Palakol

Knees grating on the cold granite
feet getting numbed by my weight,
I marshal my thoughts into coherence
and mumble more than one prayer.

(Why do I get drawn, moth-like
to these crowds, babel and mock devotion that I disdain?
Why do I pronounce Shlokas in English
and yet don't pray for a visa to lands abroad?)

The borrowed digital in my crab-like grasp,
I squint up at the temple spire in diffused light
and then wonder as hundreds of pigeons get aflutter
was it because I uttered "Om Namah Shivaya"?

(Why can't we who live lifes, time our joys right?
of what use blessings of sacred rice on a tonsured pate?
or an ardently desirously devout gaze
that's not a spell-binding hymn that destiny can hear?)

Hyd - Konaseema, Ride Log - Day 1, 9th October, 2008

00515; 0655 hrs, get out of the boundaries of home and Alwal, with barely 3-4 hours of sleep in me (was tossing and turning thanks to a bad ear ache) after a steel tumbler of Filter coffee, headed out for Uppal and thereafter the Warangal highway. The relatively late departure means I have to deal with lots of traffic, and even as I negotiate the same, I wonder and wonder, why is that so many cars are white? Nice early morning ride all the same, the Warangal highway's picturesque as usual and its fun to be on the road again :-)

00622; 0845 hrs, reach Jangaon and turn right and stop at a Grocery store to buy batteries, mineral water, pen and a small red coloured Liberty Note Book. The last-mentioned for keeping the ride log. Note in passing that almost everyone at the shop is buying Coconuts (it's Vijaya Dasami) and wonder if I should stop somewhere on the way and get the Ayudha Puja done. The traffic's now luckily behind me and the roads are excellent, so I decide not to dither and put some distance between me and the mundanities of urban living. Luckily enough this is a lovely stretch and for something like 50 odd kms I get to see no white Indicas or Marutis and just one Bus and one Truck (yes, I counted!)

00668;0945 hrs, turn left at Tirmalgiri, onto a narrow, oh so narrow road, noting in passing that there's a hillock in the town / village, something that for all purposes looks like one single, (and very, very solemn) big and weathered-smooth boulder. Also see that almost every Wine shop that I have passed is already open and doing brisk business!! After all, today is Dasami and all along this road, almost every temple and notable shrine would soon be the setting for sacrifices of sheep and goats, community feasts and of course gluggings of Brandy, Rum, Whisky and all other things fiery :-)

00678;0955 hrs, the roads are lovely and Peepal verged, there is no traffic worth the mention but my stomach's grumbling for something; so stop at a wayside shack that has only two tables (with two swarthy and stubbled gents in lungis at them) and look forward to stuffing myself full of the Idlis on display. Sadly however, by the time I am back from a trip behind the bushes, the Idlis are all over, so I settle for a Chhai and start off again, getting a bit bothered by the heat, riding on, as the road narrows onto Thorur.

00699;1035 hrs, reach Thorur and turn right onto the road to Khammam. A sea change it is, after the narrow roads so far, this one is a broad double carriageway, though thankfully not boringly four or eight or twelve laned and surprise, surprise, also devoid of traffic! Who needs National Highways with roads like these? The villages on this stretch have been nameplated in radium lettering and I note the quaint names in passing, Marri Thanda, Laxman Thanda, Beerlagudem and so on. I have been pressing on a bit, to make up for the late departure (I also did not know how far it was to Ravulapalem, my destined halt for the day) but then I am like, time to do some photography, so stop below a Banyan and cool off with some water and get down to some point and shoot digital photography.

00756, hit reserve, ride upto and through Khammam (00778;1150 hrs), 00790, INR 400 worth petrol goes into the Bullet somewhere near Wyra (there is a huge lake here) and after verifying that I am on the right road and asking for the distance to Jangareddygudem, I ride out slowly hoping that I will get to see a bodaciously full lake from the saddle. The roads are still nice and open, but its getting hotter and hotter and I am now getting cooked well and fine in the jacket, so cut out the stops and ride at a fair clip to make my own breeze, through other quaintly named villages like Golla Gudem and Hanuman Thanda. Golla in Telugu means shepherd and fittingly enough when I pass the village, the road is splattered with freshly dropped Cowdung! Stick to the road without giving in to the temptation of being a lensman and while passing through another village come across a roundabout from where Kinnerasani is 61 kms straight. But then, I had to turn right and go with the road to Ashwaropeta to keep my date with Konaseema!
00891;1335 hrs, finally decide to stop for a bite, lunch is four Rotis and a Dal Fry (was more like boiled Dal) that had no salt. I holler for the salt, am given a salt jar without a spoon, so stir in the salt I had added to the Dal with a Green Chilli and then use it to spice up things a bit :-) Nice food, lack of salt and chilli notwithstanding, and just INR 22! I am off again and its 1405 hrs now. The road's a bit bad hereon, and broken surfaced and there are bumps too, all of which are not very easy to spot with a sun high overhead and almost no shadows to help. Also, I am slowed down by a strong feeling of "been here done this" though I don't remember having ridden on this road, did I ride on this stretch back when the four laning of NH-9 was going on? Pass through Kollur and Jangareddygudem while stopping here and there to and take some more point and shoot photographs and cool off with water and then I am at the bridge over the Godavari that leads to Rajahamundry, ask for the way to Ravulapalem and am directed to go left along the banks of the river who's delta has drawn me here. And then I know, yeah, I have been on this road before...

01000; 1600 hrs, Kovvuru..I distinctly remember this broken stretch of roads with green, oh so green Rice fields on one side and a blue river on the other from having been here more than 4 years back, so slow down and then as the odo hits the thousand mark, find a way to get to the river's bank and I am at Kovvuru, from where the Godavari's fine grained sand makes it all across the state. Ride as close to the Godavari as I can to be greeted by a nice river breeze and to see the flat bottomed sand barges and river launches lined up along the bank, and sand hitched by their anchors :-) While I am drinking in the sights and doing some serious photography, a group of kids get down to playing cricket with Lantana twigs for wickets. I wonder what happens when the tennis ball evades the wicketkeeper and goes into the Godavari, but maybe these kids are already used to swimming across the Godavari with no worries and a cricket bat in hand! 10 more minutes of musing on this and that and I am off again.

Parallel to the bridge that crosses the Godavari and a bit downriver, there is a famous Barrage (with three bridges / sets of sluice gates) built around 150 years ago by Arthur Cotton and named after him. I have ridden on this stretch before (you go over the bridges when you want to bypass Rajahmundry) and it so happens that to get to Ravulapalem, I need to go right from the second set of sluice gates. So I cross two bridges and decide to wander out of my way and ride across the third one too, intent on being a kid all over again and enjoying the sight of cascasding waters. By now the everning sun is getting shuttered by clouds and the sights are just right to be lensed, so I park the Don on its footrest and click and click and click and click. One can never have enough of photographing vistas such as these but then the Camera ran out of juice, so it was time to head back to Ravulapalem. The stretch to Ravulapalem is out of some paradise that travel writers have probably not bothered to write about (or probably they were out of log books and pens) and is green as far as the eye can see on one side with Sugarcane, Rice, Pappaya and Coconuts and flanked by a canal on the other. Hold it, throttle down, there's far more, the road itself is canopied all through and the far side of the canal (as with most canals in this region) lined with Coconut Palm after Coconut Palm after Coconut Palm. Riding slowly and marvelling at the reflections of the Coconuts (and sunset streaked skies) in the canals, I finally reach Ravulapalem (01047;1730 hrs) which happens to be on the National Highway No.5 and get down to hunting for a lodge to overnight at. Decide on Sowbhagya Lodge (its just besides an ATM), unload the Cramsters, get a wash and wander around a bit (on the highway and other roads), call home, and yes, also find a temple and pay my respects to Goddess Durga.

That brings to close Day 1, around 530 kms on the odo and almost all the day in the saddle. Tomorrow, it's a date with Konaseema.

And, the odometer turns over..

There is this lovely tree-verged road that leads to Karimnagar and onwards and I stay just 3 kms off it....

There is this Royal Enfield A-350 that I ride which has been kind of idling in the 90k's for almost two years now...

And, while I have been riding to work and this Dhaba and that Bar and making short dashes (half day rides or at the very most 3/4th day rides), the odometer finally crawled to show 99,730....

So yesterday being a Sunday thought I will be the highwayman of yore and decided to head out on the Karimnagar Highway...here's the write-up

Manage to get out of my place at 11.30, wait for Supradeep (LB500) at Shamirpet (man, oh man, the lake's bodaciously full) after topping up petrol and get a SMS from him saying he can't make it for the ride...

I am like, hmmm...so with such a major milestone of my riding career approaching, maybe its poetic justice that I don't have a camera to chronicle the ride (hadn't packed my SLR) and poetic justice also in that, I am gonna be "solo"...

Saturday evening, way back home from office had a small accident that broke the front brake lever, but then this was the Karimnagar stretch, a stretch that I literally know like the back of my hand and used to haunt on a daily / nightly / weekly basis, so I start up Don and get down to the riding...

ICICI Knowledge Park passes by, and the rippable stretches start! NH-7, the other highway that I used to haunt daily / nightly / weekly is now getting laned and laned and diversioned, the lovely Banyans and Mango trees sawed and blasted and bull-dozed away, so I am like thank God for this road that still hasn't grown up into a boring stretch of asphalt..

Cross Mulugu, overtake a truck while doing three digit speeds and come across a black haired dog squashed to pulp (but with a twitching ear) bang in the middle of the road. Throw up mentally and curse and ride on..

The fields all around are a riot of growth, cotton, maize and rice and I am like what would it cost to buy some acres here and get away from the madding crowd?

Then I am at Pregnapur and the Cell phone buzzes and buzzes and buzzes. I hate it when I get a call on a ride, but stop and check the phone, looks like Supradeep's freind Manish (Electra) is on his way to join me and wants to know where to meet up.

SMS back saying, its a straight road, I will ride on, guess he can catch up if he looks out for me, I will look out too, have a chhai and a smoke and move on again...

All besides the road - at many places dangerously close - are bunches of optimistic women selling Custard Apples in piles and Makki Ka Boota too, raw as well as roasted. I wonder in passing, what do they earn on a daily basis? What do they save out of what they earn?

Kuknoorpally passes in a blitz while I am busy looking around for a lake, I know there is one here but have never managed to really "locate" or chill out at it....and then I come to Duddada, cross it and am at this lovely stretch where the road seems a tunnel of green....canopied almost for 5-6 kilometers...not that this is the only such stretch on this road...but somehow this one is something else, and I glorify in the beauty of the moment, the cloud-shuttered sun creating dapples through which I ride..

Then I am at a 4 kms long stretch of twisties just before Siddipet and I let it rip and rip some more, remembering all those with whom I have ridden these twisties before, the pure, un-adulterated fun of those days, the childlike thrill of overtaking each other with Orang Outan grins and I am past the road that leads into Siddipet town...

I continue with the ride, enjoying just the ride, no photographic ambitions to make me stop, no specific destination in mind, just an eye on the odo and the speedo, overtaking trucks, giving the finger to Bus drivers and Sumo waalahs and by and by I come to Bejjanki.

Stop to check up on Manish, SMS him, don't get an answer, wait some time besides the road, then cross it for some Chhai, still don't get an answer, cross the road back and look towards Hyderabad..

Where I had stopped there was this police barrier and I thus got to see the AP Police emblem in colour, shows two blue birds with heads 180 degrees to each other and there are the three lions on top. I wonder which bird this blue one is.

No sign of Maneesh and I decide to ride on, after all I get bored pretty fast as it is and in this case, there is a road ahead of me :-)

So kick start the A-350 and head out again and some more belting and I am at Sreeram Sagar, get onto the Bund, drink in the beauty of a full, full, full reservoir, ride around on the Bund un-helmeted and then take a gander at the odo meter, it shows 99,872!

I am all for riding on, through Karimnagar but I had promised to be back home by 5.00 so its time to turn back.

Get down from the Bund and turn right, remembering the last time I had done the same, on Muse, though then I had company in the form of 4 other Bullets and hightail it till Shanigaram, stop and have some water and Chhai and check up on Maneesh. Looks like we did manage to miss each other and transpires that he is almost at Karimnagar, so I head back saying I will stop at Pregnapur.

Rip, rip and rip some more, its the same story on the way back, trucks waiting to be overtaken, the Blue APSRTC Buses (and cars and Sumos) coming straight onto poor biker me, the usual road-side escapades with thorn clumps and lantana bushes and Custard Apple trees and me intent on not slowing down, holding onto three digit speeds constantly...

Reach Pregnapur and pass it, stop at Haritha Restaurant thinking I will get a quick bite while Maneesh gets there, SMS and find that he can't make it so fast. I am like, its 4.00 anyway and who needs lunch on the road? :-) So head back again thinking chalo, will get back home as promised and on time...

By now the odo has moved onto the 99950's and I am getting overwhelmed by nostalgia, of all the rides past and getting claustrophobic about what lies ahead of me in life; the emotions confuse me and I don't know if I should stop and contemplate the past and the future of "ahighwayman" ride at a sedate 80, or just rip and get it done with...

Then I am like, let me ride the way I always have on this bike I love so much and open the throttle wide, pass Mulugu in a blitz and then I am on the ICICI Knowledge Park stretch and the odo is now into the 99990's, and then I slow down, intent on seeing the odo turn over..the last digit is still 9, as the first 4 become zeroes, so this is how odos turn over, huh?

Then, I bring my foot down on the neutral finder as on a road flanked by Eucalyptus and on the home stretch, the odo finally turns over and I get to see 5 zeroes on it and a single "1".

That single "1" I guess means that there is a lot more for me to ride. I wonder, "Four and half hours on the road, a small ride for Don, is this a re-awakening of sorts for me? After all, there is that single "1" on the odo, got to make that turn over too, no?"

Headed out thereafter, stopped at Aliyabad for some Haleem (breakfast was Wadas at home, lunch was stretch after stretch of lovely roads, this was just an evening snack), stash wallet, licence, cell phone and other un-mentionables in the sidebox and ride back with darkening skies above me to get home with a mild drizzle drizzling :-)

A nice time on the road, may I have the chance to see this odometer turning over, yet again!

Undated Ramblings - Tadoba Andhari

In Tadoba you will rarely see a Tiger
but you are face to facewith a beautiful forest
nice jeep trails flanked by tall machans,
slow moving traffic when Langurs are sighted,
dense Bamboo thickets in which Nilgai hide
and Tadoba lake where you can sight crocodiles.

Besides Tadoba lake
they have taxidermized a man-eater,
a rogue that killed 20 odd, long legged prey
and took 14 odd bullets enroute to
wherever Tigers go when they die;
they have also mounted glossy pictures
showing poor feathered birds trapped in spider webs.

You can't stay within the forest
dear politically un-connected wildlife lover,
(we camped in a hut besides an Elephant hostel)
but at Moharla, where Tadoba get's gated into a Reserve,
the village's shops sell nice Mahuli
and people don't shit out at night for fear of Bears.

Undated Ramblings - Lonar

We rode through fog and cloggy shower rains
(my brain wobbly on two hours of sleep)
on cobbly, potholed, dusty interior roads
to see a full moon glinting
on the briny-watered crater bottom
and drink Old Monk from a quarter bottle
and talk of night-riding and cornering.

I rode slow on the edge
and then walked on my heels down into the Crater's belly
collecting Goa Guthka (sic) packets
to reach one of Lonar's 13 temples
where squirrels officiate and Parakreets preside
to gaze over the silent, emerald green waters.

I puffed my way back, up
out of breath, bloody lunged
and then posed for a mounted picture
looking over the briny depths,
the plantain groves,
the dry, scrubbed basaltic rock
of India's largest meteoritic crater
and then we rode out to Pitalkhora
(and poetry from times not so past).

What's in a name??

Why is this (now "on", now "off") blog named what it is?
And what exactly is my biking philosophy??

"Now, now, now", you may say, especially if you have had a drink with me and listened to me holding forth on biking philosophies. Well, I have grown up too, mate. I do not any longer have a biking philosophy. After all, we could again debate what I am saying here sometime, somewhere with a glass of spirits in our hands, but believe me when I say that when most of us speak of biking philosophies we just extend our biking egos into refined speech.

Today, at this stage in life, I sincerely believe that everyone who has time and money will ride. At the most basic level, it has to do with the overall change in the Indian milieau - better roads, better communications, better roads and of course the sudden realization that "biking" is the "hip" thing, travel is a "mantra", etc :-)))

Today, I also believe that I personally am addicted to the road, that I get my biggest highs only when I have an open stretch in front of me, or when a blind curve rears up ahead. And I would also say that there are any number of such addicts around, all waiting to put together the time and money, plotting their next big rides.

In my own way I have also had to contend with the temptation of crowning myself the "first". LOL, I am just being naughty here, though I am the first in my family to go to Ladakh. And I was the first among 40 odd bikers to reach the specatcular Belum Caves.

And if you are already wondering why I am saying this or what exactly I am saying, let me put it this way.

My only biking philosophy is, "Ek Desh, Do Pahiyey".
Do ride on and ride safe mate, for it is your country too.

Roadlust

How do I tame,
this ennui in me, always aflame?

How do I frame,
this moment, without giving it a name?

Ballets of Cranes, a helicoptering Kite,
moon-drenched clouds coupling in the night.

The voices in my head, the itch in my feet;
lead on to where silvery roads meet.

Born in this boring age, which wrong will I right?
restlessness is my only might.

Lifesong!!

Life’s a bouquet
of wait-a-bit thorn,
love’s a palette
of moments still-born
the self cleaved, the heart sleeved,
thoughts even voiced, are not clear.

I chase what I hold dear,
yet bliss eludes, butterflying, never to be near.

Bimli

Parakreets!
Dutch history in ruins
sand-ravaged jetties
that’s Bimli.

A board proclaims
Municipal Choultry, 1900
wonder
where they sell sea-food here.

I’ll build that writer’s den
here by the sea
with these ruined bricks
and tame the Parakreets.

I'll walk to the sea,
to look at the horizons
and walking back to my den,
say "Hello" to a thousand dead Dutchmen.

Walvis Bay

One look
at this coast’s
twisted Casuarina and Coconut groves
pebble-strewn beaches
reef-gutted boats
and battered faces
with vacant eyes;
shouts! this is cyclone country.

One struck here
and in the whisk of it's eye
towed anchored ships away
drowned hundreds of fishermen
depositing driftwood from battered boats
(funeral pyres for the living and dead)
left ashore.

Another was forecast
with bigger waves
better copy
gorier footage
more numbers of dead
jetslam, flotsam, for scribes
laden with mineral water (and hip flasks).

The one that was to
did not follow the one that landed,
it hit some other coast
drowning some more fishermen
battering some more boats
on another coast
one unwatched, all alone.

Around Walvis Bay, they are still religious,
temples and priests in high demand;
the other coast,
I, I, I.....don't know;
why that coast?
why not this coast, again?
why any coast, at all
why close thousands of eyes in the blink of one?

Rivers

Childhood

A young river is a bit like you and me,
if our young days we can see;
un-wondering things profound,
gurgling, flowing, skipping – unbound
too impulsive for poetry, too untutored for song
too blithe to know right from wrong.

Youth

The hills are a memory upriver,
as our years - arrows lost from a quiver;
a course, just an easy flow
too fast for rooted things, too slow for those on the go
relatively poetic, very free
like the craggy faced, shaggy haired reflection of me.

Death

Now, its end of the river, a time to drop the load
for us too, it's someday the same road;
ahead is blue that drowns even killer brown
Godspeed to the depths that do drown.

Roadsong

Words from my tongue-tip get blown away
and the wind's with cacophonies rife,
still, this is the way to pray
wherever, whenever, whatever my stages in life.

That the road is endless,
and my body always rings true,
that days be charmed like a cherub's chuckles
and the front wheel leads always to vistas new.

Wherever, whenever, whatever my stages in life.