowed anything less than 3 figure readings we did 100 kms in abt. an hrs. time and we did two iterations of that...it was fun. but that's something you can only do around those areas as you can see the land as flat as it can get and see as far as you want to see to feel confident of opening the throttle to the most and then some....

we took a stop at Bhilwara, another nice place with amazing Rajasthani food. had a great night sleep here and it was time to ride again. this ride was about 430 odd kms and the best 419 kms done so far. was good fun.


You would imagine that Rajasthan = deserts and only sand. but you will be surprised to see that the conditions of the highways is so nice tht it's more fun to ride than ever!

the last stretch - Bhilwara to New Delhi; now this was another 500 odd kms and most challenging because of the heat and we had only one thing in mind, to enter Delhi before rush hrs. as we needed to find the place and ensure that we don't get stuck in traffic in the delhi heat. we ripped again. the roads co-operated and we were in Delhi around 5 pmish another great ride with no problems of any kind.

Sounds like fun so far isn't it! And this was the prelude to the Odessey. the real Odessey was yet to begin...after clearing the fitness tests and other formalities we all had geared up for the ride of our lifetime. New-delhi to Leh and back.

The trip was for 16 days, the route was long, and terrain was unknown, I knew if anything it was going to be difficult. it involved riding on tar, in rains, uphill, downhill, on gravel, small gravel, medium gravel, big gravel, pot holes, man holes, valleys, mountains, cliffs, hair-pin turns, U-pin turns, S-turns, ghats, rolling Military trucks, rolling Innovas, diesel smoke, slush, 2 feet deep water crossings, 30 feet long water crossings, with cold fingers, with sweaty gear, wet shoes, foggy helmets, dripping wet, boiling HOT weather, you name it and we have done it on this one trip.

the highlight was the opportunity to be eating at Dhabas. The maggi, the omelets and parathas oye balle o balle...some really osome food was all we had on this entire journey be it the breakfast hogging at like 6 AM in the morning or noon lunch breaks with daal-chawal and sabji/ maggi with anda, mok-moks, thupkas. the biggest highlight of food i can clearly say is at Sukhdev's dhaba - some 50 odd kms away frm Delhi, my record was unbeaten -1 lassi, 2 parathas,  2 cups of dahi, 1 dal makhni...BURRRP....

there are so many amazing stretches on this ride, that i cannot even remember now which one was better than the other or which was the best. all i can say is that the Rewards were instantaneous!!! you ride a few kms and you reach yet another beautiful landscape, yet another location that you would want to shoot a complete yash-raj song, natural beauty knows no boundaries here it's upto you as to what perspective you can capture and how much of it.

there are so many scenic places that if we were to start marking them with those blue boards reading "VISTA POINT", it would land up being a blue sidewalk all throughout the stretch.

there came a point in the ride where i simply had to stop takign pictures/ videos. It suddenly struck me that it's a wasted effort to bottle up the magnanimous and ever enchanting beauty of Ladakh into a mere 10.0 MP point and shoot. It needs the greatest camera of all times to really "feel" the beauty this landscape beholds. the camera that has the ability of looking at something and appreciating the beauty even before it really is compiled by it's processor, a camera tht saves images for lifetime....a pair of eyes that can really "see" the beauty all around in these mountains and valleys. and thus i stopped clicking, and started absorbing as much as i could.

The Trip involved a lot of different kind of hardships, a lot of risks. Yet the highlight was that every risk you took, the reward was equally matched. the highest reward to most was reaching and passing "Khardung La - Highest motorable road of the World !!" to me that was surely a trophy for sure. however there were so many locations and passes that were even more beautiful than this one.


And thus i wouldn't call being @ Khardung LA as my highest point in the trip. It was in fact somewhere in Spiti Valley where I got the "this is it" feeling.










Had a chance to ride somethign different, somethign little bit more alive than my bull...a Yak. yes took up a aYak safari which was an experience of it's own kind. Surely very unique and sometimes a little scary also i should say, went up some 7 kms uphill on a Yak Back. with the ony though on my mind - wht if he decides to hell with me...but luckily for me he did not and the yak, took me upto the hill top as promised, without throwing me off. the animal was panting by the time he reached the hill top. his body had been pumping blood through his body. I could feel the hot blood when i held the giant for grip uphill. I decided to let the animal go down w/o me. i couldn't get on the animal again...i was filled with sympathy for it...and ofcourse was shit scared to go downhill atop the poor animal..wht if it slipped!!!


There was a lot of time for me to be thinking on the trip...of course whenever i wasn't concentration on the road in an attempt to not to fall/ drop the bike. Some wise mans words kept coming back to me - "It's not where you go, it's about how you get there".

The roads are always unforgiving and challenges don't ever take a break. what gets you through it - two things your will power and a conscious mind. If you have both these, no road, no deterrent can stall you from getting what you want. so take your own time in choosing the path as each course has it's own set of perks and dips, the one that gets you to your destiny unscratched si the best one for you....


This Trip had another huge benefit, met with some really cool guys. We were about 10 of us from Bombay. We hung out together, we chilled together we, stayed together...we rode together. The code was "we stick together". If 1 rider was down one of us took care of him, if 1 rider was shaky about water crossings, one of us held him through. If 1 rider was stuck in slurry, one of us pulled him through (or at least tried). Some called us the "Bombay boys" it wasn't intentional, however it was pretty obvious, and frankly well we didn't care much untill someone did observe and told us that after half way through the night (and all the way through the booze :) ) of the celebrations. Nevertheless the code was that of sticking together and that's what makes the ride special. on the trip we tried to not be be the Bombay wale, or the Delhi wale or the Poona wale, or the TN wale we all tried to be the RE (Royal Enfield) wale, yet the no. plate gave us away each time :).

And though we were identified by the "MH-02" no. plates or Bombay walas, we were identified for our riding, for our brotherhood, and of that i am proud of....

Ride well, God speed....

for a select handpicked collection of the trip pictures visit:

ROK 4 - HO2011 album

Ride fall heal heal heal ride again and now don't fall....that's all there is to it...

When u a passion for some sort of adventure u'll meet two kinds of ppl.

One kind will tell u u'r crazy, the other will support, cheer n envy you.

Oh and ofcourse, your own kind, they'll jst give a hi-5 n say been there done that with a thumbs up...

so having been down frm a street accident on my bike, been home healing a bunch of sore muscles frm the blunt injuries and a slightly cracked (but painful) rib I've been thinking...how close we all are to so many accidents anyways

Whenever we commute in public transportation here in India, don't we hand our lives into the hands of drivers tht have hardly known a thing abt. Safe riding, hardly any sanity check on the vehicle before the journey starts, and ofcourse trust nothing more than his instincts in case of emergencies. The drivers are more stressed out than anyone else on the road!

Forget commuting in public transportation, even when u aren't travelling, u can have a heart attack n pass away, u could start loosing blood platelets n be @ risk can one really avoid the ultimate truth! No!

U have to go one day and unless it's your day u won't go. But then again going away is actually least painful! Or so to say for the one going away atleast(can't say fr sure, yet to experience tht ;)), his near n dear one's suffer more then the one gone...neverthless so to avoid any of the sad n bad effects of the accident, all u need to do is be safe!n leave the rest to destiny

Take all precautions, wear protection! On any kind of ride....

And then if u still happen to fall.... well u heal, heal heal and then ride back on and jst this time u'll be extra cautious to not to make any old mistakes,( maybe new ones...) but isn't tht all there is to this one thing called "life" !!!

Think abt wht I jst said above...u can apply it to everything in your life and it'll jst make things tht much easier to accept, I know it is....

Ride On....
my BlackBerry® raced this into your inbox n back in 2.2s....

I know wht I did in summer.....

Wakeup around 9ish, take a bath, get out of the house call out for friends from the neighbourhood if they don't come out keep yelling till his mom yells @ u n says " VO SO RAHAY" then roam around till u find some company, another wolf to your wolf-pack (hahaha...)

Walk upto provision stores arnd to get small random candy - sorat, churan, big-fun(bubble gum), sugar coated saunf, amla supari, pepsi(not the bottle, plastic tube), gola, green tamrind, chanya-manya bore, karamda,
Start 1st half with cricket, gulli-danda, das-bees (with marbles) then rush home to watch fun_time on DD @ noon....giant robot, tom n jerry, snow white and wht not...
Then have lunch fatta-fat, n gather @ someone's house with your stash of comic books - spiderman, superman, batman, amar chitra katha, tinkle, diamon comics - chacha chowdhary
Read these and sorta bring them to life in your imagination!!!

No sooner the sun tilts towards the horizon by a bit, rush out of the houses again and start off again!!!
Football, khamb-khamb (pole-pole), donar-pani(land n water), jhatta-patti, lapa-chupi (hide n seek), sankhli (chain-chain), building round, lagori, daba ice-paaees, langdi, koyba (apologize some of these I don't have. Aclue of their translation to english...predominantly a marathi dominated game pool) and keep playing till
a. Your legs ache like they're gonna simply fall off...
b. Mom yells in the whole colony n announces tht she'll not take u in unless u made your way home right now!!!

Year after year, I grew up but the games were still the same...the routine didn't break. Such was my summer vacation....I so distinctly remmeber...

After arnd 2 decades of Njoying summers that way... here i am... I'm spending time with my cousins borthers.

1st day started with a live cricket match - MI v/s PW in Wankhede....and I thought playing cricket was the true fun @ their age!!!

then there was glorified version of koyba - a bowling session they enjoyed it but I doubt it was as much fun as playing gotti n lagori...













I feel in these times, kids are exposed so much, a little too much!!!

I didn't know wht adult movies were abt. While I was busy enjoying the things mentioned above, but today some damned movie "RAGINI MMS" is gonna release n it had. A prop placed right in the middle of a family cinema hall - a bed; n the poster said it happened here, she was chained on this bed blah blah - and it was a threesome!!!

W T F!!! M sure there gonna be a lot of kids tht'll come out there n ask "mommy whts a threesome???"
Someone really needs to keep a check on these things I feel...
My childhood was less advanced, I didn't have my laptop/ ipad, I didn't know wht a cell phone was, I didn't have the odacity to ask mom/dad the money to watch a match in wankhede, I bought an "expensive" pair of clothes for 350 bucks!! (200 for jeans, 150 for a Tshhy...but I had fun it was an experience!!!!
And now here I am waiting to watch RIO - 3D in Red lounge am sure it'll be an experience...not a memory
My young cousin brothers will have a lot of experience, @ this young age....
but I wonder if their eyes will ever be dreamy (like mine @ the mention of comic books), their tongue's watery (@ the mention of amla supari n sugar candy) when they blog abt. It someday....
I wish they do....I so wish they do....

Shot from my BlackBerry®

Life's too short for traffic jams....

So it's 5:30 pm, on an april friday in bombay, so the mercury must've floated arnd 30 something...it took me abt. 20 mins to move like a few feet...

I finally reach the 3-way cross road after milan subway on the service road approaching towards santacruz station and I realize the traffic havaldarsaab tht usually chanellizes the traffic is MIA(missing in action) imm. I also realise that today we have no hope of this clog unclogging. Unless ofcourse we get someone to fill in for our dear pandusaab.

It took me only a few seconds to realize tht in the interest of global warming ( and out of my firm belief - what I got to do, only I got to do ;) ) I put the bullet on center stand on the road and with my helmet On I entered the clogged scene. Soon I found out 2-r elements of the puzzle n get them to straighten out.
Here I am taking matters in my own hands, requesting some, yelling at some and also swearing at some...

In the next minute or so, I saw tht everyone was following my lead, and simply doing as I was asking them, move a lill fwd, little right/ left back a little, keep certain postion clear on road etc.

It took me a while, but I did get the flow going.

Turned my back n went to my bullet and moved on, but ofcourse I had no confidence in how long wud it flow so I decided to catch hold of the next available govt. Servant and "request" him to try and help out...

We've always been good at following orders, haven't we! That's just how we are engineered frm the core!

I met a couple @ the next intersection, I requested, I get "vo humara area nai to hum kuch nai kar sakte" they were atleast abt. 3 of them standing @ sv road singal @ milan subway.
I knew they'd hesitate. I know I'll have to prompt, when I suggested them to call the control room and send someone to help public - one of them called.

I cannot help but remm. Those days when in sunnyvale we'd have long back logs of cars n trucks the day signlas/ lights wud be out of order, but u could garantee that you need not panic, you need not honk, your turn will soon arrive and soon enuf u'll get outta there n it'll all be over, without any cop having to ensure of that happening.

Civic sense is 4goten so quickly on our roads. W/o the white-khakhi mamu everyone just turns into a PT class w/o a prefect, everyone suddenly wants to do his/her own excercise!

If only everyone by themselves, w/o any prompting cud ponder for once...life is actually too short for traffic jams...
Shot from my BlackBerry®

we forget and then the natural outcome is to forgive...

"to err is human, to forgive is divine" don't u get it! humans are to make mistake and only those who are divine/ godly can forgive...the rest of us aren't supposed to forget !!!
unfortunately this and such other sayings are common to us humans and we all try to be gods. my argument is why? why do we have to be gods when we can hardly play decent humans?

i saw the news article in yesterdays ET - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/mumbai-terror-attack-lets-tahawwur-rana-confirms-pak-govt-isis-26/11-role/articleshow/7968120.cms an article that supposedly confirms Pakistani governments hand in the 26/11 Bombay attacks.
the only image i had in my head right away was mr. Manmohan singh sharing a smile and a handshake etc. with Pakistani PM - Gilani.

I question myself, so what just because it was a few yrs. ago, now it was ok to play paki players and also ok to bloody greet their politicians to be invited and watch a cricket match with us? and plz. don't give me that BS that they just found out about their involvement....i mean for gods sake! we've got decades old bollywood movies that clearly depict how deeply their govt. is involved with all the terrorism!

so had the attacks been more recent, we show our disagreement, we make big statements, we claim this and that...and slowly when things become old, we let it go? after all do we only stand for the righteous virtues only when it's a fresh development? and eventually just let it go? i mean i can sympathize with common man, he's got enough on his plate to worry about, but what about those whose job it is to stay as a pillar behind such virtues! what about those who literally are responsible for what history we will make of these days for our future!

I've noticed this in personal life as well and...it's very difficult to keep the conscious clear and remember for a fact whats right and whats not to be let go, whats not to be forgotten, even if it's ages old. because if everything is all about circumstances and about timing, and everything dies down with passing time, then whats the point in having morals and virtues in the first place! we might as well accept everything and not be disturbed/ startled even when shit happens!

the point I try to make is we make mistakes, shit happens to us - but don't let the time let you forget it, keep it alive in your conscious, 'coz the day you forget; you can not make a difference and bring justice to yourself.....

paach yaar from firangi dhaaba to queens necklace + lot of bhankus in between...

so it all began with the thought " you got to do what you got to do!" over the past few yrs. i've started to believe in this phrase in the very literal meaning of it...and in fact i'd change it to say " only you can do, what only you've got to do"

every friend has a property(not real estate, am talking about qualities, characteristics u may say) of himself/ herself. and over the yrs. and those properties/ characteristics make the "personality" of that person.

And believe it or not, there is actually a list of it that we maintain in our own subconscious......and the better you know that person, more detailed is that list and most of the times, we don't even know that list exists - unless of course you've considered/ discussed it with someone else...(and am sure after reading this blog quite a few of you will try and find that list in your own head for at least one of your friends....)

the best situation of that list to show it's effect is with your old long lost school friends because in your childhood you spent more time with them, more awake time with them than even with your parents, so in effect you know your school friends more than anyone else sometimes, even better than their own parents!

back to the list and the reason for mentioning it...so this list actually tells you what to expect when you are meeting this old friend of yours. you spent time catching up with the old stories, and talking about some others who you are in touch with but your friend/s aren't and vice-versa etc. the talks are not at all about an interesting topic but still you sometimes get goose bums while talkig about them...in effect what your mind is doin is a coupel of things...you are talking about those incidents, those people and you open up a window into that time, and secondly your mind is also checking the list it had for this friend...after  awhile you may also say the most commonly used line "yaar tu to bilkul nahi badla" and this comes when your mind is done completing the task it had started it's lik ethe little "done" check box on your monitor after it's done scanning something....

last night i met with 5 of my school friends together ( i keep bumping into them individualy sometimes) but what made things special was that all of us were together - this was one of it's kind event ever. considering we've spent about almost entire schooling age - up to about 16yrs. (of which at least 12 we all could consciously remember ) we were all eager to meetup.

I was instrumental in following up and co-ordinating to make sure we have a agreeable place and time etc. and thats when i realised, that it's my thing! i gotto do this else it might never happen, and literally it's true! folks have been in the same city and all it takes is someone to be the driving force, glad i can be that and it's not just this conglomeration, any other one as well...so it's sort of agreed that driving folks together is my thing, it's my property and when others talk abt. me, maybe they have that on their checklist on the top.

the agenda was to get into cafe leopod but was too crowded/ expensive since it w as asat nite, we instead got some pan togo and landed up in nariman point, had our pans and conversations started, sitting on the marine drive pavement, we spoke about a gamut of things, real estate prices, stocks, investments, anna hazare, cricket world cup, over crowding of bombay, traffic jams (yup that came up even at midnight 'coz we were stuck in one @ chowpatti!! - so officially ppl have amandate to get out of the house post 10 and start driving it appeared as if, last night), desi-mentality of bosses, hopelessness of staying in india, hopefullness of staying in india, corruption once more, and ofcourse the usual " arrey i saw this guy form school...Or arrey merko vo mili thi..." some topics were really great to share as they brought out diverse opinions etc. but one thing you can never go wrong with such re-grouping is that you get be yourself...the one you were as a school going kid w/o any hangups w/o any reservations, just pure bhankas...
i guess that's why we all love such regroupings....and that's why as i've recognized arranging/ driving such re-groupings is my forte, i'm just gonna have to keep doing it eh!

the best part was...when i asked fir kab milenge? everyone responded..."jab tera SMS ayega yaar!! "

7 days, 3200 kms, an event of lifetime

when the thought of goin on a long ride comes to your mind....you don't seem to be thinking so much about the technicalities of the actual ride...the only thing that comes to my mind is infact that open landscape...no traffic on the road and endless thumping....

i actually would say it was the sole reason that attracts me to it....

so it all began one fine day in the office when i saw the ROK banner on the RE website a small little notification that said - registrations open , i said ok great i can make it through, the next think i knew i was taking prints of stuff they needed from me and started making the package needed to submit for the registration.

didn't put in a lot of thought into it - it was  a blink decision - 8 days, riding everyday, going to places i've not sen before - sounded like my kind of stuff to do. calle dup home and "told" that i'm going ( one advantage of beinga grown up is that you don't ask permissions, you tell them :) thought u live in the same house with your parents...)

Soon i was done with the papers submisison and now the next thing to figure out is how to get to Ahmedabad. ride was th efirst though but again hadn't done it ever so was not too particular about whether it was a good idea or not, esp. because of the inexperience on riding on sch long journeys on road here in India. after considering the rush in trains/ bookings decided that i need to get the tickets done and will try to pull in the motorcycle on the same train and that would be the easiest. but again was hovering the thought of riding all the way through on my mind, only needed a mild push to go for it and i knew it in my heart that i'm going ot do it - ride the bullet from home to Ahmadabad straight up...

soon enough i got in touch with a couple of guys on email who wanted to ride along to Ahmadabad so it was decided that we are all riding, got the train tickets cancelled out and started preparing for the long haul...

before the ride:
had my shoei taken out from the store room, got my jacke pulled out as well, the back support, gloves etc. these things came out after over a yr. they were used with my CBR the last time, purchased some knee/shin protectors and got spare cables etc.

got basic preperation done but nothign too into detail - was wanting it to be a less than too organsied a trip - so intentionaly left a few things undefined/ as is.

and then the experience started on 11th friday morning @ 4:00 am - i packedup a bagpack with basic essentials - it was still atleast 15 kgs in wieght - and kicked the bullet @ 2669 kms to start off my adventure ride from home. got to ghodbunder road where i met up with vinit and pavan, we syned up for a few minutes and started off to our journey towards ahmedabad.

starts @ 2669

5:00 am we started off and by 8 am we were in Daman - the plan was to stall over and pick up some alcohol and then proceed along towards surat and then finally to ahmedabad.

breakfast in daman was good, but we got delayed due to formallities of picking up the permit etc. nonetheless we were on our way to surat around 11 form daman and then a few moe delays here and there got us upto surat by around 1 - stoped by for lunch and then started off further on to reach lots of stop points and ultimately ahmedabad by around 9:30ish

SNAP! right outsie ahmd ciy, my clutch cable snapped off and i pulled over to the side of the busy narol naka. got the cable out of the bag and called up for help to vinit and my BIL - hirenkumar, before they came around i had already taken out the original broken cable and was abt. to replace it with the new one. was extremely impressed with the simplicity with which you can do the clutch cable change - you might do it w/o even a single tool - with your own bare hands and maybe gloves - it was that simple!!!

the next day was introductions and then departure was early morning th next day from ahmd towards kutch, now i could give an acount of what exactly happened and how and so on but that you can get even by reading any of the bogs/ run down of the trip anywhere. what i want to put on records are hose few moments of this trip that've left an impression on my mind and those moments are how i'll ultimately remmember this trip

1st day in the little rann -the real deal started, we were riding on the terrain thats called "RANN" it's basically parched soil that was wet once upon a time and then the moisture was lost which tearsup the soil - almost like dead skin, the idea is to ride on it on pre-driven roads because otherwise the terrain could be surprising for you.
the fact that when a vehicle rides on this terrain, it leaves a mark - kinda like a groove that's abt. half an inch deep tells you that the flat terrain only looks flat, it may suddenly sqoosh in and the bike may react to this dipping differently depending upon the speed, balancing conditions and the angle at which the wheel is riding on it. ideal thing to do is to keep the handle loose, legs close to the motorcycle and handle straight and of course speed that keeps you comfortable and on the terrain, a tip that when reminded comes in handy early on in such ride
when i was doing 90-100 kmph on the rann, there was a sense of thrill goign thru mymind, the bike vibrating , engine thumping, wind blowing hard, also keeping the sped up with fellow riders so that you don't get lost/ left behind and you tryin to make sue you don't hit a wet patch that can be dangerous for you, it's all of these elements that make riding on that little rann a unique experience, something that sems pretty boring but whiel you are riding into nowhere on the long stretch of "flat" land, there are so many things happenieng between the rider, his bike and the road below that it's nothin less than a roller coaster ride!

Riding @ 110 kmph on tar road with best visibility - thee have been distinctively only a handful of times wen i have trid he max limit on both myself as well as my machine. it as on hwy 280 from mountain view to SF on my CBR600RR when i had done 100 mph. at that moment i knew that this is probably the highest i've ever gone (apart from when i was sitin in aircrafts); that thrill is something else al together, and wierd thing is that the thrill lasts only for a few moments. and then sanity kicks in and you realize that what you are doing is pretty dangerous and u cannot give anything a chance to ruin it for you for ever, so then you readily let got on he acci and soon the thrill is replaced by a wOw and then a phew...so it's one of those things where you only want to enjoy it momentarily and keep i that way..(in some level i think it's pretty close to going to a stripclub isn't it..if you started doin it on a regular basis, it's risky, plus it looses the thrill factor ;) )

somethign similar was experienced when i tried out the bullet to 110 kmph, flat road no sign of animal/ human on the road and enough room to try the max but due to the way the bullet is designed i can tell that it's not a bike for high speeds at all, it feels like a very light machine at such high speeds, a small pebble or a little dip/ bump on the road can ruin it for you big time...so i did try110 once and then kept it that way for about 20-25 seconds and then realized that it's not a smart idea esp. on a road that's not too familiar, again that sanity kicked in and i bid farewell to the thrill factor.



a glimpse of the nilgai - an animal that looks part donkey, part buffalo, part giraffe! was riding on a deserted road when suddenly the terrain started showing me some green and while i was appreciating the vegetation around and suddenly i look to my right over the shoulder - this wierd looking curious thing popping it's head out and running towards the road. for a moment i comprehended it to be a  donkey - but then it was too tall for a donkey, could it be a horse? it was too high for a horse as well, took a second glance again and saw it was nothing that i had seen before. it was only after the ride that day in he night when other riders talked about what they saw it was confirmed that the animal all of saw was a nilgai - an animal thts rare.

rid on a road that's called India-pakistan road by the fencing that seperate our land from pakistan - a dirt road that was parallel to the fencing where suddenly the thumping sound of the bullets, in unison with the raising dust and sand - cried out "Don't mess with us" saw the sardar post, pointed out our exact location on the paper map met with the Jawans great feeling, suddenly it registers that you are so close to something that's a part of history. left the BOP no. 1115 with a sense of fulfilment, Oh and almost forgot to mention those curses we uttered while riding back to those pakistanis!

riding to BOP muchi was another experience of a lifetime - riding on stones/ boulders was what it was, thee was no road but only certain white markings that borderline the stones that you are supposed to ride on from the stones that you are not supposed to. while i was riding on those, i felt pretty bad for my bike, poor thing was dashing on and bouncing off of so many different sized stones that it was a very bumpy ride.

the one thing we cudn't do was ride on the salt desert - something that i will leave for some other time maybe....maybe kutch maybe death valley who knows....