Ketan's blog

Genghis Khan Vs the 'stan visa wall

2016-06-13T00:56:00.001-07:00

Guest post by She-Who-Must-be-obeyed

As usual she is planning a decade ahead in travel....this is a frustration blog on planning for a cycle expedition 2 years away...she is frustrated because she has been working on it for months and months already.

I don't even know what I will be doing next weekend :0

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Been trying to work out the visa paperwork for a bunch of Central Asian Stan visas, as part of my planned Pamir Highway cycling

Expedition next year. It is frigging easier to cycle up Ak Baital Pass at 4644meters ten times, than it is to get these damned visas.

Almost kicked Almaty out of my itinerary, atleast it would save me the bother of getting a Kazakh visa as well.... now I know why

The Mongols burnt and killed their way through Central Asia..... read on.

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Genghiz and The Great Game

I have a theory why Genghiz Khan and Timurlane left a trail of death and destruction in Central Asia.... it is not like

they were bloodthirsty barbarians, they were extremely civilised people.

One day Genghiz decided he wanted to go to Constantinople with his entourage, he had heard so much about the famed Silk Route

and the wonderful towns like Damascus and Constantinople which lay beyond.... And like all civilised people, he and his entourage

applied for transit visas to Kazakh / Kyrgyz / Tajik / Uzbek / Turkmenistan. They stumbled upon an obstacle which even

surpassed the Great Wall of China, the famed VISA SUPPORT AND LOI (Letter of Invitation). For the uninitiated in the Great Game,

a local travel agent in say Kazakhstan has to submit a LOI with all passport and trip details to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in Kazakhstan, and the Kazakh MEA will approve

your LOI and telex their acceptance DIRECTLY to the Kazakh embassy in Mongolia, where you eventually apply for the visa after the Kazakh MEA

has notified the Kazakh embassy. Repeat this process for each Stan.

Genghiz Khan had travelled about quite a bit, but had never heard of this LOI, so he employed the best travel agants in the world.

They in turn shopped online, floated a global tender and invited bids from every self-respecting travel agent in the world for visa support.

The sophisticated western agents with slick websites, glitzy brochures and 24 x 7 customer sales agents quoted 200 gold coins per head per country for the LOI,

But the shady Central Asian guys quoted 30 gold coins, and the sophisticated Central Asian agencies wanted 100 gold coins. The Mongols

were a worried lot, each fellow needed five visas just for the Stans, and at 200 gold coins per country per head for visa support ( actual visa fees extra), that was more gold

than had ever been mined on Planet Earth. Due negotiations were held, and finally a reputed Central Asian agency was given 45 gold coins per head per country , 100% advance

payment and told LOI will be issued in two weeks poor Genghiz even decided to limit the number of concubines in his entourage, the horrendous

expense on Visa Support pained him.

Now the Central Asian travel agent came with stellar references, he claimed to have arranged Marco Polo’s visa support two centuries ago, and even waved Marco Polo’s

tripadvisor review. The travel agent saw so much money he decided to splurge on the finest Russian whores and vodka money could buy, and had a jolly good time for a fortnight, By which

time he had no money left to pay the MEA fees, and so the Mongols did not get the Visa Support and all their gold was gone with the wind. The Mongols eventually

crucified the travel agent, and quartered his family, but that did not solve their problem of obtaining the LOI for five Stans.

By now, visa support had become a Mongol obsession, and Ulan Bataar University even offered a doctoral course to scholars on Horizons Unlimited and Caravanistan

forums. They could recite every post ever written by any lunatic traveller on these forums, and exams were held on the finest / the most difficult / the most challenging itineraries through

Central Asia, and they were so fiercely debated and trolled on Facebook and Twitter, it was not funny. One whole season passed, not a single Visa Support Letter in hand,

winter set in, travel plans abandoned and the Mongols threw themselves at it, hoping to get everything right before next summer.

Then some rookie traveller figured out Tajikistan was handing out e-visas. All of Mongolia erupted in Nadaam like celebrations, and Genghiz dragged the CEO’s of Visa and

Mastercard at sword point and commanded them to issue a credit card to all his entourage so they could pay online and obtain the elusive Tajik e-visa. The CEO’s went bald

overnight, WTF is the exchange rate from Mongol Togrog to Kazakh Tenge, to Tajik som to.... but they had to fix something or risk the ire of Genghiz ka sword slicing them like carpachio in red wine...

anyway the Visa and Mastercards did great business, and the Mongols soon got their e-visas. But like with all credit cards, they could not read the Terms & Conditions for forty five pages

in Font Size 5, and they ticked the square boz next to I have read, understood and agree to all T & C....and did the same on the e-visa application.

In an exceptional display of equestrian skills, the Mongols and their horses jumped over the Great Wall, raced overnight across China to the Qolma Pass border crossing with Tajik,

and waved their e-visas triumphantly. The dozen drunk Tajik soldiers laughed HAHAHAHAHA with so much contempt at the vast Mongol entourage, HOHOHOHO they laughed clutching

their sides and vodka bottles, ROFL another bunch of morons smitten by technology, idiots, please read page 33 Para 4 Line 3 Font size 6, it says e-visa acceptable only for arrivals in

Dushanbe International Airports, not for overlanding Mongols, you don’t even have carnet for your horses, so please FO now and slammed the border gates shut in their

face. The sad Mongols went back, and half of their Made in China cheap horses died enroute, and the Chinese enslaved the stragglers..... Genghiz Khan tied the poor rookie traveller’s legs to two horses, one went east and one went west, as a reward for his e-visa counsel.

Now Genghiz was really despairing, his Caravanistan and HU forum scholars were flogged every night for a solution, but poor sods found tons of info and facebook selfies about Marco Polo and the rest of his

Western brethren overlanding eastbound on the Silk Route, and a pannier load of updates by every demented Central European cyclist who pedalled solo up the Pamir Highway, but they

had no info about Mongols overlanding westbound on the Silk Route. The cyclists amazed them, why would any frigging fool not take a horse up a mountain pass, and insist on using his own measly horse

power to climb uphill? The visa rules for Mongols overlanding were more murky than squid’s ink. Finally unable to bear the horse whip and cat o’tails every night, an elderly scholar told Genghis his best chance

for visas was to apply in the Delhi embassies, which had a fame for compassion to second world visa seekers.

So the Mongol Minister of External Affairs duly set off with his Caravanistan - sixteen caravans of visa paperwork for five countries for the whole entourage. They bagged quite a few visas, and made brilliant

discoveries like a Kazakh five day transit visa doesn’t need visa support. They figured that if they flogged their best horses for five days and nights non-stop like in a Mongol Derby, they just could get from Barnaul in Russia ro to Bishkek in Kyrgyz, bounding across Kazakhstan before the five day transit visa expired.

But the damned Kyrgyz embassy screwed them royally this time.... first they were told to go to Ratnakar Bank Limited in Baba Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi and pay the visa fees into “The Account of the Embassy of the Kyrgyzstan Republic to the Republic of India” and bring the receipt back. (I am not kidding about the Ratnakar bank, pls see the Kyrgyz embassy Delhi website) They struggled for three days because they could not find this world class Ratnakar bank, NOBODY in India had heard of this bank either, so how can you blame the poor Mongols? The Ratnakar Bank sported the fancy initials of RBL in the consular website, so some people directed them to RBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland in Kasturba Gandhi Marg, then somebody sent them to the RBI in Parliament Street, (and RBI didn’t even know RBL existed), all to no avail. Eventually after a three day door to door search on Baba Kharak Singh Marg, the Mongols found the Ratnakar bank. They held a sword to the manager’s throat, and told him the staff couldn’t go home until all visa fee receipts were ready. Now the poor Ratnakar Bank had a poor clerk who had gotten the job on SC / ST or a VIP quota, and couldn’t spell Kyrgyzstan right, don’t blame his SC / ST for that, even many FC friends of mine, some of them very literate and well travelled, can’t spell Kyrgyzstan right, and think it is a part of Russia. So the Mongols got 4982 demand drafts in three categories, single entry tourist, double entry tourist, single transit for visa fees of USD 50, 70 and 30. But the Kyrgyz embassy got very angry about the spelling mistake in the demand drafts, and showered MC BC abuses at the Mongols and kicked them out for not spelling Kyrgyzstan right. The Mongols went with their swords and horsewhips back to Ratnakar Bank, and got 4982 drafts reissued. And yes, the clerk and manager were both waterboarded in the Yamuna river, but they didn’t drown, the polluted water killed both instantly.

The Mongols including Genghiz camped in Rashtrapati Bhavan grounds (the horses had enough grass), because the embassy had said it might call them for a personal interview if it wanted to. Finally the papers were verified, and the Consul bellowed at Genghiz – where the hell is the confirmed return air ticket on Kyrgyzstan Airlines ???? The Mongols got really really upset now, WTF and HTF does a Mongol on his horse travel in an aeroplane, his sword can’t even be checked in, and they massacred everybody in the Kyrgyz embassy. A couple of diehard Mongols still tried to get their return air tickets on Kyrgyzstan Airlines, by now they were ready to sell wives daughters and concubines in exchange for a visa stamp, and got royally scammed by the Connaught Place and Paharganj travel agents who sold them bogus tickets at inflated prices. Hahaha they sniggered, don’t these fools know Kyrgyzstan Airlines has been defunct for four decades now (consular website not updated, that is all)..... anyway with the embassy staff all massacred, there was nobody left to issue their last visa, the much needed Kyrgyz visa, because China and Tajik had by now closed Qolma Pass border crossing to third country nationals.... hahaha, so how can the Mongols cross from China to Tajik, except via Irkeshtam pass into Kyrgyzstan?

The Mongols went back completely defeated in the Great Game, of obtaining all five Stan visas, which is a greater feat than Winning the Grand Slam.... Genghiz Khan roared, he was becoming like Prince Charles waiting for the throne, he told his entourage ab bas bahut ho gayaa, bring the horses and swords, and off they went galloping across the steppes. They razed all border posts and embassies to the ground, and threw immigration officials, border guards and consuls in the bonfire. Like the embassies occupying prime real estate in Peddar Road and Chanakyapuri, the embassies in Samarkand, Bukhara, etc were all located in the royal quarters ( so the king could get express visas), and as bad luck would have it, when the embassies burned, so did the magnificent palaces, the great libraries, and amazing monuments. Not the Mongols’ fault really, they were just trying to rid the world of these pesky, rude, hare-brained embassies... it was just unfortunate collateral damage that everything else burned too.

Historians say the Mongols killed innocent civilians mercilessly, not really, that was not the intention at all, when they saw “Visa Support provided” boards in every second door in Central Asia, (half the Stans’ GDP is from scamming gullible and / or desperate overseas travellers’ hard earned money in return for elusive visa support) They remembered all their gold coins now, and all those years of waiting for their visas, and their long suffering, the Tajik soldiers’ drunken contempt of their e-visas, their search for RBL / RBS / RBI on a hot summer day in Delhi..... and they went berserk, and pulled everybody out of those “Visa Support Provided” doors and skewered them. And over a half of the local adult population died in their wake.....

Can’t blame the Mongols, really....

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Random outpourings

2015-07-22T23:14:00.001-07:00

I was walking home one day, when I saw a monstrous new building on the road. “Oh wow” I thought “must be the new ultra luxury modern sky scraper project from Hiranandani’s, or possibly the new MUTP mega project.”

But it looked a bit different. And I when I got a little closer, I saw that it was the local chapter of Bindeshwari Dubey’s Sulabh Shauchalaya. Well, I suppose in number of people relieved and happy, Mr. Dubey has done more for the country than any godman or politician.

I don’t know whether India is shining or not, but I must say that the public toilets are looking very hep. This one was a large and imposing building, looking more like the local “Shakha” or a post office or something. I would imagine that the locals will be afraid to pee in it, it looks so gleaming and posh. What a paradox – the toilets look like post offices and the post offices…well, never mind.

I was going to ‘go’ inside, but the attendant prevented me.

“Sorry saar. Not operational as yet.”

“Why not?”

“Inauguration yet to be done saar.”

Inauguration?!! Of a loo?

But the evidence was unquestionable. The attendant pointed to a huge marble notice being put on the wall - ‘This public facility inaugurated by Mr. So-and-so, honorable commissioner, on this date, etc’

I went home wondering how a toilet must be inaugurated.

Does the Hon. Commissioner get to cut a ribbon? or do the first pee? Or both? Just imagine – the commissioner cuts the yellow ribbon, goes inside, unzips and pees as the enthusiastic crowds applaud. I wonder what they will shout – “For he’s a jolly good yellow.” Then he will probably give a speech – and I wonder which of his outpourings will be more appreciated. To honour the occasion he will talk shit, I suppose

Imagine the complications – suppose the ceremonies get mixed up. The commissioner has unzipped and then someone hands him the scissors…oh no.

And just think of how much the official will have to care for – he will have to ensure a steady and impressive flow, not to mention the need for a good aim and steady hand-eye coordination.

And suppose the official has more than one engagement, won’t he run out of …ideas? Also his ideas and outpourings should come in a smooth flow, and not in fits, starts or trickles.

But wait – there are more complications. Suppose the official is a woman? Will she skirt the issue, or settle down to a solution?

Later I was discussing this issue with a friend, and he said that this was the best thing to have happened in the neighborhood. Now all the people should be forced to patronize this “temple of modern India” rather than letting it all hang out in the streets.

But it costs fifty p to go and P, I reminded him. And since most people in India are im-pee-cunious, they would probably carry out an illegal transaction in the open.

If that is the case, then we must force them – he replied.

We can’t force them to pee, it would be an infringement of the freedom of action of the individual. The international community would object, I said.

In that case, we must do it under IPKF supervision.

IPKF supervision?

Oh yes, he answered. “The International Piss Keeping Force.”

Dress Sense

2015-07-22T23:10:00.002-07:00

I was waiting for my flight at Bangkok airport when I saw a person with vaguely Indian features sitting next to me. We got into conversation, and it turned out that he was not Indian, but a Bhutani. This was close enough to home, especially when you are in a foreign country, and so we warmed to each other.

He looked fairly Indian, and also had Indian mannerisms. I was planning to go to Bhutan for a holiday, and had done a lot of reading about it, so I was able to ask him about the cities of Paro and Thimpu, the ‘Dzong’ monastery -fortresses, the black necked cranes of Phobjika, the 23 day snowman trek, etc. He was very happy that a foreigner knew some things about his country and told me all about them.

After some time he stretched luxuriously and said “It’s so nice to be casually dressed all the time. It makes a nice change.”

I looked curiously at him. He was dressed fairly normally in jeans and T shirt.

“Why? Don’t you dress like this at home?”

“Well, we can dress any way we like inside our house, but when we are in a public place we are supposed to wear only our national dress.”

“National dress?” I asked

“Oh yes. We have a national dress called the ‘Bakhu’, and we are very proud to wear it. We wear it all the time, and in fact it is compulsory to wear the ‘Bakhu’ in office.”

“Compulsory?”

“Oh yes. In fact, we are fined if we don’t wear our national dress in the office. Why, don’t you have a national dress?”

“Oh yes, of course. We have a rich variety of ethnic dresses. We have Dhoti, Kurta, Achkan, Salwar kameez, turbans…we have some pan national dresses, and every state has its individual dress. We also say that we are very proud of our dress and heritage.”

“But you don’t wear them much in public do you?”

I thought for a minute.

“No…we prefer to forget them, and prefer to wear the dress of our invaders – Shirt, pant, tie, coat, etc. In fact, we are ashamed of wearing our national dress in public. In your country and in your office you are punished for NOT wearing your national dress; and in our country and our offices, we are punished if we DO wear our national dress.

In fact, if I come to work wearing a dhoti, kurta and chappals, I will be coldly asked whether I am participating in a fancy dress, and will be ordered to go home and come back properly dressed in shirt, pant and shoes.”

He thought about it for a moment and said “Strange ways you have in your country.”

I couldn't disagree.

Fly past

2015-05-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

One thing they don’t mention in the tourism brochures of Western Australia is the population problem.

The country is overpopulated.

Not with humans, but with flies!

As soon as day breaks, they are all over the place, in their thousands...millions...billions! In your eyes, mouth, face, ears...going bzzz bzzzz bzzzz.

They are not nasty ones like our desi flies, which seem to have a personal vendetta against humans – these ones seem to be extremely friendly – moronically friendly – and all of them have come over to hug you and pat you on the back and shake you by the hand and say ‘G’day mate....g’day mate...g’day mate...’ all day long and not realise that you are not as thrilled to be meeting them as they are to be meeting you.

In India you get flies when there is garbage around, or shit, or something rotten or something equally unpleasant. Not so in WA – they are everywhere – like oxygen. Stop your car anywhere and step out in complete wilderness – virgin landscape...extremely beautiful...there won’t be a soul around for 100’s of kilometres – and whooom! You are surrounded by a cloud of flies who’s dearest wish is to get as close to you as they can.

You wave and jump and dance and curse and then surrender and jump back into your car – only to find that a dozen or more flies have decided that they love you dearly and want to hitch a ride with you. Then again you curse and wave and the car wiggles dangerously in the road, causing your wife and any other driver who may happen to be in the vicinity to have a minor heart attack. Cursing and bad language happens, and then you roll down your window and shoo as many flies as you can out of the car.

I developed a theory about why there are so many flies here.

After God made the 4 continents, he got very bored with doing the same old same old.

‘Bugger this.’ He said ‘I am sick of making deer and cattle and monkeys and shit like that. I am an artist! I cannot allow myself to be bound by any one style. Now, I will make something totally weird.’

And so he thought and thought and made up all kinds of weird stuff for the fifth continent– kangaroos and duck billed platypus and koalas and stuff like that...

He made every bloody thing here so poisonous that absolutely anything can kill you with a horrible death – snakes, spiders, molluscs, shell fish, jelly fish– anything. He made giant crazy landscapes – deserts, mountains, gorges, long winding rivers, mangrove swamps, the tallest trees in the world etc etc. He totally freaked out.

But the problem was that so much ideating took so long, that he ran out of time. The seventh day was coming and he had to rest – but he still had a huge amount of life force to finish off.

‘Fuck this shit.’ He said ‘I’m bored.’ and fooooosssssshhhh – turned all the life force he had left into flies and went off for a rest.

That’s why the bloody place has no animals but only flies.

She-who-must-be-obeyed heard my story with a cold glare and said ‘what nonsense.’

‘Why? Is it any worse than the aboriginal story of a giant snake and a kangaroo jumping around in dreamtime when the world was soft and malleable and thus making the hills and valleys? Or for that matter, the story of a dude in a big white beard creating all of creation in 6 days and then taking a nap on the seventh day?’

‘I see a bright future for you as a mythologist re...’ she said ‘...very promising indeed.’

‘They can send me an invitation for mythologist of the year – address it to Mr Ketan Joshi and Fly.’

The biggest loser

2015-05-13T21:23:00.001-07:00

The biggest loser.

Some people go around the world collecting souvenirs, while some people go around the world leaving them.

These people are cheerful, sharing, not obsessed with detail, not bothered about material possessions, believe in ‘vasudeva kautumbam’ – or the world is one family.

Unfortunately, they are also known as forgetful, absent minded, idiot, would forget head if not screwed on .. and also as ‘KETAAAAAAAAAN!!’

I had reached Perth after a bit of flight delay and was staying with Jimmy and Monaz. Bharathi had landed before me and had reached there already. When I reached there, I noticed that they were all staring at me like one may stare at a circus performer – waiting for him to do his next trick.

‘Err...hi...’ I said, looking from side to side and uncomfortably noticing Bharathi’s grin.

‘Bharathi has told us a lot about you.’ They said.

As far as scary sentences go, this must rank pretty high.

‘Oh....really?’ I said. ‘It’s all false, I assure you. A fake. A fabrication. A fiction. A tissue of lies and deception.’

‘Arre, you don’t even know what she said.’ Monaz’s mom said.

‘Aunty – she is my wife....so unlikely that she would have said anything complimentary.’

‘True that.’ All the males in the room nodded. Jimmy and his father in law getting nasty looks from their respective wives.

‘She said you lost your passport!’

‘THAT’S NOT TRUE! THAT’S A FALSE ALLEGATION! THAT’S SLANDER! CALUMNY! CHARACTER ASSASINATION!’

‘Mummy..’ Monaz interrupted. ‘She said that he WASHED his passport’

‘Er....’ I went silent.

‘You really did??’ they all stared at me round eyed. I wiggled with embarrassment.

‘Well...technically I didn’t wash my passport. She did.’ I pointed at Bharathi. They all turned to look at her.

‘The fool gave me his pant to wash with his passport in one pocket and his goggles in the other...’

‘You should have checked the pockets! What kind of dhobi are you?’ I protested

‘...and imagine my state when I pulled his pant out of the dryer and noticed something in its pocket and pulled out a passport which had been in the washing machine for a full wash and spin and in the dryer for 1 hour. I nearly had a heart attack.’ She continued, completely ignoring my interruption.

‘And what did he say when you showed him his washed passport?’

‘HE WAS HARDLY BOTHERED! HE JUST SHOOK HIS HEAD AND SAID ‘WELL IT’S TOO LATE TO WORRY NOW’ AND WENT TO SLEEP!!! I WAS DYING THERE, AND HE MERRILY GOES TO SLEEP!!!’

They were all looking at me in shock.

‘And what happened after that?’

‘Well, it was a bit of a circus, but we got him back safe and sound.’

‘Show the passport, show the passport! ‘they begged and I reluctantly showed them the bruised and battered passport, and they all oohed and aahed over it. Clearly, I was a paisa vasool entertainment.

‘So what’s the tally now?’ Bharathi asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What all have you lost on this trip?’

‘Ha!’ I was stung. ‘What have I lost? That’s rich. That’s fine. That’s shameless. Who was the one who lost my gamcha in South Africa, eh? Who was that forgetful anti-kleptomaniac? Who? It was you! You! You! You!’ I said, pointing my finger dramatically at her.

‘Anti – kleptomaniac?’ uncle asked, after a pause.

‘Well....a kleptomaniac is a person who goes around taking things...so an anti-kleptomaniac is someone who leaves things behind.’

‘Ah. OK. Nice one.’

‘Thank you.’ I turned my attention back to Bharathi ‘for your kind information madam – I have not lost a single thing on this trip. Not a sock, not a hankerchief, not a safety pin. You, on the other hand, have lost an irreplaceable gamcha. So you are the scatterbrain here, not me! YOU YOU YOU! BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA’ I roared with laughter, and everyone tapped a finger on their foreheads and looked at Bharathi with sympathy.

Bharathi just shrugged with a ‘You can’t win them all’ expression and said, ‘OK, never mind. Let’s start listing down the things to do before we start our road trip. Firstly, you have to get a mobile connection...’

‘I GOT IT. I GOT IT. I GOT BEFORE YOU TOLD ME TO! I WIN! HAHAHAHA’ I cried in joy, and then looking at the stunned faces in the room, realised that my joy was disproportionate to the issue. ‘Er...I mean.. I already picked up a sim card at the airport.’

‘OK...next...Aussie currency. We have already done that, by taking a travel card. (that story is here) Give me the card then.’ She said.

‘OK.’ I said confidently. I had kept all documentation safely in separate plastic folders in my computer bag. My passport, visa, yellow fever vaccination certificate, travel itineraries, etc.

I pulled out my bag and took out my folder casually and looked inside. Then looked again, with a little more concentration. Then looked again. And again. This time with full concentration. Then picked up my bag and rummaged through it again. And again. And again. And again.

Then I looked up.

‘YOU DIDNT!!!’ Bharathi looked at me with horror.

‘Well...er...’

‘YOU DIDNT!!!’

‘What happened dickra?’

‘THIS IDIOT HAS LOST THE TRAVEL CARD!’

‘Well, it’s not lost exactly...’ I said. ‘...I just don’t know where it is....’

‘Where can it be then?’ Uncle said, trying to give constructive advice. I thought a bit.

‘Well...it could be in the hotel in Johannesburg...or at Johannesburg airport ....or in the plane from Johannesburg to Doha...or in Doha airport ....or in the hotel in Doha...or in the plane from Doha to Perth....or in Perth airport...’

I looked around to see everyone’s mouth open in ‘O’s of shock.

‘So...it could be anywhere on three continents.’ She-who-must-be-obeyed said, after a pause.

‘Er...yes.’

‘GRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr’ She ground her teeth like a big truck changing gears and made a deep throaty sound like a tigress about to pounce on her prey. Just a can of yellow paint and some whiskers were required to complete the illusion.

Neville came running into the room, shouting ‘I AM BACK.....WHAT DID I MISS?’

‘Ooooh...what fun....he has lost all their money!’

‘It could be anywhere in 3 continents!’

‘She is going to kick him so hard, he is going to be incontinent...hehehe...’

The Karani’s and the Kasad’s settled comfortably on the sofa and pulled out some popcorn! This is going to be fun! They starting placing bets

’10 bucks on a scream of 3.2 on the richter scale!’

’1 gets 50 that she will give a roundhouse kick to the face!’

‘best odds on her biting several pieces out of his leg!’

But then suddenly Jimmy thought about how are they going to get back without any money? Shit. ...they will stay in Perth forever!

‘I will call the airport.’ He said brightly ‘and ask if they have found anything.’

He googled the number and called, and immediately got a recorded message saying that the office is closed now but if he was of a hopeful and trusting disposition, he should leave his contact details and issue and they would get back to him. Maybe they sell this database of numbers of trusting and hopeful people to telemarketers.

We all were watching She-who-must-be-obeyed like the villagers of Pompeii must have watched the mountain glow and bulge just before the explosion – a weird fascination and urge to watch inspite of knowing that a cataclysm was on the way.

‘So, don’t you think that you should call ICICI and cancel the card?’ she asked with a dangerous calm.

‘Er...OK...I will call...good idea...’ I replied. ‘Wasn’t it a good thing that I got that SIM card with unlimited calling to India, hey?’ I said, trying to mention something positive to lighten the mood, but quailed at the expression on her face.

Now, ICICI has the worst customer service possible for travel cards. They don’t have an online portal to report lost cards, they don’t even have an online portal for travel cards at all. It is hidden somewhere on their sight, where only a hacking wizard can find it. They don’t have an international hot line. They don’t have anything.

Finally, I called the normal ICICI phone banking number, and got a message saying that they have only limited customer service before 6 AM. I was dumbfounded. I had no idea that they didn’t have 24/7 phonebanking.

But they had a special portal to report lost card – press zero for lost card. I did that, then it asked me whether I wanted to report lost card for banking, credit card or prepaid card. Thats it. No specific option for international travel card.

I deliberated for sometime before pressing the ‘credit card and prepaid card option’ but I had deliberated too long. The system cut me off.

Cursing a bit, I dialled again. This time, the system first informed me proudly that they were at the very forefront of technology and had instituted a ‘voice recognition’ technology, then they told me that only limited options of phone banking were available because it was so fucking early in the morning, then they asked me if I preferred English, hindi or Marathi, then asked me to report lost card, and then asked me if I meant to report ATM card, debit card, credit card or prepaid card. After I chose credit or prepaid – it asked me ‘all your credit cards will be disabled permanently!! Are you sure? Are you really sure? Are you really really REAALLLLLLLLY sure?’ and as I thought about it, it decided that I was too bloody slow, and threw me out.

My blood pressure spiked to dangerous levels.

Fuming, I decided to call my relationship manager and ask him to do the needful. First, I tried to whatsapp him. no response. Then I tried VOIP Whatsapp calling. No response. Then I tried calling him on mobile. No response.

Seeing my rigid face and bulging veins, even Bharathi didn’t make any inflammatory comment.

‘Maybe he is not taking the call because he doesn’t recognise your aussie number.’ She said ‘try sending him a message telling him that it is you calling.’

I whatsapped him, smsed him, emailed him, but no response.

‘Fuck this.’ I said ‘Why am I wasting time with these guys? Sambo, My batchmate, is some hotshot in that branch – I will call him.’

‘It’s still early in India.’ Bharathi said ‘You will disturb him.’

‘That will be even more fun.’ I said, and called Sambo – but again, no response. I messaged him and waited, but still no response.

‘OOOOOO.....HE CANT GET THROUGH.....OOOOO....SOMEONE WILL WITHDRAW ALL OUR MONEY AND WE WILL BE LEFT PENNILESS.....OOOOOOO....HOW WILL I GET BACK TO INDIA......OOOOOO...MY CHILD...HOW WILL SHE SURVIVE WITHOUT MEEEEEEEEEEE’ Bharathi wailed.

Seeing that, jimmy started wailing too ‘OOOOOO.....HOW WILL THEY GET BACK TO INDIA.....OOOOO....THEY WILL STAY HERE.....OOOOOO....HOW WILL I EXPLAIN TO THE IMMIGRATION SERVICE.....OOOOOOO....’

‘Here...relax...’ I said ‘I will call the ICICI portal again.’

I called them again, and again went through all the nonsense...welcome to ICICI bank....voice recognition tech..blalbla...press 1 for English 2 for hindi...press 0 to report lost card...press 1 for ATM card ..2 for Debit card...3 for credit and prepaid...all you cards will be blocked and you will be a pauper and no dukaandaar will ever treat you properly again...are you sure..are you really sure....are you really REALLY sure?

YES GODDAMIT! I am sure. I pressed the button.

And the bloody call went to a human operator! I was shocked!

If the call was going to be routed to a human – why on earth have that irritating waste of time menu?!!

Idiots!

‘Yes sir....Welcome to ICICI bank...I am soandso speaking...how can I assist you?’

I almost wept with joy, and the tension level in the room abated. ‘YES YES YES...please help me...BOO HOO HOO...I am calling from Australia and I seem to be have been on hold for most of my adult life. I have lost my travel card...’ and I told him the story.

‘OK sir, no problem...I will connect you to the team responsible.’ He said and again I was on hold! ‘thank you for calling ICICI bank! Please wait as all the operators are laughing at you for being such an idiot! Thank you for calling ICICI bank....’

After several minutes, finally the call was answered.

‘Yeah?’

‘Thank god you picked up! Listen, this is an emergency! I am calling from Australia!....’ and again I told him the story.

‘OK...so you want to block the card...please tell me the card number.’

What a damn stupid thing to ask. I have lost the card – which I have never used – how am I supposed to know the 16 digit card number?

‘I don’t know it, I am afraid.’

‘Oh you don’t know it? Really? What an idiot you are!. OK...tell me your passport number then.’

I told him, and the line went dead for several seconds, punctuated only by vague ticking and tapping sounds. The tension mounted.

Finally he said ‘I can’t find any card on this passport number. That’s strange. Tell me your birthdate please.’

‘Wont it be easier if I tell you my bank account number?’

‘No sir...we don’t have bank details here.’ So I told him my birth date. More tapping.

‘I don’t have any records sir’ he said finally. ‘Are you sure you took the card from ICICI?’

‘Yes of course I did.’ I snapped. ‘It’s an ICICI multi currency travel card.’

‘AH!’ he said, with the air of a person who’s problems are solved. ‘I SEE! This is just the travel card department...you want the MULTI currency travel card department....I will connect you.’ And tuk! He vanished.

‘thank you for calling ICICI bank! Now please fuck off!’ and the line got cut!

I was left staring at the phone.

I looked up and everyone in the room backed away from me. My eyes were bloodshot, my incisors were growing into fangs and I must have been looking like Dr Jekyll turning into Mr Hyde. I was gripping the phone so tightly, I was a good thing I didn’t crush it into pulp.

I tried to calm down - might as well have a shit, I thought. Life is always better after a shit.

While shitting, I had a bright idea. My relationship manager might not be taking the call for any reason, but my classmate Sambo would definitely have taken a call. Maybe his number has changed. And I knew where to find his correct number – it would be in the class whatsapp group! I checked and sure enough, the number was different from the one I had been calling.

I called the new number and a puzzled voice answered ‘hello?’

Sighing with relief, I told him the whole story, and asked him to get the card blocked.

‘Can’t do that Kejo’ he replied ‘Only the call centre can block your card. We have strict security procedures.’

‘WHAT! But I have been trying to get through to them for hours...centuries...aeons!’

But he would not be moved. He could try to do something once the office opened after a couple of hours, else my only bet was the call center.

I had another good idea while sitting on the pot. I had got the number of my travel card in a mail when I had written to ICICI complaining about their procedures. I checked and found it! Now I knew my card number! Hallejulah !

Moodily, I tried again, and jumped through all their hoops again. Press 1, press 2, press boob, press your throat and try to kill yourself... this time I confidently entered my card number....and got through to a human operator!

So, it made no difference whasoever, if you enter or don’t enter your card number!

‘OOH! THANK GOD!!’ I screamed, probably scaring the poor fellow. ‘I have lost my multi currency travel card and I want to block it....connect me to the MULTI CURRENCY TRAVEL CARD department...not to the travel card department...otherwise I will combust spontaneously here and cause third degree burns to everyone around!’

Luckily I got through this time to the correct department and to a very sweet guy, who found my card and blocked it. May the heavens shower blessings upon him!

Finally! Oof. What an ordeal it was. Talk about an inefficient system . Good thing I had unlimited calling to India, or I would have been in the soup. This call would have cost the big bucks – it had taken so long to get things done!

I cooled down my frazzled nerves with a cup of tea, and saw Uncle and Aunty staring admiringly at us.

‘How cool you both are!’ aunty said. ‘No shouting, screaming or panic.’

‘I would have been hanged from the nearest lamp post by now, if I had done something as stupid as this.’ Uncle agreed, and aunty gave him a nasty look.

‘What to do...’ Bharathi said, as she linked her arm in mine. ‘You get used to it, when he loses something or the other all the time.’

‘But what will you do for money now?’ Uncle asked.

‘Oh, that’s not a problem.’ Bharathi replied. ‘We will withdraw from ATM. I just wanted to make sure that no one uses that card to withdraw all our money.’

‘Now you be careful!’ uncle and aunty wagged their finger at me. ‘Don’t forget anything else.’

‘No no...’ I replied. ‘I will be very careful. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.’

We made our way out and Neville dropped us to the car hire shop where we were to pick up our car for our three week driving holiday across Western Australia.

‘We are very late....we should have made an earlier start.’ She-who-must-be-obeyed grumbled. ‘What time is it?’

I looked at my wrist. It was empty.

I had forgotten my watch at Monaz’s place.

Bugger!

Flight risk

2015-04-30T07:56:00.002-07:00

I don’t think anybody has missed as many flights, trains and buses as I have. Ever.

I have missed trains because I was mistaken about the timing – on my very first backpacking trip, me and my friend Chinmay were supposed to go to Calcutta together on the Gitanjali express. Chinmay sent me a fax of the ticket (this – as you can guess – was a very long time ago) and the time of the journey was a bit garbled. I thought that the time was 6.30 so I decided to reach the station a full half an hour earlier – only to see the Gitanjali express steam out at 6.00 AM – which turned out to be the actual timing. I tried to chase it in a local – but the express took precedence, and I had to give the chase at the end of the local line and come back and take a flight. You would think that this one experience was enough to teach me a lesson – but I have missed trains as late as 2014 by being mistaken about the timing. Even my mom has blogged about it! You can read that blog here.

I have missed buses because – well, because I was late, or because I couldn’t find the bus stop – don’t laugh! Bus stops aren’t marked clearly – it could happen to anyone. And once I missed it because me and Dillu were having a drink at Lamba’s restaurant and bar at Chembur. It is right opposite the yogi hotel bus stand, and I am sure better people than me and Dillu have missed the bus by getting carried away by its prawns koliwada and cold beer.

But it is in flights that the true creativity of missing flights comes through.

In olden days (gotta stop saying that – makes me feel like a neathandral) you could turn up just moments before the flight time and still get seated. Once I woke up at 6.00 Am for a 6.30 AM flight.

‘Oh, you have missed your flight.’ Dad said

‘Not on your life!’ I said and dragged him into the car, and drove like Ayrton Senna (gotta think of names of modern racing car drivers) to the airport – Shit shave shampoo and drive all happened in 25 minutes and we were at the airport at 6.25! Dad was white faced, shaking and almost catatonic as I left him and sprinted to the Jet airways counter. There was no irritating CISF at the time, so I could reach the counter in seconds and slammed my ticket on the counter and demanded a boarding pass.

‘Sir...the flight has gone!’ the check in girl said.

‘NO NO...’ I said ‘I can still hear them announcing the last and final departure. Give me the boarding pass.’

Unbelievingly she said ‘Do you have any check in luggage?’

‘NO! DAMMIT! GIVE ME THE PASS!’

She gave me a pass and I sprinted through the security and made to the boarding gate with moments to spare.

Obviously, this was before 9/11 when the world was more innocent. Try this stunt now and you will be in the clink with a security squad guy beating your ass.

But we are talking about missing flights – now anyone can miss flights if you are late, or the flight is preponed or traffic is fucked up (all of which have happened to me) – but I have missed a flight sitting right there in the departure lounge in front of the gate!

I once missed it, because I fell asleep! I was dozing right in front of the counter and missed their boarding announcement and numerous appeals to the mysterious Mr Joshi to turn up. After I woke up, I had to sheepishly go and ask for a seat on another flight. Luckily it was Indian Airlines so they obliged - today's private airlines would have told me to go buy a new ticket.

That is also understandable – if you are asleep, you are asleep! But I had an even stranger experience once.

I was waiting for a Delhi flight – it was an Indian Airlines flight IC655 or something, departing at 9.00 AM. I had reached well in time, and was sitting in the departure lounge, watching the people board. Now, I don’t see the point of boarding the flight early and just sitting in that cramped plane waiting for the other idiots to board. In my book, boarding early is done only if you are escorting neurotic elderly relatives or have a lot of cabin baggage and you need to be first in the cabin so as to get the space in the overhead locker. I generally make it a point of sneering at the fools who stand in line to board the plane, and being the last guy to board the flight, so that as soon as I sit down they do the safety drill and take off. This is a tried and tested procedure, and I have done it hundreds of times.

However, in this particular case – there was a twist.

I strolled up to the check in clerk and royally handed him my boarding pass. He tried to scan it a couple times, but the system couldn’t take it. He peered at my boarding pass and said to me

‘Sir – you are not on this flight!’

‘Eh? What do you mean?’

‘You are on flight IC 655 to Delhi – this is IC 654 to Delhi – via Ranchi! Your flight was at 9.00 AM – this flight is at 9.05 AM.’

‘WHAT!’ I was shocked ‘ Where is my flight then?’

‘At the next counter sir..’ he pointed to the neighbouring boarding gate. ‘But they have closed the boarding. The counter is closed.’

‘WHAT!!!!’ I screamed and ran to that counter, but it was closed. Puffing and gasping, I came back to this fellow and said ‘Put me on your flight man- you are also IC and you are also going to Delhi.’

‘I don’t know...’ he said doubt fully ‘the flight is full. Only one passenger is yet to board – if he turns out to be a no show, then I can give you his seat.’

I waited hopefully, but then the bloody fellow turned up, puffing and gasping and I had to go down to their office and get a seat on a later flight.

However – all this was on domestic flights – which is after all a controllable environment. The worst thing that can happen is an embarrassing call to the client or to the boss.

I have had some interesting goof ups on international flights too!

One was on the Mumbai Dubai flight. We had had a good year and the company was sending us on a junket to Dubai.

I reached the airport well in time and greeted my colleague Shekhar at the airport. We cleared immigration well in time, but after I cleared security, I just couldn’t find my boarding pass! I searched high and low, but the bloody thing had vanished!

Shekhar almost had a heart attack!

‘Sir sir sir....what will we do sir...the cops will arrest us and give us the third degree...OOOOOO.....my first foreign trip.....MERA KYA HOGAAAAA......MY POOR PARENTS....WHERE WILL THEY SEARCH FOR MEEEEEE....’ he broke down and started sobbing bitterly.

‘Hush.' I said ‘Why so much tension? Whats the worst that can happen? They will not allow me to board the flight. That’s OK...I am not desperate to see Dubai. If they cut up rough, I will simply go home.’

He stared at me unbelievingly as I calmly went and spoke to the dragon lady who was running the Emirates operations and told her that I had lost my boarding pass.

She almost blew a gasket.

‘HOW COULD YOU LOSE A BOARDING PASS?!!’ she screamed and Shekhar blanched and nearly shat his pants. ‘HOW COULD YOU?!!!!’

I was completely calm and said ‘OK...now that you have got that out of your system, let’s do something productive. I have lost the pass, and I am sorry about it – but shouting isn’t going to bring it back. Let’s get a fresh pass done.’

After fulminating for some more time, we got to do the whole thing again- new boarding pass – new immigration stamp – an interesting discussion with the airport police – new security stamp – the works.

I had taken my jacket off for security, and as I put it on again – I felt a rustling in my sleeve. I put in my hand to investigate, and came out with my old boarding pass! The bloody thing had been in my sleeve all along!

‘See this!’ I said to Shekhar and showed him two boarding passes – both with immigration and security stamps. His eyes almost fell out of his head. ‘Put it away sir....before they arrest both of us!’

But the reason why I was thinking about all this was an interesting experience I had today.

I was in Johannesburg, South Africa – waiting to board a flight to Perth, Australia on Qatar airways. Qatar airways has a hub and spoke system – so the flight was Johannesburg to Doha; and then change to a Doha – Perth flight.

‘It’s a tight connection in Doha’ She-who-must-be-obeyed warned me ‘Only a couple of hours. So please don’t fall asleep or dawdle in Doha.’

‘Not to worry, ma’m’ I replied, giving her a snappy salute. ‘I shall be alert and sober.’

I reached the airport at 10 AM for a 3 PM flight and spent the time looking around the airport and shopping for curios.

However, it turned out that the flight was delayed and delayed and delayed - first they said that it would leave at 4.30, then 5.00 then 5.30. At first, I panicked – as it would leave very little time to catch the Doha Perth flight – but when the flight became very late and then very very late - I relaxed - I would definitely miss the connection – so why worry? The airline would do something.

The Qatar airways guys came and told us to eat at the coffee shop on them – and thus I was convinced that this was going to be a long long delay.

We were supposed to board from gate A3, so I was sitting in the coffee shop right in front of the gate, where I could see the planes. There was no sign of a Qatar airways plane – a South Africa airways plane was sitting at Gate A3.

I surfed the net as long as I could - had taken a South Africa SIM – but as the flight was so delayed, all my balance got over in accessing the internet. When I checked the balance it showed – Airtime – zero; Data – zero.

At 5.00 PM, I got bored of sitting in the coffee shop and decided that this was a good time to take a shit – before I got into a crowded airplane – and made my way to the loo.

I had a satisfactory dump and was feeling the satisfaction of a job well done – and was just washing my hands, when my phone rang.

‘Strange’ was my first thought ‘who has my South Africa number?’

‘Shit!!!’ was my second thought ‘Only the airline has my number. Hope there is no security issue with the check in baggage’

‘Hello?’ luckily incoming calls were free – thus I could take the call on a zero balance

‘Can I speak to Mr JO SHEEE?’

‘Er...speaking.’

‘I am calling from Qatar airways Mr JO SHEEE’ he said ‘Where are you now?’

‘Where am I now.....I am here...in front of gate No 3...’

‘Please come to the boarding gate sir...we are about to close the boarding.’

‘CLOSE THE BOARDING!!! WHEN DID YOU EVEN START THE BOARDING?!! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SO MANY HOURS!!’

‘Yes sir...everyone has boarded...please come immediately’

I sprinted to the boarding gate, thanking the lord that I had a South Africa SIM which they could call on. Unlikely they would have called an India number – and I may not have taken a call from an unknown number on international roaming

I made my way to the plane and saw that it was a bit of a concealed entrance – the entrance was from gate A3, but then the path led to gate A5, where the plane was standing. No wonder I had not seen the plane.

‘All’s well that ends well’, I thought as I sat down. My bowels are empty and I was the last one to board the plane, as I normally like to do.

The new superhero in town

2015-04-22T02:32:00.001-07:00

The new superhero in town!

The wife and the brat arrived after a couple of day to add to the natural wonders of South Africa and the veldt resounded to the sounds of the new wildlife.

'SANJU! eat this!'

'NO!I hate you! I hate food! I hate eating! I hate drinking! I dont want to become fat like you!'

'SANJU! take a bath!'

'NO!I hate taking baths! Is there a tub bath? Is it the most inconvenient time I can think of for taking a bath? Have you run out of clean clothes for me to wear, so that I can insist on taking a bath and changing clothes? If not, then I dont want to take a bath.'

'SANJU! lets go to see this beautiful place!'

'NO! I HATE seeing beautiful places! I hate going out! I REFUSE TO LEAVE THIS HOTEL! I WANT TO STAY HERE ALL DAY LONG!'

'SANJU! get your nose out of that tab and see this beautiful penguin - view - ostrich - '

'NO. I HATE SEEING THE REAL WORLD! I have already seen this beforeon the TV / on the internet / on my tab / on those silly TV shows you both keep seeing all the time. '

'SANJU! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! PUT THAT TAB DOWN!'

'MOOOOOOOOOM! TECHNOLOGY IS MY LIFE! I love only technology things!'

She-who-must-be-obeyed wasnt being obeyed, and maternal instincts prevented her from tearing her first born into tiny fragments and dancing on them like a little Nataraj, so she turned on me.

'THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!' she screamed at me, turning big and green. The INCREDIBLE HULK was on the loose. 'PUNY HUMAN!'

I shied like a startled fawn and jumped 10 feet away in fright!

'What! why? when? what did I do?'

'You set a bad example to her by being constantly on the phone or on the PC or on the tab or some other pestilential piece of technology. Be like a good madrasi husband and father - your only possession should be a lungi and a shirt. And that too you should wear alternatatingly. Either lungi or shirt. thats it.'

'But...but...but...'

'get that little tyke to eat properly or HULK SMASH!'

I tried to play the stern parent and turned on the little one.

'What nonsense behaviour is this?' I thundered, wagging my finger at her. 'Is this the way to behave? Eat some food at once, I say!'

There was a sudden flash of green as if some cosmic rays had suddenly hit us, and a crack of supersonic sound and the smell of ozone in the air. We covered our eyes at the flash, and suddenly had to cover our ears as there was a sonic attack in the air.

'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

We looked at the scene dumbfounded - there was a new super hero in town! The daughter of Hulk was born anew.

'I HATE YOU ALL. LEAVE ME ALONE. LEAVE ME ALONE.'

She was big and green and sat in a corner.

she was .... THE INCREDIBLE SULK!

Diving with the sharks

2015-04-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

Diving with the sharks

I set my alarm for 4.30 AM, and was so excited that I kept getting up in the night and checking my watch suspiciously. Finally when the alarm rang at 4.30, I jumped out of bed with enthusiasm – because I was going shark cage diving!

(Not my photo - from internet)

The Great white shark is one of nature’s most efficient predators, and till very recently, the only way one could have a close up and personal look at this magnificent animal in the wild was by jumping in the water and shouting ‘AAARRGHH SAVE MEEEEEEEEE...’ shortly before becoming a tasty snack for the hungry shark.

But now they have figured out a convenient way for you to enjoy a sight of this apex predator and survive the experience and go back and boast about it – they lower a cage into the water by the side of the boat and the divers can go and sit inside the cage. Then the boat wala dumps some fish waste into the water to attract the sharks and when the shark comes sniffing around, they tie some fish heads to a rope and throw them in the water. When the shark tries to snap at the fish heads, they jerk the rope and pull it out of the sharks reach – as you might tease a dog by offering it a biscuit and pulling it away when the dog jumps for it. Substitute the image of the dog with a giant tiger with huge fangs and rippling muscles.

(not my photo - from internet)

Anyway, I was up at 4.30 and congratulating myself for being the first guy to awaken on a cold winter morning, when I heard some voices and laughter from the street below; and when I looked down I saw that it was a bunch of my young fellow hostelites – they were just coming back from a night of partying and clubbing.

I suddenly felt very old.

I got ready and waited and finally at 5.30 a guy came to the door and asked ‘Shark cage diving’ In a deep voice and ushered me to the collection van. He was tall and muscular and looked like a hero of a Wilbur Smith novel. You could just imagine him being a rancher in wild Africa or an elephant hunter or a diamond prospector or any amount of heroic figures.

The bus was full of sleepy figures and as it was dark and misty outside, I also decided to rest my eyes for a minute – and when I opened them – I had been magically transported to the Shark Cage diving office at Gansbaai.

‘Wow – that was quick!’ I thought....but then I realised that I had been asleep for two hours and felt a little crushed.

We got out of the bus and went up to their office where they had a nice breakfast laid out. We were all hungry and loaded our plates with all kinds of stuff. We had just started tucking in when the organiser comes and says ‘Guys – you better chew your food very thoroughly – make it into a fine paste before you swallow it.’

‘Why?’ I asked thickly, my mouth full of ham sandwich.

‘Well, there’s a bit of a swell ,so it might be rough on the boat. So when you puke, it’s better to puke out a fine paste rather than big bits which might get stuck in your windpipe’

That caused a bit of a silence in the hall, as everyone looked at their plate and thought about all that was already inside and a lot of people quietly put their plate aside.

After everyone was through, the dive master gave us hi s instructions. He explained how the thing would work – the fish waste would be put into the water to attract the sharks and once the sharks came, they would lower the cage in the water and five people at a time would enter the cage. When the boat crew saw a shark they would shout ‘get down!’ and the divers should go underwater and they would see the shark clearly.

‘Absolutely no one will put their hands or legs outside the cage – no one will try to touch the shark. Got it?’

We nodded our heads solemnly. We liked our appendages attached.

‘Everyone has to put on a wetsuit before getting into the water. Please don’t urinate in the wet suit – apart from causing the suit to stink, you will drive the sharks away as they don’t like the smell of human urine.’

OHO – I thought – That’s what it is! A survival mechanism! When you are scared you piss in your pants because it drives the sharks away.

‘If you pee in your wet suit you clean it, and if you crap in your wetsuit you buy it! Also, another thing – the side of the boat on which we hang the cage is the shark side, and if you feel sick and want to puke then the other side is the sick side. Please do not puke in the cage, or in the toilets or from the top deck. Please do not try to hold it in either – feel free to puke on the sick side – there is no shame in it, it’s a normal human reaction.’

And with these encouraging words, we got on the ship and made way for the shark point. It was a bit choppy on the way out, but nothing too bad. Once they came to their place, they started throwing the fish bits out to attract the sharks.

After an anxious wait, suddenly the cry went up ‘There! Look there!’

And underneath the water I saw the familiar torpedo shape and triangular fin which I had seen a thousand times before in pictures and photos and movies!

The great white shark!

What a sight it was! It was at least 4-5 metres long – that’s 13 feet of killer shark! Wow!

It was as exciting as seeing a tiger on a safari!

(photo by fellow diver Kosmas Koumianos - http://www.kosmaskoumianos.com)

‘Now do you believe us?’ the dive master asked in excitement ‘Now do you believe that there are great white sharks?’

‘There’s another one!’ the cry went up. Then a disappointed voice ‘That’s only about 3 metres...its only a baby.’

The boat crew chuckled. ‘You jump in then, and YOU tell him that he is a baby.’

They lowered the cage and everyone started to get changed into wet suits. Man, it was a real struggle to get into that wet suit. I had to huff and puff and stretch and pull and nearly dislocate several joints before I managed to get into that suit.

By that time, the first five divers had entered the cage. They confidently jumped into the water and shouted ‘AAAAARRRGHHHHHH’

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Did they see a shark?’

‘no no..’ the dive master chuckled ‘the water is very cold’

‘DOWN GUYS DOWN’ a crew member bawled, and we rushed to the side of the boat to see the shark come in.

‘WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!’ the divers screamed in joy as they came out of the water. ‘WHAT A SIGHT!’

‘DOWN DOWN DOWN’ and again all of them dipped their heads.

After a few minutes, the dive master swapped them out and it was my turn.

I eagerly jumped into the water and nearly had a cardiac arrest due to the shock of the cold water.

WHAT THE #@$*@#@! ARRGGHHHH...I CANT FEEL MY LEGS! I CANT FEEL MY BALLS!

‘DOWN DOWN DOWN’ the crewman bawled and we dunked our heads under the freezing cold water. The cold cold water made my head ache, but I forgot everything as I stared at the huge creature in front of me.

It was massive. It was regal. It was a killer. It was the king of the sea.

That streamlined body, those rippling muscles, those teeth...I noticed anew – I knew it theoretically, but actually seeing it was something else – that it had two rows of teeth – one pointing outwards and one pointing inwards. Nothing caught in those teeth was going anywhere except inside the shark.

It was the same feeling you get when you see a wild tiger for the first time in a jungle – except of course that various parts of my body were shutting down due to the cold. Permanent sterility – here I come.

I came out of the water and gasped in air, and immediately came the stentorian shout –DOWN DOWN DOWN’ and I took a deep breath again and went down.

The shark had just swum lazily by, when it noticed the bag of fish heads – and in fraction of a second, it transformed from a quiet lazy swimmer to a killing machine! All muscles tightened and in less time than it takes to tell, it turned and zoomed towards the packet, mouth wide open showing all those teeth and coming straight at us.

The crewman pulled it away at the last moment, much to the irritation of the shark, who went off thinking WTF! and we surfaced and went WHOOOOO...WHAT A SIGHT, when the crew alerted us again ‘DOWN DOWN DOWN’

The shark was back and it was pissed! The crewman threw out the bag of fish heads again and the shark raced for it! No bullshit this time – it meant business. But again, the bag was pulled out but the shark couldn’t stop its forward momentum and came and crashed against the tank, right in front of my face!

We were less than 6 inches apart! I stared into that shark’s eyes at point blank range!

SHIT.

SHIT

I almost let loose the natural shark repellent.

(photo by fellow diver Kosmas Koumianos - http://www.kosmaskoumianos.com)

Nothing happened – the cage held, and the shark swam away bemused. But what a feeling it was! I burst upwards and screamed out WOOO HOOO as everyone applauded.

It was the ultimate sighting.

‘You guys don’t know how lucky you are.’ The dive master said to us on the way back. ‘the weather, the lighting, the shark experience – it was the best we have had in months.’

No kidding, I said. It was awesome.

‘By the way ...’ the dive master asked as we were leaving. ‘How come you were not scared? I have seen so many people, and they would have shit their pants, but you were quite calm. How come?’

I shrugged.

‘Ah. The Shark was OK.....but not a patch on my wife. You should see her when she is in a temper.’

(this one by me ;0)

The Wine tour

2015-04-17T00:47:00.001-07:00

I love wine. I love it like I love Cricket.

Just like cricket, my interaction with it consists of reading about it than actually experiencing it.

I may not be able to bowl a wicked bouncer or smash a ball for six, but by golly – I can sure talk about it. I can talk about with knowledge and passion and emotion and ....well, I can talk a lot about it, but haven’t touched a bat or ball for ages.

Similarly, I have read a lot about wine – I have read stories based on wine, loved characters who talk about wine, realised that the simplest way to show that a character is upper class and erudite is to show him having a deep knowledge of wine. I read about types of wine – cabernet sauvignon, and merlot and pinot noir and all that, and can talk glibly about tannins and grape varieties and how ironic it is that the famous Shiraz grape comes from a town in Iraq where it is probably illegal to make, drink or even think about wine, etc etc.

But actually drinking the stuff – not so much.

I experimented as much as I could afford with various types of wines – but that was a short lived experiment during my forced bachelorhood.

After the return of She-who-must-be-obeyed my home wine drinking came to a screeching halt under her incandescent eye. Trying to get friends to drink wine resulted only in incredulous looks. Trying to make friends with people who were already wine drinkers got me even more incredulous looks.

She-who-must-be-obeyed sneered at my attempts to drink wine and grandly announced that she was sending me on a wine tour in South Africa.

‘Go and drink wine, you drunken sot.’ She said as she booked the tour ‘lower yourself to the level of the beasts in the field if you wish.’

‘What nonsense.’ I said, stung. ‘I will have you know that wine is a thing of great culture.’

‘The only way you will have culture in you is when you eat some yoghurt re!’ she retorted.

‘Anyway, the tiny tot has exams till then, so I can’t move anywhere – so you go a couple of days earlier and do all these things that I am not interested in.’

OK, I thought – it’s a good idea to keep her away from wine makers. She will sneer at them so much that they will get all dispirited and depressed and commit suicide or something and the whole of South African wine industry will be affected and it will be all my fault.

The thing about wine is that it is a beautiful and nuanced drink, and it is such fun to write about.

‘This wine has a deep straw colour with hints of lime green on the rim. The nose is a complex melange of tropical fruits, such as guava and papayas with greener Sauvignon blanc aromas such as asparagus and lemon grass. The flavours are rich and full and mirror the aromas on the nose. This wine is mouth filling with an apple texture, a slight grip on the finish and a lingering crisp aftertaste.’

‘She’ read this with a scowl ‘Saala – is this wine or a fruit cocktail?’

This one is even better, I said – showing her the description of the Chardonnay ‘There is an abundance of fresh fruit aromas on the nose; ripe honeydew melon, pineapple, peach and citrus fruit with a hint of toasted oak. The palate is fresh and fruit driven with a creamy mild palate, a hint of toast on the finish with a long zesty aftertaste.’

Would the writer be so passionate when writing about the actual fruit instead of the wine? I wondered.

This same writer must be the guy whom all the Indian restaurants employ when writing their fancy menus. A guy who can translate dal chaawal into ‘A delectable preparation of the finest golden lentils from central India, mixed with the aromatic jasmine-white fluffy long grains of the finest rice from Kerala topped with shiny salt crystals from the romantic lands of Kutch.’

So the big day arrived - and the very first day in south Africa, I was picked up at the hostel by a sweet lady who was our guide. I was the first person she picked up, and she went about the town picking up the rest of the group – an Indo-Canadian, A Scotswoman, a couple of guys from Ivory coast, a bunch of expat students from Cape university.

She started by taking us through the cellar and the factory and telling us how wine is made, but very soon took us to a table and started plying us with wine.We started off with a couple of Champagnes, then some white wines, then some red wines and then ended with some sweet wines.

‘This is a cabernet sauvignon’ she would say, pouring a little bit of wine into each glass . ‘It is a very young wine, bottled in 2013 and has top notes of jasmine, peach and whatever’ and we would all drink and say ‘hmm hmm’ and swirl the wine in our mouth and get amazed at the wonderful taste.

It sounds like a load of cock when you hear about it – but you can actually get the various tastes that they are talking about. And when you think that these differing tastes were brought about without any external agents – purely through the fermentation of grapes – it’s bloody amazing! You have to try it to get it..

To quote from the movie ‘Sideways’ – ‘I like to think about the life of wine...how it’s like a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I’d opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity...and it tastes so fucking good!’

I could actually feel the difference between each wine and appreciate the qualities of different types of wine.

At first.

After the third winery, they were all tasting the same to me and we were all going HAHAHAHA and HOHOHOHOHO and slapping each other on the back. The ancient romans used to say ‘In Vino Veritas’ – In wine there is truth, but we can also say – ‘In Vino Companis’ – where there is wine, there is good companionship.

The wine was excellent, the wineries were beautiful, the scenery of the wine country was simply outstanding, and the group was very friendly - what more can one ask for? We had a fantastic lunch at a winery– I had a Cape malay dish called ‘Bobotie’ – which was a sweet and spicy mince meat dish which was absolutely smashing.

At the last winery, there was also a cheese tasting, where we pigged out on different kinds of cheese - from the fresh Feta cheese at one end ( which tasted like a very salty paneer) to an old blue cheese at the other end (which smelt and tasted like disgusting old socks) but had some truly delicious ones in the middle – one sweet fruity one which tasted as good as cheesecake and a couple of spicy ones which were simply yum.

At the end of it, she dropped us back at our hostels – and as I was the first to be picked up, I was the last to be dropped off. I didn't mind it at all as it gave me a chance to see Cape Town.

As she dropped me off, she called out to me and I put my hand in my pocked as I thought she was asking for a tip...

but it turned out to be quite the reverse!

‘As a reward for your patience, I would like to give you a present’ she said, and handed me a bottle of wine. ‘Please enjoy this with your family.’

I was speechless, and quite touched. What a lovely gesture.

‘Thanks.’ I said ‘Thanks a lot’

And I truly meant it.

The vacation starts!

2015-04-12T03:54:00.000-07:00

‘Listen up – we are going on our annual holiday’ She-who-must-be-obeyed announced to me one day.

‘Eh?’ I was startled. ‘We have no money, there are issues out here – how can we go on holidays?’

She-who-must-be-obeyed went purple – any questioning of her travel plans enrages her and turns her into the Incredible Hulk.

‘PUNY HUMAN!’ she screamed at me ‘How dare you question my travel plan?!! HULK SMASH!’

‘OK OK...’ I threw up my hands ‘I was just asking.’

‘The kid has summer holidays and that’s the only time that I get a chance to do a long trip! My life is full of getting her up, bathed and dressed, fixing her breakfast and lunch and leaving her to school! Who is going to do that if I am not here eh? You only sit on that sofa and pretend to be another sofa on top of a sofa! Who will cook dinner? Who will manage the maids? Who will take care of your mother? Who will....’

AAARRGHH. I covered my ears and crawled under the sofa and hid there, trembling – like an inhabitant of Pompeii must have done when the volcano exploded and was saying it with lava and burning ash.

Finally she ran out of steam and calmed down enough to see that I wasn’t even there. Puzzled, she looked around and finally saw my feet sticking out from under the sofa.

‘What on earth are you doing down there?’ She asked, bending down to look at me.

‘Oh...um...er...nothing...I...was....just looking for my pen. I thought it might have rolled down under here....’ I crawled out and dusted myself off in a dignified manner.

‘So – please continue – you were saying that we are going on a holiday. Where are we going?’ I asked brightly.

‘South Africa.’ She replied

‘Ah...good...’

‘And Australia’ she continued.

‘Australia!!’ I was dumbfounded. ‘South Africa and Australia! What a combination. I was thinking South Africa and Namibia, or Kenya, or even Madagascar....but Australia! What relationship between the two apart from the fact that they are both in the Southern hemisphere?’

Then I stopped abruptly – shit, I was criticising her travel plans again!

I looked at her, alarmed – and sure enough, she was swelling like an enraged bullfrog! First she went red with anger, and then turned large and green as she turned into She Hulk. It was like watching a traffic signal.

‘PUNY HUMAN! HULK SMASH!’

It turned out that she had already got the South Africa visa and Australia visa, booked the tickets, planned the itinerary, done the reservations, told the maids, cancelled the milk, and consoled a tearful mother in law.

‘You lazy bugger! Time for you to do some work.’ She growled at me.

‘Maine kab na bola?’ I protested. ‘I didn’t even know that work was going on. I would love to do some work. I live to do work. I thrive on work. I am a worker, not a drone.’

‘Yeah yeah.’ She said ‘Listen – I want you to go to ICICI bank and get some foreign exchange. Can you do that?’

I nodded intelligently ‘Right. ICICI bank. Foreign exchange. I can do that. Piece of cake.’

‘Go to ICICI bank – ask them what their exchange rates are – then call me – I will tell you if the rates are OK – DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE YOUR JUDGEMENT – then get X amount loaded on a travel card, and Y amount in CASH. Got that?’

I saluted smartly and went off to the bank, and found the foreign exchange guy.

‘What are your foreign exchange rates, my good man?’ I asked him grandly.

He got all excited – he must have thought that I am going to buy a few crores worth of dollars – and looked at his terminal and gave me some numbers, and was completely astonished when I just nodded and walked off.

‘Sir – where are you going?’

‘Just a sec – let me tell my wife the rates and then she will tell me whether I should buy or not.’

‘Ah!’ The bank guy got the situation in an instant. I was just the hey you – the real buyer was the wife. ‘Then maybe I should talk to ma’m directly.’

‘Er...OK.’ I handed the phone to him. He started talking confidently, but within a minute he turned pale and started sweating – by the end of the conversation he was just a pale watery blob.

‘Yes ma’m yes ma’m yes ma’m’ he was babbling ‘I will tell sir the rates.’ I took the phone away from him before he burst into tears.

He immediately gave me a much reduced rate on the AUD loaded the travel card immediately, but he said that currency notes were not available and I should collect them tomorrow.

‘OK’ I replied and went whistling back home.

At home, SHE asked me ‘ Where are the currency notes?’

‘Oh – he didn’t have them in stock.’ I replied breezily. ‘Asked me to get them tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?!!’ she asked incredulously. ‘TOMORROW?!!’

‘Er...yes...’ I replied, edging back – not liking the vein pulsing in her forehead.

‘Did he give you a written commitment on the rates?’ she asked with a dangerous calm.

‘Er...no...’ I replied, edging back even more.

‘YOU HAD ONE JOB!’ she screamed. ‘ONE JOB! TO COLLECT FOREX’

‘but....but...’ I spluttered, as I watched her turn large and green.

‘HULK SMASH!!!’

Sure enough, the boy I had spoken to took the next day off - talking to SHE must have given the poor fellow brain damage – and his manager was incredulous at the rates he had given, and refused to release forex at that rate. I thought of releasing SHE on him, but then decided against it as I didn’t want to shut that branch down. the panic might spread from branch to branch and next thing you know - ICICI would be tottering. It might spark off a banking crisis and Raghuram Rajan would be screaming WTF and tearing his hair out.

So, in the larger interest of nation building and a stable banking system, I didn't pursue the issue any further.

Bharathi threw up her hands in despair when I told her and went off mumbling ‘ONE JOB....’

The next thing I knew, I was at the airport in front of the immigration desk.

‘South Africa.....and Australia?!!’ the immigration clerk looked at the ticket with some confusion.

‘Why?’

What could I say to him....I didn’t have any idea myself.

‘Er... I don’t know exactly...’ I confessed, and the immigration officer’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

‘Actually my wife planned the whole thing, and I didn’t dare to ask why.’

He looked at me incredulously and then looked at the spouse name in my passport and recoiled, as if he had been holding a live cobra!

‘AAARRGHHH!!’ he screamed ‘BHARATHI ?!!’ he quickly stamped the passport and pushed it back at me.

‘GO GO GO...’ he said.

‘And ...er...’ I stopped and he smiled shyly at me ‘Enjoy your holiday.’

The West Coast Roamance - The unplanned ride down the western coast from Mumbai to Mangalore - Part 3

2015-02-16T10:01:00.001-08:00

Part 3 : Solo ride from Goa to Mangalore

For Part 1 - Click here

For Part 2 - click here

We had a great time chilling out in Goa, but after a few days my bug started itching again. Part of the reason was that Bharathi was on my case as usual. ‘How long will you spend pigging out in Goa you fat slob?’ she would begin ‘Kitne baar wahi Kings beer and wahi goan sausage khaata rahega? However much you lech at those Russian sweeties, you are not going to get anywhere with them. Get up! Explore! See the world! Heard melodies are sweet, but unheard melodies are sweeter still...’ and bla bla bla

I agreed. Goa is great, but the road goes ever on.

After chilling for a couple of days, and soaking up a fair share of Kings beer and good food, I decided to move on and do a bit of solo ride and explore NH17 till Mangalore. As it is, I had developed enough good karma by sharing photos of good food and drink with the world at large on Facebook and brightening their day for them. It was true that mostly they responded in abuses and gaalis, and fond wishes that I get diarrhoea and piles, but that was just their base mind speaking – their immortal soul was grateful for the pics that diverted their mind away from their dull and dreary lives.

One issue in Goa was the shack that we were living in was like the crooked house that the crooked man lived in – all it lacked was a crooked cat and a crooked mouse. The whole hut was tilted at a 15 degree angle, and just standing in it made you feel that you were drunk. At night the issue would become dire, as I would roll down the side of the bed, and Rishi would roll down close to me and snore - KHARR KHURRR ARRRKHHH KHARRR KHURRRRRR ARRGHHHH AAAAKHHHHH KHAARRRRR KHURRRRRRR right in my ear, until I developed nightmares and woke up with a start!

So while Goa was great, I was mighty relieved when I geared up and set out – at least I would be able to sleep in peace.

Goa to Mangalore is only 350 KM, and if you so wish, you can do it in a day on bike. Which leaves you plenty of room to check out places on the side and still reach Mangalore peacefully.

Bharathi had done the Madgaon to Mangalore stretch on cycle before our marriage, and had enjoyed the journey. She looked down on wimps who did the stretch on powered transport – ‘Motor bikes is for wimps rey’ she would look down her tiny nose at me ‘A real man would do it on a bicycle. Do it on your own power, I say – not on the liquefied remains of long dead dinosaurs!’

Hmm – I would say. More power to the brave cyclists – but I have absolutely no such intentions.

She suggested that I do the Dandeli loop and check out the forests of Dandeli and then come down to the coast to Gokarna. OK, I said – no problem.

I hit NH17, passed Panjim and Ponda, and then hit NH4A to cross into Karnataka. At the border, I watched the police make everyone get out of their bus to check the bus for booze. What nonsense – what is the point in harassing civilians like this? How much booze can they smuggle in anyway? Nothing but a racket to get bribes. They looked at me curiously as a solo rider, but didn’t bother me in any way.

When the road entered the Dandeli area, it was great fun to ride the curves – there was not much traffic and one could really bend the bike on the turns and scrape the footpegs and the exhaust. I had changed the tyres just before the ride, and could feel the difference in the grip – so I could bend the bike really low and trust in the grip of the tyres. What fun it was! You can really send the bike on the turns – use the power of 500 cc to get some nice momentum and use the grip of the new rubber to get some nice angle on the turns. What with all the protective gear and all, you cant really feel the wind in your hair and skin, but it gives you a feeling of comfort – that if you do prang the bike for any reason, you will at least be protected.

Apart from the fun of the turns and the empty roads, there was not much to see or experience out there though, and after riding for quite some time, I stopped at a roadside stall near Dandeli town for a bite, and after ordering, I asked them what there was to see or do out here – why was it so well known?

Well, they answered , there was nothing on the road as such. You can live in a resort or a homestay and go for jungle safari or trek or river rafting – that was the main thing out here. Stay in the jungle away from city life and chill with friends. She looked at me curiously – most people come in groups to have fun – have you come alone?

Hmm. Clearly this was not the place for a solo biker – I decided to head back to the coast and check out Gokarna. I looped around Dandeli village and turned back towards the coast. It was already late afternoon and I didn’t want to get caught in the hills in the dark. While the shady roads were pleasant, there was nothing to see or do in here.

I smiled to myself as I passed a village called ‘Tatti gira’. I could just imagine the conversation on how the village was named –

‘Man I had a giant crap here, I felt so relieved!’

‘Cool man – I want to have a nice crap too! Lets stay here and build a village here, and call it ‘The place where your constipation gets cured’’

‘That’s too long a name – names should be short and descriptive.’

‘OK...call it ‘Plop Plop’?’

‘Not that descriptive!’

‘Ok – what about ‘Crapfall’? like y’know – waterfall, nightfall....crapfall’

‘Sounds good, just translate to hindi and we are done.’

I nearly fell off my bike laughing, when I passed the next village – Tatti Hila!

I passed Yellapur, and was on my way to Ankola, when suddenly I saw a sign that said ‘Magod falls – 15 Km’.

On a sudden whim, I went for it. It was getting late and would be dark soon – but hey, the theme of the trip was to explore! I went 15 km on steadily worsening roads, and was wondering where I was going, when I finally came to the place.

It wasn’t a small viewing area like I had imagined for some reason, but a large tourism/picnic area created by the forest department. They charged me Rs 5 for entry, which is quite a bit for a government property. There was a nice view of the waterfall and mountain and valley, and quite a large and impressive picnic area. There were rooms to stay – unfortunately, you have to book them from the forest office in Yellapur, can’t book on the spot – and toilets and stuff. And an unfortunate amount of rubbish left behind by the visitors – paper and thermocol plates, glasses, plastic bags, etc – no doubt from school picnics. I sighed – why are people such litterbugs? The one thing that led me to respect Modi was that the first thing he did on becoming PM was to start the ‘Swachh India’ mission. There was no political mileage in that – he must have done that because he believes in it. All power to Modi I say – support the Swachh India mission!

After enjoying the view for a bit, I set out for the road again. The view had been great, and made that much sweeter by the random impulse part of it.

By the time I hit the highway, it was already dark, and Om beach, Gokarna was surprisingly far away from the main road. It felt like I had been riding for hours and hours when I finally came to the ‘Om beach – 1 km’ sign and I was tired, my ass was on fire and it was pitch dark.

Imagine my surprise when I come to the Om beach parking area and see nothing around – no hotels, no beach – nothing! Just a poky little parking lot.

I asked an autowala where the hotels were, and he told me that they were next to ‘Sa swara hotel’ so I turned the bike and my heart sank when I saw that Sa-Swara was a fancy meditation resort, who would definitely not even allow me inside the gate, even if I wanted to go. I went there and as the security guy came out to shoo me off, I asked him where the residential hotels were.

He pointed at one kaccha road going down the side and told me to go down there. I went down that kaccha road for kilometres, wondering what on earth was going on – no lights, no tar road, no signs – nothing. It looked like the unlikeliest approach road in history to a popular beach, but I kept passing autos labouring the slope and so I knew that I was on the right track.

Om beach had become popular with hippies in the 80’s after Goa became too commercialised, and I could see why. Even now it was a bloody task to reach there – at that time, it would have taken days and days of walk just reach here. None of the locals would have been interested, and definitely no casual tourists. The hardcore hippies could have lived happily in the splendid isolation they wanted and enjoyed the commune lifestyle without any hassles.

Then finally there were some lights – not government lights – probably put up by the hotel walas, and suddenly the road stopped in front of a toilet. End of road.

Eh? WTF?

Opposite the toilet was the back gate of a hotel, so I parked the bike, put the helmet on the handlebar and went curiously to the hotel. It was quite a big hotel on the inside and was surprisingly full. Uh Oh.

I found the reception and asked for a room, and got the good news that the hotel was full to bursting.

‘Wonderful.’ I replied. ‘I cant think of anything better that I would have rather heard.’ But my sarcasm was lost on him. It was sar-chasm. i.e. there was a huge gap between my attempt at humour and his understanding. ‘But where is the beach anyway?’

He pointed to a small wooden bridge. ‘Just there saar – you can try your luck - there are a lot of shacks on the beach. But you can’t park your bike in front of my gate.’

‘Not a problem dude’ I assured him. ‘As soon as I get a room, I will move the bike’

‘IF you get a room’ I thought I heard him murmur into his beard.

I crossed the bridge – and FINALLY the beach was there. It was a tiny beach, compared to all its siblings that I had been frolicking on till now, and the reason it was called OM beach was that it was actually 2 little crescent shaped beaches side by side.

You could easily have called it ‘Buttocks beach’ as well – that description would have been more accurate than OM, though it would have been questionable in the attractiveness stakes. You might not have found too many hippies wanting to stay in Buttocks beach.

I was on one cheek of the buttock, and saw that the whole beach was covered from point to point with shacks and restaurants. So much for the deserted beach of hippie memory. It was like an asscheek full of pimples.

And each and every bloody shack was full!

I tramped all over the beach, and scared the bejeesus out of people by arising out of the dark in full biker gear. The sight of a strange figure dressed all in black and looking like the alien from ‘Predator’ caused a wave of panic all over the Asscheek. Dogs started barking, nervous firangs spilt their drinks, honeymooning Indian couples paled and ran for their rooms and kannadiga waiters went pale and looked like Kashmiri waiters.

Out of sheer cussedness, I went to each and every hotel there and saw that each and every pustule on that bum cheek was full, and then I wearily went back to that first hotel and bought a bottle of water.

‘No room eh?’ the owner asked, somewhat sympathetically.

‘No....do you have any place to sleep here? I have a sleeping bag.’ I asked pathetically, but he was not biting and firmly shook his head.

‘So where can I find accommodation now?’

‘Kudle beach. Its a couple of kilometres from here. If not there, then back in Gokarna town.’

I remembered seeing the turnoff to Kudle beach, so I remounted my bike and went back up that mysterious path, past the snooty SaSwara and took the turn off to Kudle. When I reached there, my heart sank to see that the road ended at the top of the hill, and you had to walk a kilometre down the hill to reach the beach. After my experience at Om beach, I was fairly sure that it would be a task to get beach acco and the idea of walking down in full gear, with saddlebags in a fruitless quest was daunting.

Luckily, there were a couple of hotels on the ridge, so I tried the first one. There was a ladakhi there, and I asked him about a room. He stared at me impassively for a minute, and then said ‘Let me ask’. Being a ladakhi, he must be used to bikers, and have a liking for them. He called up someone and asked ‘Room hai kya?’

The blessed words came out of the speaker ‘Haan ek room hai....kitne aadmi hain?’

The ladakhi looked enquiringly at me and I pointed to myself.

‘Ek aadmi. Kya rate hai?’

‘Indian hai ya foreigner?”

‘Indian hai. Ek hi banda hai.’

‘Waise 1500 rupees ka hai....ek aadmi hai to 1250 bol do.’

Which exchange left me wondering – if being an Indian has led to rates going up or down? You would probably say down, but I have always found that firang backpackers are more careful with their money and are pretty fierce bargainers. (they have only a finite sum of money after all, and need to make it last for a year or more)

Not that it mattered – by that time I would happily have paid 2-3 K for a room.

The guy showed me the room and I was overjoyed – it was an excellent room – with attached bath and western toilet, a small veranda and a hammock to boot, and with a nice view of the beach. It was well worth 1250 bucks any day. And I could park my bike next to the room, so safety would not be an issue.

I told you – the patron saint of Idiots always helps out the honest traveller.

After a welcome shower and change of clothes I went to the restaurant for dinner, and made the unwelcome discovery that this was a vegetarian joint! Damn it.

‘Why is this place vegetarian?’ I asked the Ladakhi ‘Is this some holy place or something?’

‘No no..’ he replied proudly ‘Actually, all other places here serve non veg, so we are trying to differentiate ourselves by being vegetarian’

Bah.

I was quite tired that night, what with a long ride and that irritating hotel search in Om beach, and started getting terrible cramps at night. Even the simple act of getting out of the hammock made all kinds of weird muscles cramp up! OW OW OW. That was painful. The thing about cramps is that they go away after some time, so I just gritted it out until they went away and then limped off to bed. Tried to think of possible causes – generally cramps are due to lack of electrolytes, so tanked up on lime juice with salt and sugar the next day to keep cramps at bay. Definitely didn’t want cramps while riding!

The next day. I woke up early morning and trekked down to the beach for a morning stroll.

It was so beautiful, that my heart sang!

Clear blue skies, lovely beach and beautiful weather. What more could one ask for ? I walked for an hour or so until the hotels finally opened, and had a nice chai on the beach.

After chatting with the locals and watching around, I made the discovery that Om beach was now full of Indians and the firangs preferred to stay in Kudle beach. So by sheer chance, god had pushed me to the far better place! The beach was a hot bed of healthy activity in the morning – firangs jogging and jumping and doing yoga on the beach, some guys practising martial arts, some people swimming, some meditating – it was like being in a spa. I was deeply ashamed looking at the fit people exercising, and especially seeing their expertise in yoga. Before I became such a blimp, I was pretty good in Yoga, as my dad had taught me – but these guys were at a different level. I was very impressed indeed.

The most fascinating thing I saw – and would go as far as to say that the most fascinating thing I have ever seen – was to see a young firang male practising Indian classical dance on the beach. He had put on his headphones and was doing a complete dance on the beach – I am utterly ignorant about dance - can’t differentiate between Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam – but I could see that his Nritya, Natya and abhinaya were very good indeed. He was doing the dance, the expressions, the gestures , the story telling – amazingly well. I can still see him in my mind’s eye – slim short fellow wearing only a pair of shorts, longish hair in a ponytail, French beard and very expressive face, listening to music on his headphones, and practising Indian classical dance alone on the beach. He was not looking for an audience, and also was not bothered as to who was watching him – he was just lost in his dance. I sat there in a restaurant, having a cup of tea, watching. I could have watched forever. It was wonderful.

I trekked back up to my hotel – the little walk was amazing – it smelt of wet earth and green and growing things, and that deep red soil of the konkan looks so cool – went to my ladakhi friend for breakfast. I could have had breakfast on the beach, but I was still so grateful for my room that I was trying to give him as much business as possible. The ladakhi was also proud of me for being so brave and ride here all the way from Mumbai, so we had a little love fest going.

After breakfast, I was chilling in my hammock, when the manager of the hotel came by with his register to take down my details, and we started chatting. He was also happy to get an Indian to chat with – most of his business was with firangs – and we had a long chat. He told me about the part of Karnataka we were in – Uttara Kannada (North Karnataka) and the plethora of things to see here – beaches, waterfalls, temples, caves, strange geological formations, etc – and moaned about the fact that they were in Karnataka instead of Goa. If only our Uttara Kannada had been part of Goa, meri life ban jaati, he said – but if the Kannada partisan political part guys hear me say this, they will burn my hotel. The law and the politics of Karnataka are terrible, he continued, corrupt, anti tourism, anti business... if only we had been part of Goa....sigh.

He advised me to visit the temple of Yana – it was a unique rock formation – a strange mountain sticking out of the surrounding countryside. Scientists were still wondering if this was the remnant of an ancient meteorite or an ancient volcano or just some weird geological anomaly. It was about 20 -30 Km from Kudle, and I thought that it might be a nice day trip, and it would be fun to go for a ride without safety gear and feel a bit of wind. It was a pleasant ride once I got off the highway – Yana is in a bit of a sanctuary / reserved forest area, so it was green and pleasant, the winding roads encouraged a bit of leaning and turning, which made the ride fun.

The motorable road stopped about a kilometre or so before the temple/ rock outcrop, and you had to trek up through a very pleasant jungle path. I wasn’t carrying any sneakers, due to the simple fact that I hadn’t planned for a long trip at all – I had packed for a 3 day ride – and thus was obliged to trek up in riding boots. To my pleasant surprise, the boots were quite comfortable for walking and had a decent grip as well. The walk was very pleasant, and though I huffed and puffed slightly, it was not difficult. The path was almost deserted, with very occasional people walking on the trail, and was green and wooded, and had a lovely little stream running by the side. I saw some excellent birds – including a very nice and long sighting of a crimson headed sunbird, which stayed with me for some time and seemed to regard me as a curiosity.

The rock formations were very impressive indeed, marred only by a rather ugly temple wall and loads of day-trippers. I was surprised to see so many people, because there had been no one on the path, but then I realised the government had developed another motorable road right up to the temple and all the tourists could just drive right up there. I sighed – the government means well – but a motorable road brings a lot of garbage along with it. I met a couple of people who were astonished that I had walked up the mountain – why didn’t you take the new road? They asked. You would have saved yourself the walk. Well, I didn’t know about it – but I am very happy I took the walk. ‘Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile’

The temple was dedicated to Shiva, and was identified with the story of Bhasmasura – who prayed to Shiva and asked for a boon that whoever he puts his hand on should be reduced to ashes. Shiva granted the boon without thinking of the implications, and then Bhasmasur wanted to try out the boon by putting his hand on Shiva and burning him to ashes, because Shiva had said ‘anyone’ without excepting himself or any other god. ‘ARRGHHHH – WTF’ Shiva screamed and ran off with Bhasmasur in hot pursuit. Shiva ran here and there and finally hid himself in Yana rock and asked Vishnu for help to resolve the situation. Vishnu must have tut-tutted sadly at people who sign contracts without reading them carefully, and turned himself into the smoking hot Mohini to distract the asura. One look at the super hot babe made the asura so horny that it turned his brains into mush and was duly tricked into putting his hand on to his own head and before he could cry ‘OH NO OH SHIT CHUTIYA BANAYA’ he was burnt into ashes, and you could imagine Vishnu dusting off his hands in satisfaction.

‘And that’s the way it’s done, dude’ he said to the embarrassed and thankful Shiva ‘and be careful next time before handing out these silly boons to dangerous looking asuras’

The burnt and blackened look of the rocks is supposed to be due to the burning of bhasmasura, and there are two outcrops – one is called ‘Bhaireshwara shikhar’ – Shiva’s hill, and the other is called ‘Mohini shikhara’. I noticed that there are a few more of these outcrops, but I don’t know whether they were called anything.

I was not much impressed with the Karnataka Governments upkeep of these places – No information, no upkeep, no cleaning – garbage all over. All the stories I heard about the efficiency of the KK government as being better than MH govt seem to be exaggerated.

On the way back, I saw a sign saying ‘Mirjan fort – 3 km’ and immediately turned off to check it out. It was OK, but without any historical background, couldn’t get any context to it. It was a muslim + portugese fort, but didn’t have much of a view or anything. It was OK I suppose, but not soul touching like the forts I had seen on the trip so far.

I got back to Gokarna and decided to check out Om beach again – just to see if I had missed something beautiful in the dark yesterday. Well, I hadn’t. The main appeal of Om beach is its name, I think – and the fact that it had been remote and unreachable. Now it is reachable and so the entire Sumo pilgrim crowd of Gokarna ends up there, and the shape is more like ‘Oo’ rather than ‘Om’. Again, the government would been better advised to keep Om beach remote and inaccessible. I thanked god for forcing me onto Kudle beach, which was a much nicer beach and had much more character.

I was famished by the time I got back to the hotel – it was evening and I hadn’t had lunch – and scarfed down an omelette sandwich, and then changed and went down to the beach for the evening.

That evening was the most pleasant evening that I have ever spent on a beach.

First I went for a nice dip in the sea to wash off all the sweat and grime of the day and the trek. After the dip, I saw with pleasure that the firangs had made Kudle beach as happening a place as Arambol. They started a drum circle – basically a bunch of guys sitting around in a circle, playing drums. They had never met each other before, so it wasn’t as if they were a trained group or something – they were just a group of like minded guys coming together to play drums. They would start a hypnotic beat – da dum da dum da da dum dum....and go on for hours with changes in beat every now and then.

As the sun went down, some one lit a little bonfire in the middle. The drummers went right on playing in absolute silence apart from the drumming – no one spoke, chanted or sung. They hardly even looked at each other, they were just drumming. The twilight, the sea breeze, the beach, the firelight illuminating the cragged features of the drummers – I felt as if I have been transported back in time to some ancient tribal age, and these were the druids and priests doing some strange ancient ritual to appease the gods. Some people got into the rhythm and started dancing on the beach.

As the drummers wound down, a bunch of Hare Krishna devotees started their evening satsang next to them. They built a much bigger bonfire and sat around it and started doing Hari Bhajan.

‘Hare krishnaaa Hare Ramaaa, Ramaa Ramaaa....hare hareee’ It was so beautiful. That sea side setting, that bonfire, that worshipful atmosphere....

It was weird – here I was – a hindu Brahmin, sitting quietly outside the circle, dressed in western clothes – shorts and t shirt, and around the fire were a bunch of foreigners, dressed in traditional hindu attire – dhoti, kurta – some even wearing a sacred thread, and sporting a shaven head and shendi. Who was the real Brahmin here, I wondered. By karma, they were the ones.

As the drum circle broke up, the drummers came to the Hare Krishna circle and started drumming in tune to the chants, and every now and then the head pandit would shake his cymbals and shout ‘Arriba’. I was quite startled at this and wondered why he was saying that, but after some time I figured out that he was saying ‘Hari Bol’. Just to pep things up, every now and then they would should ‘Hari bol’; ‘Jagatguru ki jai’; ‘Sriramchandraji ki jai’ and so on.

They even made ‘prasad’ and distributed it! I was touched.

There was a small bunch of Indian tourists there who seemed amused and later, bemused; but I was genuinely touched. A bunch of foreigners from a different faith, background and culture come to your country and fall so much in love with your culture – I think it is something to be proud of.

After the satsang ran out of steam, I found another circle of firangs seated close by – these were not into any faith, but just into music. There were a couple of guitars, an ukulele, a ghatam (!) and even a didgeridoo (!!) and some people singing. As they seemed to be from different countries speaking different tongues, they weren’t singing any specific songs with words, but just creating music with sounds and ragas! It was amazing!

It was a real wrench to tear myself away from the beach, but it was time to have dinner and hit the hay, as I had a long day tomorrow.

The next morning, I again came down for a morning dip – I was hoping to see that dancer again, but instead I saw a guy teaching another fellow some martial arts. The learner was a real beginner, but the teacher was an awesome guy. Whenever he got bored he would demonstrate some amazing moves – either a stretch, or some complex move, or some killer excercise – It was amazing to watch! And of course the normal complement of joggers, Yoga practitioners, Meditators...etc. A truly energising morning.

I kitted up, packed and left the hotel with a heavy heart. I had really enjoyed myself here. But the trip was coming to an end, and I had to get to Mangalore by tonight as I had a flight to catch tomorrow.

I carefully checked my fuel guage – hmm – 2 sticks being shown in the fuel level – that should be about 6-7 liters of fuel...even assuming 30 kmpl that would be about 200 km – Mangalore was about 200 km, so for safety’s sake, I put another 5 liters in the tank. No point in putting too much – the bike would have to be emptied of fuel before being transported, so any excess fuel would be wasted.

The next stop was Murudeshwar – about 60 km away.

Murudeshwar was famous for a huge Shiva statue and temple built on the beach by a big private contractor called R N Shetty. It is a big and ugly statue, and there is a big and ugly concrete temple with a tall and ugly concrete gopuram. I looked at it with a fascinated horror. These cement monstrosities are becoming too common nowadays – there is a giant Shiva here, a giant Hanuman there, a giant Ganapati there....ugh!

Shetty makes good money out of this – he has got a set of hotels next to the temple, water sports and boating, a RNS highway hotel, a RNS golf course and nature therapy centre and god knows what else.

It must have been a beautiful beach before Shetty saab built this temple – now it is a religious tourism eyesore.

---------------------------------------------

‘Check out the Mookambika temple in Kollur’, Bharathi advised me. ‘It is a bit off the route, but there is nothing else on the route except Udipi Krishna temple, so you might as well check it out.’

She who must be obeyed had spoken, so I was off to Kollur.

I checked the map, and saw that Kollur was off the main road, and away in the mountains. I took the turn and saw that the place was in a sanctuary – the Mookambika sanctuary. I felt quite nice seeing this – there is something really pleasant about a temple being the reason for the forest and the birds and the beasts being safe – it is as if the gods are the old arboreal gods doing their job as protector of the forest.

And that is what the word sanctuary means – A sacred place -a place of safety. (Sancta – holy, Arium – a container for keeping something in.) In medieval England, the Church used to be a place of sanctuary for hunted people – the Sheriff, bailiff or even the Kings army could not enter a church to capture or arrest any person who has taken refuge in the Church premises.

It was a beautiful, green, curvy road with little or no traffic, and so I gunned the bike to enjoy bending the bike on the turns. The bike also roared with happiness as we covered the 30 or so km to Kollur. But as I reached Kollur, the guard shook his head and told me that the temple was closed for the afternoon and would open only at 3 PM. I checked my watch – Shit – it was only 2 PM.

I called Bharathi to check whether the temple was worth waiting an hour for, and she replied – No, the temple is not exactly a visual spectacle, not really worth an hours wait, unless I wanted to kill time by having lunch or something. Well, I had had a bite at Murdeshwar, so I wasn’t hungry and so I decided not to waste time waiting, and to the total astonishment of the guard, I turned the bike around and zoomed back.

Now, I generally don’t have good luck with trying to avoid godly visits – the lord generally catches me by the ear and pulls me back or gives a little spank. In our Leh trip, I tried to avoid Tanglangla by taking a short cut from Tsomoriri, and promptly took the wrong turn and ended up doubling back to Tanglanga. Delzad decided not to climb up to see the temple of Osiyan in Rajasthan, and ended up taking a toss and breaking his leg. Bharathi thought of bypassing the Krishna temple of Udupi, and promptly got diarrhoea, and the only hotel they could find was next to the temple. Bowing to the inevitable, she visited the temple and immediately the shitting stopped.

So in a way, I was not really surprised when the bike began making funny sounds and jerking and came to a stop right in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of nowhere.

Shit, I said and parked the bike. The road was totally deserted. Only monkeys were around.

I recognised the problem immediately. Petrol was not reaching the engine. I checked the petrol gauge, it was still showing 2 bars.

I had exactly this problem before, during my Nepal ride. The fuel injector had broken that time, and so the bike came to a halt. Nothing could be done abou it, but to change the injector. And that part is very hard to find, except in an authorised Enfield service center. Where am I supposed to find an authorised service center now ?

I checked my phone. No signal. Wonderful.

I took off my helmet, and waited for an empty truck to come, so that I could load my bike on it. This would be the second time that my bike failed to complete a ride and came home on a truck. Thinking black thoughts about Enfield quality, I waited.

No empty truck.

Finally I flagged down a biker and asked him if he knew any truck wala. Luckily he spoke hindi, and tried to help, but he couldn’t find anybody. He asked me whether I wanted a mechanic – I said no, I want a truck. Just then a Mahindra Pik Up came and I flagged him down. He was also quite sympathetic, but he couldn’t take my bike but said that he will be back with a friend and zoomed off.

I was alone again. Some time passed with no action, so I flagged down another truck and asked him if he could help. He was also sympathetic, but he was on a run and couldn’t take my bike. But he offered me his phone to make a call – I called up my friend Shiv – he was the founder of Touring Buddies, and we had done a few rides together – and he had lately shifted to Mangalore, so he would know people. Shiv was in a meeting or something, but he said that he would try to figure something out.

After some time, that Mahindra Pik-Up fellow came back, to my utter surprise, and waited with me until his friend came in another Mahindra Pik-Up. Suddenly another biker came up on a Bullet and stopped when he saw another Bulleteer in trouble. All these guys were from the neighbourhood and knew each other, and all of them stopped to help. The Bullet guy asked me if I wanted a mechanic – I said No. I know what the problem is and it needs a change of part.

‘How are you so sure you know what the problem is?’

‘I had the same problem some time back, thats how’

He shrugged, and got on the phone and told me that the nearest service was in Udupi – about 150 Km away.

I thought about it – what was the point in taking the bike to a service center in Udupi? I was anyway planning to courier the bike back to Bombay from Mangalore. Might as well courier the bike to Mumbai from the closest point from here.

I told the biker my logic, and he agreed. The nearest town with a courier service would be Kundapur – maybe 30 to 40 Km, and he briefed the truck fellow accordingly.

A few more guys had turned up by then, and they all helped to lift up and load the bike into the truck – huffing and puffing with the weight of the 500 CC bike; and smilingly refused any payment.

I cant emphasize enough how friendly and helpful all the people I met today were. It was simply heart warming.

I waved to all of them and thanked them, and we left for Kundapur. The truckwala asked me if I wanted a mechanic, and again I said – No, just take me to a courier.

When we hit the highway, I got signal on my phone (Vodafone coverage sucks in Karnataka) and I called Shiv again and briefed him on the situation.

He heard me out and asked me ‘Are you sure about the injector issue?’

‘Yes I am sure.’ I replied, smug in my knowledge of the engine.

‘Ok, I will send you the number of my friend Abhijeet who lives nearby – he will help you out’

That friend immediately called up – he was a biker, and a part of Shiv’s local riding group – and he immediately offered to come to Kundapur and help me talk to the courier as I didn’t know the local language.

I was touched that he would go to so much effort for a total stranger.

‘No no...please don’t go to so much trouble.’ I said ‘The truck fellow knows hindi and he will help me out’

‘No trouble – I am close by’ Abhijeet replied ‘I will be there shortly’.

I googled the address of VRL couriers (being back in 3G range made me the king of info again. I felt so empowered) and the truck made its way there.

The courier guy thought it was an accident case, and was not too happy about taking a damaged bike- he must have been thinking of implications of police etc – but we explained to him that it was a breakdown case, not accident.

Ok, he said – give me copies of documents. Registration, Driving licence and insurance.

Shit – I thought – RC and DL I could just take copies of, but I only had a soft copy of insurance. I would have to find a cybercafé and take a print out. Normally I carry copies of all documents when I go on a long ride – but this ride was totally unplanned, hence no paperwork.

So I dragged the truck driver along, and we got an auto, and went off hunting for a cyber cafe. We found one quite far away, and I rushed in to open my mail. I found the mail and the attached PDF, but when I tried to open it, it asked for a password. I cursed under my breath – why on earth do these idiots have this obsession with passwords on PDFs? My Vodafone bill has a password! Who will want to hack my bill? And anyway – it is not even a proper password - its generally first name+ last 4 digits of phone number. Any fool can crack it.

I checked the mail for password for this – it was first 4 letters of name + 0123. What idiocy, I grumbled, and entered the password- keta0123 – it didn’t work! It said wrong password!

What nonsense! I tried again, and again and again – wrong password. I was perplexed. I tried calling Tata AIG, no response. I tried calling Bharathi – the stupid telephone service said ‘This number does not exist’! Vodafone fucks with your head every now and then.

AAARRRRGHHHHHH, I said inside my head, and tried my best to control myself so that I would not tear this computer off the table and throw it out on the street.

I sighed and read the mail again, going over it word by word, and found that this time, the password was the LAST four letters of your name and 0123. I goggled at the mail and entered ETAN0123 – still wrong password! I gritted my teeth and tried OSHI0123 and it worked! The PDF opened!

Out of curiosity, I opened last year’s insurance policy (2013 -14) and sure enough it was the FIRST 4 letters of the name and 0123 in that one. In the 2014-15 policy, it was LAST 4 letters of the name and 0123.

Anybody from Tata AIG reading this – go fuck yourself. You are a bunch of Assholes.

I quickly took the printout and the copies and we went back to VRL.

Abhijeet had come by that time. We shook hands and I told him about the issue.

He looked at me carefully. ‘This guy looks like a moron’ he must have been thinking. ‘Do you mind if I check the bike?’ he asked ‘Maybe I can help’

‘Sure man.’ I handed him the keys. ‘Please do. I suck at mechanicals – I am only this sure because it happened to me earlier’

He got on the truck and tested the bike. The bike started, but wouldn’t get any power – couldn’t raise the engine.

‘Hmm. Petrol is not reaching the engine...’ he checked the gauge ‘showing 2 bars... hmm...want to take it to a mechanic?’

I explained the issue to him and he agreed. No point in repairing it here if I was going to ship it tomorrow anyway.

We called some coolies, and took the bike down.

‘Please remove all petrol from the engine.’ The courier guy said and I nodded. I had been expecting it. I took out a pipe and a bottle and opened the fuel tank, and gave it to a coolie to suck out the petrol.

The coolie sucked and sucked, but the petrol wouldn’t come.

No worries, I said – I know another way. I opened the fuel pipe to the engine and engaged the fuel pump.

It went – phoos phoos and only a teaspoon full of petrol came out, and it stopped.

‘That’s weird...’ I said and suddenly stopped.

Me and Abhijeet looked at each other.

THERE WAS NO FUEL IN THE BIKE!! That’s why it had stopped! It was as simple as that, and I had been farting around, talking nonsense about broken injectors and shit.

I went bright red with embarrassment. Abhijeet must have been trying his best not to laugh loudly and roll about on the ground.

‘I will go and get some petrol’ he said and I quietly gave him the bottle.

I tightened the fuel pipe, and looked again at the fuel gauge. It was still showing 2 bars. The tank was completely dry, and that stupid gauge was still showing 7-8 litres in the tank.

So I was right about fuckall quality of Enfield parts. Only I had been mistaken about the part. It was the fuel gauge which was screwed, and not the fuel injector.

Bah!

Abhijeet came back with the petrol (he must have stopped to laugh about the fool who came all the way from Mumbai and couldn’t tell when his tank was empty) and I quietly filled up and went off from there.

I could just hear Mookambika snickering at me. ‘No time to see me, eh?’

It was just getting dark by the time I reached Udipi, and I decided that it was too late to go to the temple and went ahead on the road to Mangalore.

But then I thought, why do the same thing again? Bharathi had got the runs by doing that only. Having Mookambika spank me was quite enough. I turned the bike around and went to the temple.

I was expecting them to force me to enter the temple bare bodied, so I was wondering where I will park my jacket and assorted paraphernalia. Lets see, I said, and went on – but to my pleasant surprise, they had changed the rules and were now allowing covered bodies, and no one objected to me entering in full biker regalia. No one even gave me a second look.

I entered and immediately the aarti started – as if they were waiting for me to begin!

After the aarti was over and my ears were still ringing from the din when I came out after a long and fulfilling darshan, and it was completely dark by the time I got on the highway to Mangalore.

The NH17 is being expanded from 2 lanes to 4, as I said earlier, and it was most unpleasant to ride on, and I was really happy when I finally rode into Mangalore.

What a relief!

I was salivating to eat Mangalorean food, and I had already checked out Zomato and decided on a restaurant to eat Ghee roast chicken in. I decided to stay in Ginger hotel, as I was really tired after the days adventures and wanted a predictable experience. I checked in, bathed and zoomed off to the hotel for a well deserved Old Monk and Ghee Roast chicken and masala fish.

I toasted myself with Old Monk.

I had done it!

Complete coastal ride from Mumbai to Mangalore!

And utterly unplanned – spur of the moment ride!

Cheers all!

For my first ride blog - click here

The West Coast Roamance - The unplanned ride down the western coast from Mumbai to Mangalore - Part 2

2015-02-11T23:18:00.001-08:00

Check out part 1 here

Check out part 3 here

Part 2 – Forts Ferries and Beaches - 2 guys ride from Anjarle to Goa

So the three less adventurous wimpy people hit the homeward route, while the two rugged adventurous and incredibly handsome people went ahead on the coastal road towards Vijaydurg.

Immediately after Anjarle, we came to the next ferry – Dabhol to Anjanwel. Anjanwel is the home village of our good friend, and co-founder of Konkan Moto tours and Ridetillidie.com - Pratish Ambekar. And while he constantly boasts of being from here, he has been very careful not to invite any of us over to his village. He probably doesn’t want to lower his prestige in the village by showing what kind of people he hangs out with in the city.

Anjanwel also has a fort, which Pratish had taken us to earlier – apparently some haraami fellow has squatted on the fort and is laying claim to the whole fort! He claims that he has planted some crops and trees inside the fort area, so the fort now belongs to him! The state machinery has not got around to evicting him as yet – hope they do so soon.

Dabhol is also the venue of one of the most controversial power projects of all time – the Enron Dabhol Power Company. It was such a sleepy little backwater before Rebecca Mark and her chums decided on it as a venue for the power plant, and now there is a humongous plant and machinery out there. I have no idea whether it is on or off, after all the politicians of Maharashtra got their greedy claws into it.

From there we went on to Guhagar, which apart from having a reasonably nice beach, is famous for having the Shiva temple of Vyadeshwar, which is our family deity. I think Vyadeshwar is the family deity of a lot of Kokanastha Brahmins, and it is a very nice little temple. Like most Maharashtrian temples, it is quiet, clean, generally not crowded and unobtrusive. It is not full of pandas and dirt and thieves and lurid bright paint like North Indian temples, nor is it exclusivist and ‘take your shirt off’ kind of pointless traditionalist like South Indian temples. I walked over the whole temple in full biker garb – Riding jacket, Riding Trousers and Camel back – and no one gave me a second glance.

Maharashtrian temples are the way temples should be – an oasis of quiet and devotion, where you can commune with the almighty – without unnecessary sho-sha and breast beating.

Before I got a bike, I had been to Vyadeshwar a total of 2 times – since I got the bike, I have been there so many times, I know every chappa chappa of the place. After all, like Shiva, I too ride a Bull now! Maybe that’s why he likes me so much that he calls me over again and again ;).

From Guhagar, we rode on and we were riding, I saw a sign pointing to MTDC resort Velneshwar. What is Velneshwar, I wondered. I have heard the name, but I didn’t know that there was an MTDC resort there. I remember it being another Shiva temple, which is world famous in Konkan – that is to say – most KoBras know about it, but not too many other people.

Generally we were always in a hurry, and so we rode past it – but not this time. I took a right, and the surprised Rishi was right behind me. We saw the temple, and went on to the beach. The beach was quite nice- white sand, not much crowd – if we were on that fantasy no-end-date tour of Konkan that I keep on dreaming about, I might have stayed there for the night.

We met a couple of bikers there, who had come all the way from Hyderabad. They were planning to hit NH4 and stay in Karad for the night and do an all day ride to Hyd the next day; but they were also seduced by the beach and were thinking of staying there overnight.

We had a quick lunch there at a beach side hotel, and then the Hyd boys came to me and said ‘Can we have a peg with you?’

I was quite surprised. I had heard that gultis are fond of their liquor – but this was in the middle of the day, that too with a complete stranger.

‘Well....it’s the middle of the day....and the ride is on....so drinking might not be the best idea...’ I mumbled at him, and was surprised as he stared at me quite astounded. Both of us stared at each other.

Then he repeated himself – ‘Can we have a PIC with you? A PIC?’ and he waggled his camera at me to make his intentions clear, even to a moron like me.

‘Oh....a photo!’ I was very relieved. ‘Sure, of course. Let’s take a photo. As many as you like.’

From Velneshwar, we went back to the coastal route and carried on. We passed Hedavi, which has a very famous Ganpati temple, and came to the fourth ferry on the route – the Tavsal – Jaigad Ferry.

I had been on this ferry a few times before, but this time since I was on a discovery mode, I wondered where exactly was Jaigad. Was there a fort called Jaigad? Where was it? What did it look like? Was there a Gabbar Singh there, shouting ‘Jaigad ke vaasiyon...’ ?

So when we got off the ferry, I asked the first cop for directions and we made our way to Jaigad fort. It turned out to be a cute little sea fort just a couple of kilometres from the ferry landing. Under the benign neglect of the ASI, all it had was its usual threatening placard, threatening to imprison, impale, draw and quarter anybody found desecrating the designated monument, but had no information whatsoever about the fort itself – what was its provenance, history, story, significance etc. So all we could see was the walls of the fort, but got no sense of history beyond it.

The other problem was that it was dwarfed by the gigantic steel plant of JSW steel right behind it, which apart from looking simply awful, just ruined the look of the fort and the coastline behind it.

But it was a nice fort by itself, and I was really happy to see it.

We carried on after Jaigad, and crossed Malgund (one thing that fascinated me was seeing the villages which I knew only as names – Malgundkar from Malgund, Parandekar from Parande, Malvankar from Malvan etc) where the sea face was so beautiful, that we stopped to appreciate the beauty for a few minutes, commune with nature and take a few photos.

The next point was Ganpatipule – another famous beach destination. The Ganpatipule temple is quite famous – and the beach is also quite nice; and the government has also developed it as a tourist destination with MTDC and adventure activities etc. The net result is that the place has become a huge mess, and all I wanted to do was to avoid it and get out of there as soon as possible. It was quite late already, and we would have to hustle to hit Vijaydurg before dark.

Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn after Ganpatipule and ended up on the inland road instead of the coastal road, and we lost about 45 minutes in that, as we had to retrace our route back to the coast. To add to the confusion, people kept confusing Vijaydurg with Sindhudurg and kept pointing us in the wrong direction. Luckily I knew the area somewhat, and kept rechecking with Google maps to stay on course, and not be swayed by the most passionate of the wrong direction givers.

Rishi suggested that we stay in Ratnagiri – Bhataye beach was a nice place that he had stayed in once. I was OK with it – going to Ratnagiri was a good idea, as we could reload our wallets from the ATM and we would definitely find acco in the town. Bhataye beach turned out to be an ugly chaupatty type of an affair, complete with bhelwalas, nariyalwalas and Chinese stalls, and the only hotels were expensive resort type affairs. So we carried on the next town – Pawas.

Pawas has attained fame as being the home town and ashram town of a famous godman – Swaroopanandji; but as far as I am concerned, it will become famous as being the origin village of the most important person in the world – myself! Pawas is the home village of the Joshis, but I don’t know anybody there. I don’t even know the remnant of the Joshis who have remained there and are presumably farming on the land that belongs to me. Anyway, how does it matter ? Country roads – take me home – to the place I belong!

When we reached Pawas it was dark, and I didn’t want to spend time and energy horsing around, so we went to the first hotel I saw – a lodge off the main road. Luckily, it turned out to be quite a nice place, with a nice double room for Rs 700, which due to sheer habit, I bargained down to 600.

There was a hotel right below – which was one of the reasons of choosing the place – and we went down for a nice dinner – a surmai thali. The proprietor turned out to be a chatty guy, and told us about how this was a rented premise, and he was planning to move into his own place at Poornagad.

Poornagad? Whats that? I asked. Is it actually a gadh – a fort?

Yes, he replied.

Yippee ! a new fort to explore tomorrow!

I made a most unfortunate discovery that night.

Rishi snored!

He snored like bloody Krakatoa!

He would roll over to my side of the bed, put his face in my ear and go KHAARNNMKANNN ....KHHAARRR KHAAARRRRRR....ARKHHHH and wake me up with a start! The first time it happened, it woke me up with a fright! How could a gentle mild mannered person make a noise like that? It was like Bruce Bannister turning into the incredible Hulk.

I looked at him in wonder. He didn’t smoke or drink, and he wasn’t in the least overweight – where did all that snoring come from?

I gave up the struggle to sleep by 6 AM and went down to look for a cup of tea, and luckily found an early riser of a hotel.

The good thing about a small group is that you can get an early start and get more things done. We got ready and left early morning to check out the Swaroopanand ashram. I was quite impressed by the size and scale of the place. Much bigger than I expected. Not exactly a tourist destination, but quite a big place.

there, we went hunting for Poornagad. We saw a sign on the highway and turned off towards Poornagad village. Rishi was right behind me – he was a real sport. ‘Just lead the way dude,’ he said ‘I am willing to go wherever you want.’

The road went down to the sea level, and then went up to the mountainside. After some time, the tar vanished, and we were on a kaccha road. The road went on and on, and finally the road itself vanished! I looked around, puzzled. Where were we? Where was the bally fort? There was no road – not even a dirt track.

When in doubt – Google! I took out my phone, and luckily there was a bit of signal, and even more luckily – someone had dropped a pin on Google maps showing the fort. Encouraged, we went on – and lo and behold – there it was in front of us – a secret fort!

It just couldn’t be seen from the road – hell, It couldn’t be seen a 100 feet away! If not for the conversation with the hotel guy, we would definitely not have made it here. Talk about Serendipity.

It was a magical little fort – high up on an escarpment, with beautiful views of the sea. And the walls and battlements were in surprisingly good repair, and the fort was very clean – with hardly any garbage. And it was empty! Not a soul to be seen. There was a village close by, but there was no one about for some reason.

I was so happy! It was like our private little fort. We explored the whole fort and drank in the views. This would be a fantastic place to camp overnight – and a lot of ash circles showed that various people had had the same idea before.

I just hope that the people who visit it in future show the place the same respect that the people before had shown it, and leave the place as clean as – or even cleaner than – the way they found it.

Three cheers for Poornagad, I said, and we carried on to Vijaydurg.

Vijaydurg was quite close – about 70 km from there, and we rolled into the place by noon.

What a wonderful fort! Amazing!

From the first sight itself, I was entranced. It was sea fort, in excellent condition. The dark black stone, the imposing design, the location right on the sea shore – the whole package was excellent. I was so happy that I stuck to my guns and insisted on coming here.

As they say – you will always regret the things you didn’t do, rather than the things you did.

We parked our bikes and went up to the fort, where we met a guide – Damaji Patil. He was an excellent guide – knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and articulate. You could see that he really liked the job, liked the fort and was a history and Shivaji and Maratha empire buff.

There is nothing quite like a good guide when you visit a fort or historical site – I try and get one whenever they are available. It supports the local people and the local economy, and also adds hugely to your enjoyment of the place.

He started by saying ‘In order to get the full benefit of the tour, you have to use your imagination! Think of yourself as being the mavlas of the fort, think of this as your fort, imagine yourself being in the fifteenth century!’

Things can only be good, when you have a start like that.

He explained the durg shastra – the science and logic of building the fort. He started by explaining that the entrance to the fort was Gomukhi – or cow shaped. Eh? I went – how does a cow come into this? Like a cow with her head turned away, towards her back. Curved. To prevent enemy forces from building up momentum, to prevent use of battering rams or battering elephants or camels, and have a convenient place to shoot arrows, stones and hot oil on invaders.

In that vein, he explained the various defences of the fort, the planning that went behind it – how it was first built by King Bhoj of MP in the middle ages, then expanded tenfold by Shivaji, who saw its potential. It was Kanhoji Angre’s capital while he lived, and there is a temple to the great Admiral out there.

The fort was so powerful, that the British called it the eastern Gibraltar, after the impregnable fort of the Mediterranean. It had all kinds of cool features – a dummy fort on the other side of the creek to draw off invaders, an undersea wall to rip the bottom out of enemy ships which had deeper hulls than the shallow hulled Maratha ships, a naval dock carved out of the living rock, etc.

Unfortunately, after Shivaji and Kanhoji, the tenor of the Maratha empire changed. The Bhonsale dynasty became sidelined, and the Peshwas became the default rulers of the empire. Unfortunately this led to a most regrettable ego trouble between the scions of the Angres and the Peshwas. Tulaji Angre was capable and efficient, but also arrogant and hot headed. He refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Peshwas, and maintained that they were equals in service of the Maharaja. Even more unfortunately, Nanasaheb Peshwa was a narrow minded and visionless fellow, and couldn’t stomach the arrogance of the Angres. So he took the help of the only other major naval power – the English – to attack the Angres. In a spectacular show of cutting off your nose to spite your face, the Peshwa armies supported the English navy in destroying the forces of the Angres, and in the process completely destroyed the Maratha navy. Shivaji was destined to be the first and last Indian monarch to understand the power of the sea, and develop a strong navy. Unfortunately his descendants did not have his foresight and eventually became the slaves of the invaders who came by sea.

The guide, as I said earlier, was an enthu and articulate guy, and so I mentioned to Rishi that he should cast him in some historical soap of his.

Rishi thought about it and asked ‘But can he overact and roll his eyes and shout ‘NAHIIIIIIIIIII’?’

So after thoroughly enjoying Vijaydurg, when we were cooling off with a cold drink, Rishi asked me ‘Now what? Are you going back to Mumbai? Why don’t you come with me to Goa?’

Umm. Errr. I thought about it.

Why not? I had been trying to do the coastal route from Mumbai to Goa for so long, and had never been able to complete it due to some issue or the other. This was a great opportunity to finish it off. Goa was hardly a 200 km run from here.

Let’s go for it!

‘OK man, let’s do it. Let’s go to Goa.’ I agreed and Rishi high-fived me.

“Great! Let’s go to Tarkarli.’

‘Tarkarli! Why Tarkarli?’

‘I don’t know man – ever since I saw some photos of the place, I have wanting to see Tarkarli. What is there to see inTarkarli?”

‘Well – there is the famous sea fort – Sindhudurg. And Malvan city. And MTDC. And water sports. And hordes and hordes of tourists. Tarkarli is Ok for family groups and tourists, but not the place for you and me. But if you are so eager, we can swing by it and you take a call.’

So we set out towards Goa, following the coast. This was all new territory for me now, as I had always swung inwards to the highway from Ratnagiri in the past.

We passed by towns with fascinating names like Padel (Padel means ‘will fall’ in Marathi. Why should a town be named that it will fall?), Jamsande (sounds like a tasty dessert –Jam Sundae), Mithbav (another name mystery solved – have people called Mithbavkar) and stopped at the temple of Kunkeshwar.

It’s another famous Shiva temple (world famous in Malwan), which I don’t know much about – I first thought the name is ‘Kan ‘– keshwar (Kan meaning grain – of sand perhaps, so maybe it’s about god being even in a grain of sand), but then I saw that its pronounced as ‘Koon’ keshwar – about which I know zilch. The story on Wikipedia is quite weird

‘HISTORY OF KUNKESHWAR

The temple of Kunkeshwar was built many years back. According to legend, a sailor travelling in the sea for trade came near the beach of Kunkeshwar. Suddenly a havoc appeared in sea. The sailor was a Muslim. The ship seemed to sink in the sea. He saw a lamp on that beach. He prayed to that lamp "I don't know who you are. But if you will help me and stop the havoc I will build a temple for you". And his ship came to the seashore of Kunkeshwar without any problem. He built the temple as promised. The Lingam was already there. As the Sailor was a non-Hindu, he thought that his religion will not accept him. Therefore he committed suicide from the top of temple.’

Talk about a downer story.

Whatever the case may be, we had a really nice darshan there – when we to the lingagarbha, there was no one there – it was like a private viewing. Rishi was deeply affected, he lay there with his hand on the linga for a long time, and didn’t speak for some time afterwards.He seemed to have had a deeply spiritual moment there. People were looking at us curiously – 2 dudes dressed in full biker gear prostrated in front of the lingam.

The beach was quite nice too.

After the temple, we hit the road again and were planning to hit Tarkarli or Malwan for the night. We had just passed Mithbav, when I saw a sign saying ‘Achare beach – 6 km’. On an impulse I took the turn and zoomed off towards the beach, with Rishi dutifully following behind.

The theme of this ride was to see unexplored places, after all – I knew people called Acharekar, so I should be able to tell them what their beach looks like.

Achare beach was AWESOME. I was so happy at having discovered it. Lovely white sand, clear sea and not crowded at all. It wasn’t totally deserted either – it had a few chai nashta stalls and some lodges very near the beach.

Much elated, we got off the bike and ordered chai pakoda – and Rishi went inside to hunt for a charging point for his iphone (a continual labour. An iphone man travels with phone in one hand and charger in the other. Chutia phone. Rishi’s eyes bugged out when I just swapped the dead battery in my Samsung for another fully charged battery and smirked at him. HAHAHA. Suck that iPhone! )

We found another fellow traveler there, whom we had been seeing on the ferries in our journey. He turned out to be a graphic artist from Mumbai, with roots in Malwan. He was carrying a Canon 5D, which endeared him to Rishi immediately, who had kept moaning about the fact that he had not brought his camera for the Konkan ride and missed so many photo opportunities. He had carried all his gear all through his South India ride, but Sherry the serd on his Triumph Thunderbird had hurried him so much that he hardly had time to take out his camera. Luckily he had not carried his camera on this trip, else he would have spent so much time on shooting that it would have driven me mad.

We had just decided that we would stay here for the night and were congratulating ourselves on a lovely fortuitous discovery, when there was an asthmatic wheezing sound and an ST bus rolled up and vomited out a busload of rowdy college students. Within no time at all, the beach was bedlam as the kids were letting out their pent up energy by running around the beach and shouting and screaming and throwing garbage around.

‘Oh no.’ We said. ‘Can’t stay here – let’s find another place.’

‘Try out Devbag beach.’ Our new friend said ‘it used to be a lovely place.’

So we hit the road again, and within a few minutes, saw another intriguing sign saying that Vayangani beach was a few kilometres off the road, and so off we went to investigate that. The road went on and on, and then strangely it vanished – in the middle of a jungle. We stood there looking at each other. I tried to check out Google maps, but there was no reception out there.

After some time, some locals arrived, and told us that while there was a beach there, there was no road to the beach. We would have to park our bikes here and trek for a kilometre through the jungle to hit the beach.

Ah well. It was dark already – no time to be trekking through jungles. We headed back to the main road and said – no more distractions! Focus on hitting Malwan/ Tarkarli for the night!

And sure enough the next sign came along – ‘X’ beach. (X because it is such a nice beach that I don’t want to talk about it and commercialise it) and all our good intentions went out of the window and we went off to check it out.

The road was completely dark by then, and we had no idea where we were going. We might have turned back, if we had not met a guy in a Maruti Van, who guided us to a hotel. ‘Sai something hotel – lovely place – all facilities. You will love it.’

We landed up there, and the place was awesome! Right on the beach, and seemed to be the only hotel there. It was like a little bit of paradise. We bargained a bit for the rooms and settled there for the night. It was yet another fantastic fortuitous discovery. Once we had freshened up and changed and put a bit of cold beer inside me, we went for a walk on the beach. The beach was completely deserted, and it was fantastic to walk there between the surf and the stars.

We had a nice dinner – Surmai thali again! The konkan coast really struggles with cuisine variety. The food is delicious, but eating the same thing again and again for days on end would pall even nectar and ambrosia. Basically, these guys struggle with sophistication. The same guy in Goa or Ladakh would have done it up with much better taste and class and at least tried to get more cuisine options. But the locals are slow to learn, and suffer from ‘we know best’ syndrome. Chalo – at least better to have honest local cuisine than some fraud bastardised conti stuff I suppose.

The next morning was even better – the empty deserted coast called to us, and we went for a long long walk – almost all the way to the Vayangani beach we were unable to reach yesterday. After the walk and a nice breakfast, we vegetated in the lovely hammocks and wondered whether to spend an additional day here. It was a real wrench to get out of there.

Vishwanath Gaitonde of Wandering Soulz called up and was burning with jealousy when Rishi told him what a lovely beach it was, and what a fantastic ride we were having.

‘You lucky lucky bastard! You lucky sonovabitch!’ he snarled at me.

‘Hahahahahahaha’ I assuaged his feeling by laughing loudly at him. ‘Who told you not to come? You had called and said that you will be coming, and then you chickened out.’

‘Everyone is not like you, you fucker! Some of us have to work for a living!’

Finally we dragged ourselves out of there and made tracks for Goa. What a wonderful place that was.

Just to assuage Rishi’s desire to see Tarkarli and my curiosity about Devbag beach, we went to check out the place. It turned out to be a fucked up place – hotels everywhere, and too much development. What a good thing that we didn’t try to come there last night. Also, the CM was supposed to visit the area to inaugurate some awful tourist trap, so the whole place was crawling with cops. We had lunch there (Surmai thali again!!!!) and made tracks for Goa.

We crossed more fun sounding towns – Wak (Wak means bend in Marathi, so the village that bends over?), Chipi (fuck knows what that means, but sounds weird) and then Parule (Hey, I know a lot of Parulekars as well). The next big town was Vengurle and Shiroda and suddenly we were in Tiracol!

Which meant that were in GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

After checking out the Tiracol fort, we caught the Tiracol ferry and took the bikes across.

I WAS SO HAPPY!! I HAD FINALLY DONE IT! The complete Bombay to Goa coastal route and had done ALL SIX FERRIES! The elusive Tiracol ferry had also been conquered!

YIPPEEEEEE!!

We made our way to Arambol beach and checked into a shack on the beach, which Rishi’s friend had already booked for us.

Rishi took off his gear, and threw his bike key away!

‘I am done with riding now. I have arrived and here is where I will stay for the next fifteen days!’

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For part 1 of the travelogue click here

for part 3 - click here

For my first bike travelogue click here

The West Coast Roamance - The unplanned ride down the western coast from Mumbai to Mangalore - Part 1

2015-02-08T02:04:00.001-08:00

Part 1 – 5 little pigs go to the beach

For part 2 - click here

For part 3 - click here

I have done my fair share of rides over the past few years – Ladakh, Spiti, Nepal, Rajasthan etc, but this ride has a special place in my heart because of the spontaneity – it was like ... I don’t know how I got here....I just left for a weekend ride – it’s been ten days now, and I am in Mangalore!

So this Republic day weekend, I was sulking at home – I had planned to go to the Jaipur Literature fest with a friend, but the silly bugger had dumped me at the last minute. There had been some intense shit at home too, so I was all set for a break. So when the Amigos decided to go for a weekend ride, I was like – sure man, let's do it.

The Amigos are me, Adi and Delzad – we have done Ladakh and Spiti together – just the three of us; and also we had two of the Wandering Soulz with us – Keta the cat lover (she has 2 cats – Trippy and Tipsy – and I think that says enough about her activities in life) , and Rishi the saas-bahu director (he is a director of weepy soaps, and he gets all defensive when we rib him about it).

‘Let’s go somewhere’ Adi said ‘But where?’

I looked at him through the bottom of my glass.

There was something wrong with my glass.

I thought about it and then I realised what the problem was. It was empty.

‘Let’s go to ...hic...Lonar!’ I said, refilling my glass. ‘There’s a huge meteor crater lake which I want to see. It was supposed to be the first ever ride I was supposed to do, but I chickened out because it was 500 kilometers. And I still haven’t done it yet.’

‘Ya ya ‘ Delzad the mad bawa said. He looks like Frankenstein with a Sathya Sai baba hair style if he lets his hair grow for a few days. Just take your eyes off his hair for a few minutes and foom! Its grown so much that he is struggling to get his helmet on. ‘Any place except NH17. We keep on going to NH17.’

‘Let’s go to Hampi!’ Rishi put in his two bits. With his shoulder length hair and French beard and sad eyes, he was looking like a prophet saddened by the state of the world. He had just come back from a 4000 km ride of South India, and he looked as if his ass was still hurting. He would shift his sitting posture every now and then. When we asked him whether he enjoyed his south ride, his eyes got a hunted expression and his south part twitched a bit. He had gone with a crazy serd - the serd had a brand new humongous 1600 cc Triumph thunderbird, and Rishi had to keep up him on his 500 cc. His eyes still twitched at the memory. ‘I found a place called Sanapur, near Hampi and its a wonderful place!’

‘Ya. Ya.’ Bawa said. ‘Anything except NH17’ I looked at him. His hair seemed to have grown in those few seconds.

‘Let’s go to North East!’ Adi said suddenly. He looked like the abominable snowman – a gigantic being all covered in hair – long hair, beard – a general impression of shagginess. There was a moment of silence as we all looked at him. He got all hot and embarrassed. ‘er....not right now...I mean....lets go to the north East some time....um...’ Now he was looking like a confused St Bernard.

St Bernard reminded me – my glass was still empty. I refilled it.

‘So whats decided?’ I asked. ‘Where are we going? Lonar or Hampi? Not North East definitely.’

‘Ya ya.’ Bawa said. ‘anything except NH17’

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The next morning I was staring at the sea and smelling the salty tang of it – and also unfortunately the fishy stink of the jetty.

‘What exactly are we doing here?’ I asked Adi suspiciously. ‘Weren’t we supposed to go to Lonar crater?’

He slapped himself on the head. ‘Arre baba! You only insisted on this.’

‘I did?’ I wrinkled my brow.

‘You got all eloquent about visiting a place called Vijaydurg, and said that we must go there by coastal route. You said that it was an awesome coastal fort and that it was calling out to you and we must go there.’

‘I did?’

‘And you are late bugger!’

‘I am?’

He just shook his head and went off. I shrugged my shoulders. What had I drank last night? Chalo, never mind...Lets ride!

We were at Bhaucha dhakka, a.k.a Ferry Wharf; where there were ferries going to Alibag and Uran. Inspite of having the world’s longest shoreline, we have the world’s worst ferry systems - these two are remainders of the old British era ferry lines, and are the only places where you can transfer a bike on a boat from Bombay – unfortunately the port and the boats are British era too, and look and smell most untrustworthy. In the olden days, when the boats were the only way of going to Konkan and Goa, these places must have been buzzing with activity; but now that there are excellent roads and train, the long distance Konkan boats are only a memory and now only a skeleton ferry service remains.

I am always pissed when I see this – what a waste of our waterway potential. We should be having ferries all the way from the coast – from Nariman point to Manor, with stops at marine drive, Bandra Andheri, Marol etc. Just see the ferries in all other Asian countries – Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. It should be a basic and essential part of our public transport.

(Note to NaMo, DeFa and NiGa – please institute a sensible marine transport system to take advantage of sea routes)

We booked tickets for self and bikes and after some delay, started loading the bikes on the boats. The loading process was as basic as you can get. They put a narrow wooden plank between the pier and the boat and wheel the bikes over that.

Rishi and Keta quailed when they looked at it. The plank was very narrow indeed.

‘Dont worry re...’ I told them ‘This is the fourth time I have done this. They are all pros – at least they haven’t dropped my bike in the drink yet.’

‘Imagine the insurance claim you would have to fill in....’ Del mused as the guy took another bike and wheeled it across. ‘A whole new definition of water damage. Wonder what the surveyor will say.’

The loading guy came and looked at us with dislike. 5 Bullets! Bah! They are normally used to small plastic bikes, and get disgusted pushing these heavy metal monsters.

Imagine what would happen if they saw the 1600 cc Triumph Thunderbird! Completely cheered by the mental image of Sherry arguing with the boatman, and the boatman tossing the bike into the water in disgust, and Sherry then tearing his beard out, and possibly the insurance agent also chucking himself into the sea on seeing the claim form, we completed the loading and sat in the boat.

The boat journey doesn’t save just time – it saves you from having to do a disgusting stretch of highway and deposits you straight into the scenic Konkan coast. The voyage is also quite scenic – you get to see a nice view of Bombay island city and harbour and the myriad small islands and navy/shipping installations in the harbour.

The boat wala didn’t allow us to sit on the top deck till we crossed some invisible laxman rekha, as it was some rule by the navy...or police...or coast guard...somebody. ‘What is the point of this silly rule, re?’ I asked him – I can see outside from below as much as from top deck, only I am suffocating from your engine fumes below deck.’ He shrugged his shoulders and went off. If the guy who made this rule is reading this – screw you!

After an hour or so, we reached out destination – Rewas jetty and that was where the real action was awaiting us. It was low tide so the water had gone out, and the boat was at a lower level than the dock. For the passengers it was no big deal, as they (we) just exited from a lower level.

But what about the bikes?

Any normal logical person would have built two or three levels of dock so that they could just wheel out the bikes aaram se – but not these antediluvian geniuses who made these ports. They have only one level. Me and Tanmay got screwed at Uran jetty once in high tide, where they quietly unloaded our bikes on the lower level, with no way of going up except by the stairs, we nearly had heart attacks getting our bikes up. But here there were more than 25 bikes – more than I had ever seen on this ferry, presumably because of the long weekend. What would they do now?

The answer was that they would do exactly the same as they would do at high tide – wheel the bikes over a rickety wooden plank! Only they would add more muscle power – 4 people below to push and 4 people on top to pull the bikes. All the passengers watched in amazement and disbelief as the unloaders huffed and puffed and got all bikes off the boat. The smaller lighter bikes were no problem, the unloaders got them off without breaking sweat, and almost with a light laugh so to speak – but when they came to the Bullets, their visages grew grim and they all almost developed a common hernia as they gasped and clenched and got the bikes up. All of us were watching in fascination and horror, expecting at any moment a ‘SNAP’ of the rope, a loud ‘AAAAARRRGHHH’ and SPLASH of the bike taking a swan dive in the Arabian sea. But no – ye of little faith, there was no problem – all the bikes were out and we were ready to roll.

‘No more ferries on the route, I suppose?’ Keta asked me nervously.

‘4 more.’ I replied, and Keta went pale. I could just see her imagining her bike at the bottom of the sea, and she trying to explain the situation to her incredulous husband. ‘But don’t worry – they are not like this – they are a normal roll on roll off type’.

She looked relieved, but I was not sure whether she believed me or not.

So once we were all geared up and ready, we set out on our coastal journey. We were planning a full coastal route, without touching the highway at any point at all. The intended route was Rewas to Murud Janjira; then ferry to Dighi, then Dighi – Dive agar – Srivardhan – Harihareshwar; then ferry to Bankot, then kelshi and then Anjarle. I was actually hoping to get to Murud Harnai, because I hadn’t seen the place for almost 18 years, and there was a sea fort there which I wanted to see.

None of this route was new ground to Adi, Delzad and me – I had attempted doing full coastal route to Goa a couple of times before, but it’s a slow route, and time pressure always forced us to abandon the coastal route and hit the highway after Ratnagiri to keep to our schedule. This time of course, it was only a weekend ride, so there was no Goa on the cards.

We passed through Revdanda and Korlai, and I told the guys about the Korlai lighthouse – me and Bharathi had gone there once, and it was a very cute place. We passed through lovely old villages and rolling hills and through the ancient walls of the Portuguese fort of Chaul, and the ancient Maratha fort of Korlai until we came to the amazing island fort of Murud Janjira.

Murud Janjira fort is a fascinating place, standing in an imposing position right at the mouth of the huge creek of Rajapuri, where it can overlook all sea and river traffic. It was a small local fortification called Medhekot, which was taken over by African Muslim raiders from Abyssinia – now in Ethiopia. They first ruled with the permission of the Nizam of Ahmednagar, as his agents, but after some time gave him the heave ho and claimed the whole area as their own. They built the impregnable stone fort in the 12^th century and ruled the area ever since. The Abyssinians were called the ‘Habesha’ in their local language, which was known as ‘Habshi’ in Marathi, and now ‘habshi’ has become a catch all word for all black people in Marathi. The rulers were called ‘Sidi’ in African and the fortress was called Murud – which is ‘island’ in Konkani, and ‘Jajeera’ – which is ‘island’ in Arabic. The word ‘jajeera’ became corrupted to ‘Janjira’ – so the name ‘Murud Janjia’ is essentially ‘Island Island’. So when it is called the ‘island fortress of Murud Janjira’ – that is total overkill. Island Island Island.

The Siddis of Janjira were never part of the Mughal empire, but as a loose confederation of muslims, they always supported the Mughals and the Deccan Sultanates against the Hindu kingdom of Shivaji and the Maratha empire. While they had some land holdings in Konkan, their real power was in the sea – they controlled the sea lanes and extorted taxes from all sea traffic, and were bitterly opposed to any competition – and they suddenly had a lot of it – the new expansionist European sea powers – Portugese, Dutch, French and English ships – and the newly formed Maratha Navy – as Shivaji was the only Indian monarch far sighted enough to see the importance of sea power.

They tried their best to hedge their bets by having a strong base in land – they were among the forces which attacked Shivajis forces in the famous battle of Panhala where Shivaji was able to escape only through a daring night-time sortie – but were soon pushed out by the wary local rulers. Soon they were marginalised in land and under pressure at sea, but the fort of Murud Janjira was never defeated. Shivaji and his admiral Kanhoji Angre tried their best to root them out, Sambhaji built a island fort next to it to force them out, the British breathed hard on them, but the castle of Murud Janjira was never taken by force. It took the inexorable force of history to extinguish them – the new technology of ships and ammo made the fort irrelevant, and the giant scale of the British empire made them toothless. One day the population of the fort voluntarily left the fort, the nawab of Janjira built a splendid palace on the shore and moved there and now the fort is empty like all its brothers on the coast.

Now all there is to remember the only African influence in India is the fort, the palace, some tombs of Sidis and several Baobab trees which must have come as seeds in tummies of ancient cattle and horses. And of course the facial features of the locals showing the DNA of the descendants of the African invaders.

We stopped for lunch at the famous ‘Patil Khanawal’ – where the owner greeted us like old friends. I doubt whether he remembered us as individuals, but he was happy to see a bunch of bikers. Bikers always moved in large packs, ate like pigs and paid well, not to mention adding some glamour into his life. Most people are happy to see bikers – they live the adventure vicariously through them.

We enjoyed surmai thalis, and then enquired about dessert. ‘gulab Jamun’ the waiter replied and bawa almost jumped out of his seat.

‘Ya ya – bring it no- slurp slurp’

Adi looked at him suspiciously. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be on a diet?’

‘Just one man’

The waiter brought 5 cups of testiculate gulab jamuns and put them on the table with a smile.

‘Complimentary sir’ he said.

Adi was khush! Complimentary! ‘Thank you,tha...’ he stopped abruptly. I looked at him in surprise.

‘Kya hua?’ I asked.

He pointed tremblingy at the cups. They were empty! Bawa had moved faster than the speed of light, and finished off 10 gulab jamuns before Adi could even say ‘thank you’!

‘What?’ Bawa said, as we all looked at him in disbelief. ‘They were tiny ones anyway.’

We exited from Murud and went to Agardanda to catch the new ferry. The last time I had come ,we had taken the old ferry from Rajapuri to Dighi. That is another disgusting old ferry where four people lift up the bike and load it on an ancient launch and lash it tightly to prevent it falling in the water, and you worry all through the trip about the rope coming loose and dropping your bike into the drink. Now there is a modern drive-on drive-off ferry with much less complication and mental tension.

Or so we thought.

We reached there and saw that there was a full blown testosterone match on display. One big bus had parked on the wrong side of the road and was refusing to budge. There was a mini van parked on the right side of the road who was also unwilling to budge. There was a line of vehicles behind each of them, all of whom were unwilling to budge. The small gaps between them was filled by bikers.

I scratched my head as I looked at them. They were occupying the whole road. The ferry was coming in. How were the vehicles in the ferry supposed to get off?

The issue did get resolved eventually after a lot of shouting and pleading and huffiness and general timewaste and attitude spewing. Somehow someone backed off enough to allow the vehicles to disembark, then the big guys loaded in and then we shouldered our way inside somehow until we were packed like sardines in the ferry.

We got off the ferry and carried on to Harihareshwar via Srivardhan and Dive agar. There used to be a golden statue of Ganpati at Dive, which was a very old statue which was supposed to have been washed up on the beach some time in antiquity. I had passed by it several times and everytime I thought about stopping to see the temple, but as I had just gotten off the ferry I had been in no mood to stop again. Next time definitely, I would think and carry on.

Unfortunately, the golden statue was stolen on 25 March 2012 – the thieves murdered two watchmen and looted the statue. The thieves were caught eventually, but they had melted the statue by then and it was gone forever.

Srivardhan is also a historically interesting town. It is an old and venerable town, most famous as being the birthplace of the first Peshwa of the Maratha empire – Balaji Vishwanath. Shivaji created the Maratha empire, but after his death and the death of his son, Sambhaji – who was horrifically tortured and murdered by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb – the kingdom went through a firestorm of a civil war. There was a roaring battle between the supporters of Rajaram - the son of Shivaji’s second wife Soyrabai, and the supporters of Shahu – the son of Sambhaji; while at the same time the kingdom was under fierce attack from Aurangzeb, who was amazed that the Marathas still resisted after the death of their king, and the Deccan sultanates. Amazingly, not only did the Maratha empire survive such a turbulent period, but went on to thrive and grow and go on to become the premier power in India, as they overthrew the Mughal empire. This was due to Shahu ceding power to his very able Prime Minister – called the ‘Peshwa’ in Marathi – who was this Balaji Vishwanath. Balaji Peshwa recreated the power of the empire, settled the civil war, agreed to serve as the prime minister and never aspire to be king, and created a new era in Indian history. The Peshwa-ruled Maratha empire stretched from Tamil Nadu in the South to Afghanistan border in the North and Bengal border in the east. If not for the entrance of the British, it would have replaced the Mughal empire as the main empire of the India.

Harihareshwar is a Shiva temple of great antiquity, and is known as Kashi of the south – it became famous during this period as it was the ancestral temple of the Peshwas.

It was a very beautiful ride across the hills as we crossed Srivardhan and Harihareshwar till we got to the next ferry – from Harihareshwar to Bankot. To my relief, there were no testerostone and angst filled crowds at this ferry point, and we had a very pleasant ferry ride across the creek.

This was the last ferry and from here it was a very short run to Anjarle. But we Amigos were not relaxed yet, as we knew the biggest issue of the day.

The long weekend! That's when the whole of India seems to go out of town like a tsunami and wash out accommodations for miles around. Its like a natural disaster of epic proportions.

It was a long weekend, and we had no reservations, so we knew that it would be a real task to get accommodation.

We had experienced the issue on our last ride, where we had ended up in Simla on the 15^th August weekend.

It seemed that the whole of North India had decided that it would be a wonderful idea to visit Simla. It had become dark, we were soaked in the rain, cold and miserable, while we went from hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel to hotel looking for a room for the night. Finally we had got a place to sleep in a really shady looking drivers dormitory @ Rs 250 per head, which we had eagerly agreed to. No sooner had we changed out of our wet clothes, than the hotel manager came and told us to vacate the beds as his boss had promised the same to some army group!

We were stunned. ‘Where are we supposed to go at this time in the night?’ I demanded, but the hotel guy only shrugged.

‘Hum to sirf sorry bol sakte hain sir’ the hotel lady had only one thing to say.

At that time, bawa really came into his own. His saibaba hair seemed to curl and uncurl on its own as he fixed the hotel staff with a basilisk glare. ‘We are not going anywhere! What your boss has promised to someone else is your problem. Sorry!’ he growled in full bawa tashan, and the hotel guy wilted.

‘But sir...please...’ he begged

‘No please nothing! You have taken our money and written down our registration and thats it! We are not moving unless you make alternative arrangements’

Such was the power of bawa’s eye that the hotel fellow surrendered. Suddenly the lady had a brainwave – they had a shaadi hall upstairs – could we stay in that?

Sure – we replied – so long as you organise bedding. And that had actually turned out to be a much better solution than that smelly and congested dorm.

But that was a really bad memory, and I was sure that some stress like that was going to happen again.

‘But don’t worry re...’ I said ‘the patron saint of idiots always helps out. Just keep an eye out and keep asking the locals.’

We kept asking the locals, and one autowala recommended a hotel called Hotel Durvankur on Anjarle beach and gave us the hotels card. We went hunting for it.

‘Do you think that he will have room?’ Adi asked.

‘Probably not – but any fellow who is enterprising enough to hand out his cards to autowalas sounds like a guy who will help out.’

Sure enough, the hotel was full, but the hotel fellow had a sharp entrepreneurial streak. He first took us to his grandmas house, but that was full. Then he took us to a more distant relatives house.

‘It’s a brand new house.’ He said ‘ and they have made a special room for guests. You can do whatever you want in that room.’

It turned out to be very clean little room, with an attached bath and western WC – also extremely clean. No furniture – but that was good, as all of us could sleep together in that room. And the price? 800 bucks a night.

We closed the deal with relief, and crashed in that room. After a change of clothes and a shower, we were all cheerful again. It was the best possible solution – we were staying in a homely house – which I much prefer to staying in a hotel – in a beautiful village – Rishi went crazy at the photo opportunities –

and only a stone’s throw from the beach – and we walked there for a night time stroll before dinner. Dinner was a scrumptious surmai thali at Durvankur, where bawa went crazy – eating surmai after surmai until all supplies of the kitchen were over. The hotel employees came out to peek at who was this Bakasur finishing off all the fish.

The next morning Keta woke up as a mass of aches and pains. She was not used to long rides.

‘My ass is paining, my back is paining, my wrist is paining, my thighs are paining.....every part of me is paining.’ She was whining.

‘Why do we need to go anywhere? Can’t we chill here today?’

‘But....what about Vijaydurg?’ I whined in my turn ‘I really want to see the place.’

But then she made a sad puppy face, and I sighed. OK OK, we will chill here only. Anyway, this beach is absolutely beautiful and deserves a longer look, and we can take a look at the Harnai fort.

In the meanwhile bawa was eating the householder out of house and home – ek anda....aur ek anda....aur ek anda....aur ek anda....bread...more butter...sugar...more butter....more bread...ek aur anda...more bread....more butter...more sugar

Rishi was watching with his eyes popping out.

‘Does he always eat like this?’ he whispered to me.

‘Oh yeah.’ I replied. ‘It’s like feeding a python.’

After bawa was finally sated, and the kitchen was a nervous wreck, we set out to check out the fort. Bawa was rubbing his tummy and murmuring ‘I should have had one more for the road.’

I loved the location of Suvarana durg – it is actually a set of two forts – Suvarana durg (the golden fort) is the island fort, and Kanak durg (the ornament fort) is the land fort. They are supposed to be connected by a secret underground passage, but that is lost and blocked up now. The whole idea of a sea fort with a secret undersea passage reminds me of Enid Blyton novels and drowns me in a sea of nostalgia. Nowadays, people look at me blankly when I mention my love for Enid Blyton, and I am really sorry about that. She was a great writer.

Suvarnadurg was an ancient fort, built by earlier kingdoms, and Shivaji, seeing its potential, promptly conquered it from the Adilshahis and made it into a key component of his coastal plans. His admiral, Kanhoji Angre, turned it into one of his important bases and ship building yards. Kanhoji ended up owning the entire coastline from Gujarat to Goa – with the notable exception of Janjira – and maintained his hold even in the face of experienced sea faring enemies like the arabs, the siddis, the Portuguese, the dutch and the British.

Kanhoji was fiercely loyal to Shivaji, and somewhat so to Sambhaji, but in the power vacuum after them and the civil war that followed, he decided to hang up his shingle as an independent ruler. After he died, there was a further mess with his legitimate children and illegitimate children fighting for the throne, the two factions of the Marathas fighting with him, the other chipping in – it must have been really messy.

It finally ended with Peshwa teaming up with the English to attack Tulaji Angre, and as always happens in such a case – the English ended up with the whole pie and the Marathas gave up their naval forces completely.

Now the fort is empty and desolate – like all Maratha forts – and all that is left are ruins and berry trees. I picked a lot of berries and ate them all day long.

We got back to Anjarle beach in time for sunset, and bawa and adi decided to ride their bikes on the beach. Bawa was all over the beach like an excited puppy running in the water. Adi was also inspired to zip around the beach after him. It was like watching a Great Dane and a St Bernard running around on the beach. On motorbikes.

Seeing them, I also got excited and borrowed his bike and went riding in the water – its a great feeling to ride your bike in the waves and feel the water spraying all over - the sand is firm and fun to ride on, and the water is warm and salty. Great fun.

‘Take my photo na...’ Bawa would plead

‘Arrey – I took photo, video everything,’ Rishi replied

‘No no no....just one more – in setting sun’ Bawa would say, and zoom off.

It was such a beautiful beach – inspite of it being 26 Jan weekend, there weren’t too many people on the beach. Beautiful white sand, broad expanse of sea and the setting sun made it a wonderful sight.

After thoroughly enjoying the sunset, we went back to our room for a shower and clean up, and back on the beach with a bottle of Buddha baba. We chilled till dinner time, and then went back to the hotel for dinner.

As soon as the hotel staff saw us, they rolled up their sleeves and girded their loins – they had made a special trip to the fish market that day and bought a whole shoal of fish for us. They had gotten over their initial shock by now, and were happy and proud to see someone scarf down their cooking so enthusiastically.

They were particularly taken with Delzad – the human garbage disposal. ‘Just imagine – if we get a few more customers like him, we can retire’ I could imagine them thinking.

Rishi and Keta watched goggle eyed as he downed fish after fish. The cook was getting blisters keeping up with his demand.

He finally looked up to see us all staring at him.

‘What?’ he said ‘Fish is light re....you can have more.’

The next day after the mandatory early morning stroll on the beach, where bawa found fisherman and tried to eat the fish raw, just as a change, we were back at the room and thinking of packing. Bawa was thinking of breakfast.

‘So what is the plan now?’ Keta asked

‘Breakfast of course’ Bawa replied. ’14 eggs for me – and bread. And tell him not to do kanjoosi on the butter.’

‘No, I mean – what is the ride plan?’

‘We are going home - by the highway this time.’ Adi replied

‘Oh god! NH 17 again! Better make it 16 eggs for me.’ Bawa groaned.

‘What shit!’ I objected. ‘What about Vijaydurg?’

‘No can do man – gotta get back on Monday’ Bawa replied.

I turned to Adi – ‘Adi, you bastard...you were going to come with me to Vijaydurg.’

Adi looked embarrassed, like a St Bernard caught doing something naughty. ‘Umm, no maan...gotta get back...’

‘I want see my pussies’ Keta announced. ‘Tipsy and Trippy need their mamma’

‘I am going to Goa guys.’ Rishi suddenly spoke up. ‘Anyone want to come along ?’

Everyone looked at him.

‘Arent you just back from a frigging long south trip?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah. So? I am a director, and I am sick of saas and bahoos.. I need a break. A long break. I want to go to Goa. You guys want to come along?’

‘No man.’ Adi replied. ‘Gotta get back to work.’

‘But this fatso will come.’ Bawa pointed at me. ‘He is completely mad.’

‘Hey!’ I objected. ‘I am not completely mad. I am just somewhat free spirited.’

‘So ...what say? Coming to Goa?’

I thought about it.

‘Well...not to Goa, but let’s go till Vijaydurg together, and I will go back from there.’

‘Cool man’ Rishi said as we bumped fists. ‘It will be just the two of us then. Let these wimpy losers go back home.’

‘On to Vijaydurg!’

‘Tally ho!’

‘The two musketeers!’

‘Eh?.....doesn’t sound right somehow...’

‘It doesn’t?....Ok....the dynamic duo!’

‘That’s better.’

-----------------
Part 2 - 2 guys ride from Anjarle to Goa

part 3 - Solo ride from Goa to Mangalore

PS : You can read the travelogue of my first bike trip here http://ketanj.blogspot.in/2010/03/over-hills.html

Washing dirty linen in Public

2014-05-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

‘She who must be obeyed’ does very pukka planning of the trip, and that too well in advance.

She did all the airline booking, train booking, bus booking, hotel booking all in advance, and left no margin for error anywhere.

‘This is how we will travel, this is where we will stay, this is where we will wash clothes...’ etc etc. Everything is planned down to the last detail.

So we first went to Barcelona, and then to Majorca – where she would tell me ‘Don’t change your underwear everywhere, you idiot – our washing stop is after Majorca! Why do you need to change clothes anyway?. Why do you need to take a bath at all?’

Every time I tried to change clothes, she would flash her eyes at me, and I would subside – but since I am an independent strong man, I surreptitiously applied talcum powder when she was not looking, to hide the smell. Every now and then, when the wind was in the correct direction, the whole Spanish populace would start sniffing suspiciously and looking around.

When we landed in Seville, she said to me grandly – ‘We are in the Youth hostel today, and they have a Laundromat, so today is washing day!’

Hallejulah! I said and handed over the clothes, and soon we were again knee deep in clean clothes.

‘Next washing stop will be in Granada’ she said – ‘Conserve your clothes till then.’

Granada was only a week away, so I used up my clothes with reckless abandon, changing clothes every day, and generally living the life of Reilly.

But due to some reason, She felt too bored to wash clothes in Granada, and we left the Laundromat unmolested.

‘Hey’ I said in Madrid, when I was rummaging in my bag. ‘Clothes are over. This is the last clean set.’

‘Don’t worry re...’ she replied. ‘We will wash clothes in the evening’

In the evening, she started collecting all her washing clothes, and filled up a huge bag. Then she looked at me

‘Oy. The clothes you are wearing are also dirty. Off with them.’

‘Eh?’

‘C’mon C’mon, hand them over’ she said, clicking her fingers like a flamenco dancer.

‘But...but...I will be naked.’ I protested.

‘So? Wrap yourself in the bedsheet and sit quietly on the bed till I return.’ She replied haughtily.

‘But...how will I go out?’

‘Why will you want to go out? To drink beer, I suppose. Nothing doing – just sit here quietly.’

‘I don’t even have any underwear!’ I wailed.

‘Well neither do I. I am going commando to the Laundromat. Why do you think I am wearing a sweater and a jacket in this heat?’

And such was the power of her personality, that I meekly stripped off and stood nude, shivering.

‘At least leave me a hankerchief’ I pleaded ‘what if someone comes knocking?’

‘Tchah’ she said dismissively, and she flounced off, leaving me unclothed in the room.

I was sitting on the potty, when suddenly the bathroom door was wrenched open, startling me into an involuntary bowel spasm. It was She, returned unexpectedly.

‘Oy!’ I protested. She ignored me completely.

‘OOOOOOOOOOOOO’ she wailed ‘the place was a laundry, not a Laundromat.....AAAAAAA.....she said we will have to pay per piece.....OOOOOOOOO.....and she can give the clothes only by Wednesday......AAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....how will our clothes get clean?????......OOOOOOOOOOO...how can I face my child and mother in law like this......OOOOOOOOOOOO.....my life is ruined....AAAAAAAAAAAAAA’

‘Here...relax...’ I said, trying to close my sphincter and maintain my dignity. ‘Close the door for a sec....I will be right out, and I will find the nearest Laundromat using Google maps.’

‘Oh damn your Google maps....OOOOOOO.....Oh all right. The paper is there. Wipe nicely OK?’

I came out with dignity, draping myself with a towel, and found a listing on Google. ‘Let’s try this place.’ I said ‘I will come with you, to ensure that you find it, OK? Give me some underwear please’

‘What is the point? You can’t strip off in the Laundromat to wash your undies, can you? Come just like that.’

‘Eh?’ She just glared at me, and I wilted and put on shirt and pant, being extremely careful with the zipper.

‘Hurry up!’ she barked, seeing my slow motions.

‘Better safe than sorry re, else it might result in an unintended circumcision.’

Soon both of us commandos went jiggling across Madrid to find the Laundromat, walking slowly and carefully, trying to attract as less attention as possible.

She had her nose up in the air, and it was the only part of her body which was up in the air.

Unexpectedly, I was very comfortable -I didn’t find much difference at all – then I realised that it was the great advantage of wearing boxers – you get used to being alone and unsupported! True Independence! We don’t need any party’s support – we can form the government on our own! Aam aadmi party zindabad!'

I tried to tell her this, but she just gave me a cold freezing glare that said – just shut up and keep walking!

Guided by the great god Google – we soon found the place. How ‘She’ must have suffered the humiliation – not only unsupported and commando in public, but having to take the guidance of technology and its foul offspring, and worse than that – having to meekly listen to husband and follow his directions. ‘Turn right’ ‘turn left’etc

Out of pure habit, she would say ‘No no no no...you are wrong!’ but having nothing further to say, she would subside into an infuriated silence.

After what seemed to be a walk across the length and breadth of Madrid, we finally found the place.

Here at last, ‘She’ could resume her natural authority.

‘Open the washer’

‘Put the clothes in.’

Defence Attorney : My lord, this fellow is lying, when I was busy getting coins for the laundromat, shoving clothes in, turning jeans inside out for better drying, he went off to eat THREE EURO a piece oysters at the next door shop, in addition to minding the clothes, I had to frisk him like airport security guard, otherwise after eating oyster, King Kong would beat his chest in ecstasy and smash his six thousand rupee sunglasses to pulp. Also my lord, he makes it sound like I marched him naked through the streets of Madrid, covering his jewels with what else..... but a smartphone.

He also wanted some achaar, tikat mit and chutney to go with the oysters, and the Madrileno shopkeeper cried boohoohoo and fell at his feet, PLEASE I BEG OF THEE don't pour Tabasco sauce and insult my special Gallego oysters.... while I was busy attending to his dirty underwear, my Lord, I swear he was slurping off oysters!

‘No no no, you moron – that’s not the way to do it...’ and she would take the clothes out and replace them, exactly the way I had. Being extremely smart, she had brought along detergent sachets from home, thus saving Euros, and smirking at me for not thinking about it.

We hung around till the wash and dry was done, and then we jiggled our way back to the hotel.

Immediately she donned her clothes – becoming visibly more confident with every article of clothing. It was like Popeye taking his spinach – one shot of spinach, and he turns into Superman. Similarly, all clothes in place,and the spine straightened and the eyes flashed once more!

‘She who must be obeyed’ was back!

The Triumph of technology

2014-04-30T02:32:00.001-07:00

‘She who must be obeyed’ simply hates technology. Anything to do with hi tech, or circuits or diagrams anything more complicated than a hammer and an anvil, she looks at with great suspicion.

‘Works of the devil!’ she hisses and makes a sign of the cross. ‘A vile abhorrence! ‘ . Then she eats garlic and breathes all over me.

That’s why she hates it when I am surrounded by technology. Here I am, carrying a bag which is filled with technology and gets me into trouble at all the security checks in airports around the world – cameras, laptop, speaker, tablet, keyboard, ipod and a charger for each one! Ugh!

She looks at me with disapproval even when I take out my phone and check Facebook.

‘Why are you always looking at that accursed phone?’ she asks. ‘It is against nature to use the phone for anything other than talking.’ For her the heights of mobile technology is to use SMS.

‘But this is a smartphone!’ I protested. ‘It can be used like a mini computer – it’s got internet, mail, phone, GPS...’

‘GPS...hah’ she snapped. ‘A GPL is what you deserve. Chalo...at least something about you should be smart.’

For her the only acceptable use of technology is to book tickets and do travel research. She spends her entire lifetime peering at various sites and comparing fares and attractions and using Google maps to memorise the routes of all cities in the world. For that too, she prefers an old desktop PC rather than a laptop or a tablet. She is the only person in the world who actually asked for a desktop PC in office, and keeps her office laptop unused at home.

Probably she would be most comfortable with the original IBM ‘Deep thought’ and swapping notes with Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. She still mourns for the loss of the old days of punchcards and teletypes. Even Fax is a modern innovation which she is yet to get comfortable with.

The Defence Attorney says : My Lord, for someone whose wife has to give him a bunch of air + train + bus + hotel +entrance ticket online reservations before every trip, Signor talks too much, I say.

‘Why are you trying to imitate a snail and carry your whole house of high tech with you anyway?’ She asked.

‘Arre, I had been to that Photography competition re, so I carried two cameras and a laptop to edit the photos on.’ I replied ‘And I came directly from there, so I had to cart the laptop along.’

‘Hah! Using laptop to edit photos is cheating. Bloody Charlatan! This digital photography is a disgrace. In my day, we used real film. I even used to make my own film with silver nitrate and toilet paper. I made my own camera too, from a cardboard box and a pin. I used to develop my own film in the toilet, where I filled the toilet bowl with developer. I used to multitask – crapping and developing...or rather, developing and then crapping. In our house, everyone used to wear only lungis, so I used them to make a tent to dry the photos in. That’s the real way to do photography re...Not this pansy digital SLRs and whatnot...’ She growled at me.

And having vented her spleen, she flounced away, leaving me to run after her, weighed down by technology.

Once in New Zealand, she nearly divorced me, because I tried to use Google maps on my phone. We had hired a car, as we sat down and strapped up, I pulled out my phone and handed it to her. She took one look and exploded like a volcano.

‘What is this nonsense? How dare you insult my hard work?’

‘Eh? What? Where? When?’ I was nonplussed. ‘What did I do now?’

She took out a sheaf of printouts and waved it at me. ‘I have studied Google maps and memorised the entire route, and have taken printouts of the entire route!’

‘But it’s the same Google maps...and this moving dot shows where are...’ I whined.

‘SHUT UP! And put that sinful thing away, you foul reprobate!’ She growled at me, and I shrivelled like a snail who has had salt sprinkled on it.

We drove on, and I glanced at the GPS. ‘Hey...we are going the wrong way.’ I said hesitantly. ‘See the blue dot?’

‘#$!$%$@%&* you and your blue dot! You are a blue dolt! Keep shut and keep driving!’ She shouted at me. ‘See the road sign?’ she pointed dramatically, and then suddenly said ‘Oh!’ . After a few minutes, she said ‘WE ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY! YOU FOOL! WE ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOO....WE WILL GET LOST......AAAAAAAAAAA......WE WILL RUN OUT OF FUEL.......OOOOOOOOOOO......WE WILL STARVE IN THE WILDERNESS AND DIE........AAAAAAAAAA.....WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY CHILD WITHOUT ME......OOOOOOOOOOOOO’

‘Here....relax...’ I said ‘We have just come a few kilometres. I will turn the car around.’

‘AAAAAARGGHHHHHHH...BE CAREFUL WHILE TURNING......THERE IS A CAR COMING 3 KILOMETERS AWAYYYYYYYY.....HE WILL CRASH INTO US.......WE WILL DIE........ARRRRR....oh we have turned. Go straight now.’

‘I told you we were going the wrong way.’ I said. ‘I saw on the GPS.’

That was the worst thing I could have said. A wife will tolerate any amount of marital abuse, but she simply cannot tolerate the spouse being right about anything. It goes against all the principles of marriage.

‘IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!’ she screamed at me. ‘Distracting me with that garbage. Its written in my notes to take a right, but you took a left.’

‘But ....but....you told me to take a left.’ I whined

‘Thats your fault! I meant a right! You should understand me by now.’ She said and refused to talk to me for the rest of the day.

The Defence Attorney says : My Lord, what this fat !@#$%^& doesn’t mention is that the internet coverage died once we were in the mountains, the GPS screen was as blank as the sleepy blue ocean where they are searching for MH370 wreckage, and it was my antediluvian map printouts (made on Egyptian hieroglyphic parchment) which saved the day.

So with this background, I carefully did not show her the Maps on my phone in Spain. I used the phone for everything – Facebook, Mail, reading books etc, so she wouldn’t realise that I was covertly seeing our position on maps while we were walking.

In Seville though, the breakthrough happened.

We emerged at a junction, and she stopped and looked doubtfully around. She looked like a tiny version of Gandalf the Grey, when he was lost in the mines of Moria. ‘I have no memory of this place at all’ Gandalf had said; and she said almost the same thing. Well, actually she said ‘#$$%#$^@@$%@$%^^#^^’ ; but the sentiment was the same. She was wearing her antediluvian grey jacket with hood, so the illusion with Mini-Gandalf was complete.

I crawled after her, like Gollum, holding my phone and hissing ‘my preciousssssss’

Then the unthinkable happened.

She turned to me and said in a small voice ‘Can you open Google maps and find out the way to our hotel? I seem to have lost my bearings.’

I looked at her in disbelief.

I could just imagine Sergei Brin and Larry Page breaking into a Bhangra in exultation, and Eric Schmidt banging on the dholak with one hand and playing the tumba with the other hand.

‘OYE BALLE BALLE!’ the cry resounded over the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA and firecrackers and coloured streamers exploded over all the Google offices all across the world. A national holiday was declared in 53 countries and a parade was launched in the remaining ones. Mardi Gras was cancelled in favour of this celebration, and 21 gun salutes roared out from all the ships at sea.

Defence Attorney : !@#$%^&*(

Technology had finally triumphed! The Final frontier had been overcome!

The land of the fit

2014-04-28T01:17:00.002-07:00

These Spaniards are a depressing people.

Depressing for me, I mean.

Not only do they have the best food, the best daru and enjoy themselves smoking, drinking and carousing all the time; they are also incredibly good looking and fit.

When we stroll along any beautiful park or boulevard or marina, you can hardly see anybody who is not jogging or cycling or rollerblading or skateboarding; or if nothing else, going on a very brisk walk. It’s weird – either they are smoking and drinking, or they are jogging.

The girls will be in skin tight leggings or jeans – the kind of skin tight where you need to have complete body confidence to wear...will outline every mole and wrinkle on your bum – or in very short skirts and tight tops. And they are all good looking too – flashing eyes, great hair, faultless makeup. I look at them with great admiration. Purely platonic, you understand. Just admiring their youth and fitness.

The guys will be in elegant clothes – even their sweat shirts and jogging outfits look like they are out of Armani – and all look like Rafael Nadal or Antonio Banderas, with sex appeal oozing out of their pores and leaving a trail behind them like a snail leaves a trail of slime. I look at them with disgust. Bloody gigolos. ‘She who must be obeyed’ looks at them, and then looks at me and sighs.

I sigh back at her.

She is looking like an ad for UNESCO or one of those funds which collect money for impoverished refugees fleeing some civil war. As usual she is wearing clothes which even the cat didn’t bring in – some junk that wouldn’t even be washed up as flotsam and jetsam...looks like she found it floating in the sea while she was ship wrecked. A fifteen year old sweat shirt, a jacket that makes her look like a gray cat with mange, and jeans which are so battered....that I suppose they would be the height of fashion if they were well fitting.

Me - I am so handsome, that I look like a model!

Unfortunately, I look like the ‘before’ model in a weight loss clinic ad.

Or a Listerine ad.

Or a Clinic all clear ad.

Or a Fair and lovely ad.

Or an ad for what ‘The well dressed man’ will never ever even dream of wearing.

We look at each other and both sigh so loudly that the flag in front of us flutters sympathetically.

In India, it doesn’t matter so much, because everyone is pot bellied and disgusting. I remembered the defining memory of the Kumbh Mela – an endless line of hairy paunches rolling over long striped underwear.

But here we stand out.

We were at the river side watching a traffic jam of Kayakers, rowers, wind surfers all doing healthy activities in the river.

‘It’s all your fault.’ ‘She’ says to me ‘You are tempting me with food. Else I am fine – just carrying a little baby fat’

‘Baby fat? Dude....the baby is 7 years old.’

‘Shut up. I at least had a baby. What happened to you?’

Talk about rhetorical questions. We walked on, avoiding a line of cyclists. They have a dedicated cycle lane on the sidewalk! I am very impressed. Talk about a cycle friendly country. Not just the roads, but even the sidewalk has a dedicated lane for anything on wheels – cycles, skates / rollerblades, skateboards, wheelchairs, prams, etc.

And everyone seems to be on wheels here. The variety of cyclists is fun to see. You have the exercise cyclists on expensive bikes, the commuters on less flashy bikes, the occasional commuters on rented bikes (they have a beautiful cycle hire organisation in most cities – hire anywhere, drop off anywhere – fully automated), whole families on bikes – Daddy, Mummy, baba, baby in bikes of descending sizes. Parents with babies in baby seats...

Then you have the young people on rollerblades – the skates with only one line of wheels. They move with unearthly grace, gliding along on the roads. I could watch them forever.

‘You should try that.’ I suggested ‘If I tried it, I would fall and have a fracture.’

‘More than that, the pavement would have a fracture re...’ She retorted. ‘and the government would ask us to pay for the road repair. But I won’t try it either...I will end up in the river or in traffic...i know it’s your evil plan to get rid of me re, but I am too smart for you.’

We walked on and came across a gang of young bloods doing skateboard stunts. ZOOM CLANK ZOOM CLANK. They would zoom down a slope and try to roll on to benches or railings or go up in the air; or try to turn around in mid air or stop suddenly.

Every now and then, the stunt wouldn’t take off and the air would be ionized with Spanish oaths and curses. @#%%^^@@!!!

I turned to ‘She’ and said ‘I also am going to get pierced and tattooed, y’know. As soon as I lose some weight, I will get it done.’

She linked her arm in mine and laughed and said ‘Then you are assured a Tattoo free life for ever re.’

A suited booted guy zoomed by us – he looked like a full corporate type – nice business suit, conservative hairstyle, talking on mobile in one hand – only he was on a skateboard. We looked at him in admiration.

‘I have a brilliant idea to make some money.’ She said.

‘What?’

‘We are the ugliest people here – lets sell tickets for people to come and look at us – like they had in the old days – the bearded lady, the tattooed man, the fattest man and woman, the mermaid....stuff like that. A P T Barnum kind of show’

‘Yeah?’

‘And we will call it – The Beauty and the Beast’

The wonders of Spanish cuisine

2014-04-27T07:54:00.002-07:00

Ever since we landed in Spain, we have been eating the most incredible food. The most wonderful thing about Christianity, I have always felt, is that they eat absolutely everything. They positively define the word omnivorous – if it lives and breathes, eat it – and if it can be fermented – make an alcoholic drink out of it. And that suits my life values perfectly.

We cut a swath through the plant and animal kingdom, and posted yummy food shots on Facebook to jalao all the people back home. The comments came as expected –

‘You @#@#% - you should be hanged!’

‘You fat @@#$%%, you will gain 20 kilos from this trip alone’

‘I hope you choke on a bone and die you sadistic pig’

‘Screen lick...drool...drool’

For breakfast we had a variety of sausages – pepperoni, sobrasada, big red ones, spicy red ones, and all kinds of ham, salami, cereals, olive oil flavoured with pimentos and garlic, freshly squeezed orange juice, freshly brewed coffee, and very occasionally – an egg.

‘She who must be obeyed’ would roll up her sleeved and dig into the food with gusto. The waiters looked at her with amazement and admiration as she finished off a huge dish of roast kid lamb, bread with aioli and grilled vegetables and still look around for more. They must have believed that there is a black hole inside her where all that food vanished.

I was my usual conservative self... a few morsels here and there.

This went on for a week or so, and we came to Palma de Mallorca – the capital of Majorca.

In the Youth hostel in palma, I saw a new dish on the breakfast menu – ‘Toast and tomato – Mallorquin style’

I was intrigued. What was this exotic dish? I asked her.

‘Ah Senor...this is a typical mallorcan dish. Very rustic..very delicious’

I was sold. I had very good experiences with rustic dishes till now – suckling pig, and roast veggies and what not.

‘Fantastico! Give me one, por favor’

She went inside and I heard some fiddling in the kitchen.

I started dreaming of what the dish would be like.

I was thinking of fresh baked bread...still warm from the oven...swimming in country butter...with maybe a sprig of rosemary or parsley...grilled slices of tomato...with the grilling bringing out the intense country flavour of the tomato...maybe the tomato would be one of those fancy ridged tomatoes, or perhaps those tiny cherry tomatoes....I had seen red, green and purple tomatoes....a few shavings of bacon, some fresh shredded cheese perhaps...fresh squeezed lime....

I was still fantasising about the possibilities when she came back and plonked a dish on the counter.

On it was some dry toast, like the ‘milk toast’ we get in India, a small sachet of Olive oil and .....a tomato. A whole single tomato!

I looked at it in consternation.

‘What is this?’

It looked like a delivery from the Kirana wala.

‘Thees ees the deesh senor. Toast and Tomaaato – mallorquin style.’

Apparently, when she said ‘Toast and Tomato’ she meant literally ‘a toast and a tomato.’

'She who must be obeyed' started howling with laughter. She had played it safe by ordering a Muesli with milk, and now she laughed so hard, the tears from her eyes were diluting the milk.

The waitress was moved by my downcast expression and hastened to assure me that this is a genuine peasant dish.

‘I will tell you how they eat it...you pour the olive oil over the toast, and then squeeze the tomato over it. Then you sprinkle salt on it and eat. Ole!’

Must have been for the very diet conscious peasant, or for the one who was too lazy to cook breakfast.

We took our dishes to the rooftop restaurant and sat down to eat. 'She who must be obeyed' immediately started slurping her muesli, while I looked doubtfully at my toast and tomato.

hmm...OK, pour the olive oil...thats easy enough...squeeze the tomato...hmmm

I squeezed it gently.

Nothing happened.

I squeezed it harder.

It bulged a bit, but that was all.

I got pissed, and squeezed hard.

SPLAT!

There was tomato all over the toast, the table and my shirt.

This set off 'She' into another fit of laughter.

I just looked her with silent dignity, and shook all the tomato off my person and on to to the toast. Then I added the salt.

'Salut!' I nodded, and 'she' touched my bread with her spoon and we ate the Toast together.

It was delicious!

Lost in translation...

2014-04-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

After Barcelona, we caught a flight to the party capital of Spain – the island of Majorca.

We landed, and went to the Car rental agency where ‘She who must be obeyed’ had booked a car. After watching ‘Zindagi na milegi dobara’, I pleaded with her to book a fancy open top car, but she just brushed me off like an insect.

She patiently explained her logic to me

‘You are not a rich investment banker like Hrithik Roshan, neither do you have a rich dad like Abhay Deol, nor do you have rich and gullible friends like Farhan Akhtar did ; and you are very very definitely not going to get it on with Katrina Kaif. You are stuck with me, and with the cheapest car that is available, because both are just what you deserve. Got it?’

I nodded my head. Couldn’t find any fault with the logic.

‘Good. Now cock up and drive.’

As it was a left hand drive car with manual gear, and we were driving on the wrong side of the road, ‘She’ could freely indulge in all the back seat driving which I would never allow her at home.

‘SLOW SLOW SLOW....there is a car coming 3 kilometers away....drive on the RIGHT on the RiGHT on the RIIIIIIIGHT....we are coming to a round about....go SLOW go SLOW go SLOW....OH MY GOD...WE ARE DEAD, WE ARE DEAD, WE ARE DEAD....oh, we aren’t dead...er...thats good....now go straight,,,,go STRAGHT....GO STRAIGHT...STAY ON THE RIGHT..... OH MY GOD, THERE IS A PEDESTRIAN 5 KILOMETERS AWAY....BE CAREFUL...AAAAARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!’

The roads were bloody narrow, with a free fall on the side, no shoulders at all, and to add to the fun, the roads were bloody full of cyclists, all looking like they were on trials for the Tour de France. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of them on the road. All dressed in expensive skin tight clothes and riding expensive skinny cycles – they depress you by being far more healthy AND far more wealthy than you.

I admired them for some time – their strength and endurance, their healthy pursuit, their expensive bikes, their tight and colourful costumes.... but after slowly and irritatingly passing some hundreds of cyclists, I got heartily sick of them. They were as irritating as a parade of cockroaches. You can’t overtake them on the skinny roads, you can’t get too close to them in case one of them falls over, you can’t honk at them because you are not in India, and most of all you can’t even abuse them because ‘She’ has a fraternal affection for them, because she has also pedalled - once in her salad days, she had pedalled Bombay to Pune, and quite recently she did Mangalore to Trivandrum.

‘She’ kept babbling about her cycling trip to Kerala...’these hills are OK, but can’t compare with Kerala....these cycles are good, but I did it with an old Atlas doodhwala cycle with one handlebar and half a tyre missing....these cyclists are OK, but they won’t be able to handle mad Kerala traffic, especially the cattle copulating on the roads...Oh, coconut water is so good...Oh, I wish I could see a pair of hairy black legs sticking out of a lungi....those guys have pubic hair all over their body....it looks so virile...’

The hills out there are called ‘La Tramuntana’ and an Italian engineer called Paretti made a winding road across them, which was a great technical achievement in those days. The road is very beautiful, as is the surrounding scenery – but if you try to see the scenery, you will end up in the ditch – because Signor Paretti apparently scorned shoulders on the road, and his successors have behaved in a very Indian fashion by raising the height of the road to an alarming level over the edge, and keeping the road narrow enough to accommodate one car and no more.

Between negotiating Signor Paretti’s roads, Senora ‘She who must be obeyed’s back seat driving and the pestilential cyclists, my BP went up 20 points. ‘She’ tried to cheer me up by pointing out beautiful sights, but after nearly becoming part of the scenery myself a couple of times, I found out that the only way to see the scenery was to drive so slowly that even the cyclists were cursing me and overtaking me with pursed lips.

‘So Madame’ I asked after some time ‘Now that we are in the party capital of Spain – where are we going?’

‘Oh, we are going to a monastery.’

‘A monastery?’ I was stunned.

‘That’s right.’

‘We are in the Party capital – with nude beaches, wild revelry, midnight parties in every nook and corner – apparently you can hardly toss a Sangria bottle without braining a drunken reveller...and we are going to a monastery?’

‘Yes.’

‘!!!’

Well...I could hardly go to a nude beach without scaring the whole population away, and partying with a teetotaller who considers sleeping after 10 PM to be heights of loose living is unlikely. So we went quietly to the Monastery of Lluc and checked in.

It was very nice – we attended Maundy Thursday Mass and Good Friday Mass in Spanish and heard the Childrens Choir which is the apparently the best choir....in the whole of Majorca..., and heard a fine performance of how Mary felt about the death of Christ – in Spanish (or was it Catalan) – which would have been great fun if we had understood it.

The good thing about Christianity is that no food is taboo – unlike other religions who ban Beef and Pork and Booze and god knows what else. The good Christian eats anything that lives and breathes, and so the restaurant in the Monastery served some awesome food and wine, which we imbibed gratefully. I posted all kinds of food shots on facebook to get people worked up.

After two days of this, we were out to leave.

‘Get up early in the morning you lazy sod’ said ‘She’. ‘We have to see Cap de Fomentor as early as possible – because weather might be bad.’

It was so hot that I was melting, and so bright that I was blinded by the sun.

‘Bad weather?’ I said meekly ‘But it looks fine.’

‘She’ turned on me in a fury. ‘I have spoken! Bad weather it will be!’

I quailed before her fury and set the alarm for 6 AM. We got up and packed, and went to the car.

But when I pressed the remote, instead of greeting me with a cheerful ‘chuck chuck’, the car remains morose and silent.

‘??’ I thought and pressed the buttons harder. It’s an Indian thing – if anything doesn’t work, press the button harder. It rarely helps, but we do it all the time.

No reply.

Thinking that the car might be sulking because we ignored it for a couple of days, I opened the door with the key, and tried to start the car.

Dead.

Oh shit.

Battery dead. In the middle of nowhere.

‘She’ started to weep and wail and beat her breast. ‘OOOOOOO AAAAAAAAA OOOOOOOOO AAAAAAA.....mar gaya.....mar gaya.....what shall we doooooooooo’

‘Easy easy’ I said ‘Dont worry – all it needs is a jump. I will call the car hire company and they will send somebody’

‘Send somebody???? OOOOOOOOOOOO ....this is Europe....they will charge so much money, we will have to sell ourselves to pay it.....AAAAAAAAAA....our vacation is over.....OOOOO.....our life savings have gone....AAAAAAAA......’

‘No no – I am sure that roadside assistance is free.’ I said soothingly. ‘Don’t worry – I will call them right now.’

We trudged back to the Monastery and called them, and they promised to send help within an hour.

We killed time for an hour and soon help arrived in the form of a genial repairman in a tow truck. He took a look at the car and raised his eyebrows at the dead battery. As I had predicted, all it needed was a jump – he attached the jumper cable and cranked the self start, and the car was back.

‘You drive for 1 kilometer’ he said, holding up a finger ‘before you switch it off eh? Charge the battery.’

OK, I said and went on a very pleasant little drive, which was all the sweeter because of our lightened hearts and unlightened wallets, and came back to the parking lot. Before switching it off, I hesitated a couple of times, but then I switched it off, and we went off to have a lavish celebratory breakfast.

After a huge brekker of cereal and bread and orange juice and coffee and all kinds of sausages under the sun, we again picked up our packs and went back to the car.

This time the remote worked, and the car greeted us with a merry chirrup and opened its doors hospitably. I was immensely gratified – the charge had held, and the battery was working fine.

Full of confidence, I sat in the car, inserted the key, started my favourite radio station, fixed my seat belt, nodded to her, put the car in neutral and turned the key, all ready to zoom away.

Nothing.

No response from the car.

What the fuck?

A cold hand gripped my heart. This shouldn’t be happening... the remote worked, the lights worked, the horn worked – why shouldn’t the car start?

I turned the key again – no response. I looked carefully at the dashboard. There was no ammeter, so I couldn’t tell the battery level, but when I turned the key, the words ‘Pise del embrague’ came up.

Pise del embrague?

I didn’t want to Piss – nor did I want to embrace anybody. That message didn’t help much.

I looked glumly at ‘She’ and ‘She’ gave me a snooty look.

‘Another fine mess you have got me into.’

‘Hey – I don’t get it...everything else electrical is working. The car is in Neutral. I don’t know why its not starting.’

‘Should I get out and push?’ she asked.

‘No no...Don’t be silly.’ The thought of that tiny little wolverine pushing a car was hilarious, and anyway I didn’t think that the MPFI cars could be started by pushing.

‘Well, back to the Santuari then.’ She said. ‘Call them again’

C’mon....I didn’t want to call him again. I would look like a fool of the highest order. Imagine an idiot who had to jump his battery twice in a morning. The whole of Majorca would be laughing at us. And he would probably charge money for a second visit.

Glumly, I turned the key again, and again the message came ‘Pise del embrague’

What did that mean anyway? Then suddenly it struck me – I didn’t have to guess. I could easily find out.

I fished out my mobile and fired up Google translate, and entered ‘Pise del embrague’ in Spanish to English.

In a second, the answer came – ‘Depress the clutch’

I looked at it in disbelief, and pressed the clutch.

VROOOM. The car started!

WHOOPIEE! YOOHOOO!

We both screamed in delight and hugged each other! We were back in business. Thank god for Translate!

I love Google.

I hate these idiot car manufacturers who make cars that won’t start until you press the damn clutch even though you are in neutral, but I love Google.

Muah!

The most expensive oyster in the world

2014-04-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

After Dubai, the next phase of the trip started – Spain!

Hola Espana!

I took a cab to Dubai airport and thought that I would breeze through check in, as I had already web checked in online and all I had to do was a baggage drop. But no – the Emirates girl wagged a finger at me and pointed me to a long long line of large expensive suitcases with a few humans sprinkled between them.

‘What shit’ I thought – this line is longer than the normal check in line. I thought of dumping this line and going off to look for the automatic baggage drop or even a normal check in line, but the Emirates girl glared at me, and she reminded me so much of an old school teacher that I quietly stood in line for 15 minutes to drop off my baggage.

As I continued to the departure area, I saw that there was another bank of baggage drop counters a little ahead, and they were all empty, and the staff was sitting jobless and frustrated. I cursed that Emirates school teacher under my breath and went on to the security check. The security check in India was a fucking nightmare, because my bag was a huge collection of electronics – 2 cameras, 1 laptop, 1 bluetooth speaker, 1 detatchable keyboard, 1 Wacom tablet – and 6 chargers of various types - and they made me take out all of them. Here it was not so bad, but it was not as smooth as last time.

I had hoped to chill in Duty free or at least have a coffee to finish off my Dhirams, but the bloody airport is so big that by the time I negotiated the train and the elevator and the escalator, it was already time to board.

That flight was the best flight experience I ever had! I was severely sleep deprived over the last 8 days and crashed as soon as I sat down. I woke up after a relaxing sleep just as they were serving drinks, so that was the most pleasing awakening ever. I took 2 of those tiny bottles of wine with lunch, and 2 bottles after lunch and finished it off with a gin – so that by the time we landed in Barcelona, I was nicely smashed and feeling no pain.

Clearing Barcelona immigration was the easiest immigration ever! The line was moving very fast, and I was still flying. When greeted the immigration officer with a loud and cheerful ‘Hola Senor!’, he took one look me and decided that I was just the kind of fellow Spain needed -Drunk and Cheerful. Thump thump and I was in Spain. My bag was the last to arrive, but I was still happy, having discovered that they give 15 min free internet at the airport. Wheeee.

I went off to the hotel and checked in, relaxed and checked out the famous ‘la Ramblas’ street in Barcelona – which is basically a long long tourist trap of a road, lined with eateries and bars and stalls selling souvenirs and touristeria.

The next day, She who must be obeyed arrived, and that was the end of my bachelor happiness. Peace and tranquillity fled out of the window, scared away by a waterfall of noise.

‘She’ was curious about La Rambles, so we went off for another walk. One look at it and she agreed with my opinion about it being a long tourist trap, and we went off looking for the Barcelona cathedral. It was closed for the night of course, but we went there to enjoy the lighting, and got an unexpected bonus – a trained opera singer singing in front of the cathedral. It was so atmospheric – the beautiful gothic architecture of the cathedral, the yellow lighting and the shadows, the ancient stone pathway – and this lady with the remarkable voice singing away.

The next day we again went to La Rambles, because we wanted to check out the remarkable market - Mercato de la Boqueria. It was an amazing place – it was basically a bazaar selling meats, veggies and fruits – and what quality of produce! I went around the place with my tongue hanging out. The meat guys were selling the best of preserved meat, Iberian hams, huge collections of sausages of various sorts, a whole ship load of all kinds of fish and creepy crawlies from the seas, the freshest fruit and veggies that you could ever see.

I was in food lust

It was clean and neat, with no flies and with minimal smell – (as far removed from Indian bazaars and Crawford market as you can get) but was not soulless like a department store either. It was a real live bazaar (more for tourists than for locals I suppose, but that was OK.) with shop keepers selling ready to eat bites as well as grocery size portions. The fruiterers were selling cut fruits, fruit juices, chocolate covered strawberries (YUM!!), the meat guys were selling mixed sausages, small meat bites etc, and the fish guys were selling prawns and shellfish and oysters and sea food salads.

When I saw the oysters, my eyes lit up!

OYSTERS! OYSTERS! OYSTERS! Yoo hoo! I had tried oysters in Australia and had loved them! I tried them cooked in various preparations, but came to the conclusion that the best way to have them was raw. The guy shucks it and gives it to you – you add a drop of lemon and a drop of Tabasco and slurp it into your mouth and YUM – its a party in your mouth.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to find oysters after that in India, so I was really excited to see a bank of oysters in one of the stalls.

I took off my fancy goggles ( Expensive Maui Jim – light as a feather and blocks UV light...I had bought it just a couple of months back for my Rajasthan ride) and hung them in my shirt front, rubbed my hands together and went to the stall. 2 euros per oyster....hmmm....bit expensive, but its OK. Not too bad. I nodded to the lady and gave her a 2 euro coin, and she shucked an oyster and handed it to me.

I looked at it reverently and looked at ‘She’ – who merely looked repulsed. She cant stand fish in any form, the thought of eating raw fish is completely beyond her understanding. I smirked at her, added the magic drops of lime juice and Tabasco, and slurped the oyster into my mouth.

Magic.

The smooth, cold flesh of the oyster, the salt taste of the brine, the sour of the lemon and the acidic bite of the Tabasco combined to form an awesome feeling in my mouth, and when you then bite into the flesh, the whole thing just explodes into a maelstrom of taste. WOO HOO.

It was like a taste version of a glorious orchestra – first the violin, then the trombone, then the flute and then the whole combining into a glorious symphony

I was so overwhelmed, I started dancing, I jumped up and down, I jiggled and wiggled and still I felt like expressing my emotion more vigorously, so I pounded my chest like King Kong.

DHAM! DHAM!

CRACCKKK

Oh shit.

I looked down to see that I had pounded my sun glasses by mistake, and it had died of shock. I picked up the remains from the floor and looked up to see ‘She’ convulsed in laughter. She was absolutely rolling on the floor in her mirth, weeping tears of laughter as she saw me sadly holding the dead body of my glares in my hands.

Some people have no sense of decency I tell you.....laughing in the presence of bereavement.

I put the glasses away with dignity. If you add the cost of the glasses to the cost of the Oyster, then it would definitely be the most expensive oyster in the world.

Oh well, there was nothing anybody could do now.

Only one thing to do – I marched up the counter and said ‘Senora....one more Oyster, por favor.’

Future perfect - short story

2012-01-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

Future perfect

“One year off! Wow!”

I met Rajesh in a small hotel in Gangtok, when I had gone there for a short holiday. I had managed to wangle a couple of weeks holiday from the office and rushed off for a backpacking trip. I was modestly proud of my travel achievements in that trip - last minute flight to Calcutta, staying in seedy backpacker accommodation in Calcutta, a sudden trip to Shantiniketan, Train to New Jalpaigudi, a stay in Gangtok, Sikkim…but this young man had knocked my trip into nothingness.

Indian backpackers are quite rare, one finds mostly firangs traipsing all over India. Solitary Indian backpackers are even rarer…individual travel is not really an Indian thing. But Solitary Indian backpackers who have taken a complete break from work is the rarest thing, this was the first specimen I had come across.

We got chatting over a drink in the evening, and took to each other from the first. He had been working in the same city as me, and that created a bond between us. One fine day, he had decided that enough is enough, and chucked his job and set out to see the world.

I had also traveled a bit in India, but I was not in his class. Since his sabbatical had started, he had been to Corbett national pack, Auli skiing course, Hampi, Kedartal and Valley of Flowers. The best part of his trip was that it was not a hurried, cramped holiday; but a relaxed introspective floating trip, with all the time in the world. He had been able to truly enjoy and caress the beautiful sights and sounds in his mind.

After that he had decided to check out surrounding countries, so he set out to explore Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. He had spent half a year floating around these places, and had an amazing time. Costs were low, sights were plenty and people were nice. With a lonely planet in one hand and a few dollars in the other, its amazing how much one can enjoy a place.

He had finally entered India through Calcutta airport, and immediately hot footed it to Sikkim, and had ended up drinking beer with me at hotel Tibet in Gangtok.
We had been chatting for a long time, and the dead soldiers of the beer bottles littered the terrace of that hotel. We had taken pity on the tired waiters and sent them off, and were helping ourselves directly from the freezer.

It was a fine night, cool and crisp, and the full moon was bathing Gangtok in a relaxing white light. It was absolutely silent, even the dogs had stopped howling, the only sound was the birds rustling occasionally in the nearby tree.
Rajesh had just finished describing the feeling of floating down the Meking in full moon, and both of us were still in that spell.

On the spur of the moment, I said “Rajesh, your horoscope must be fascinating! I would love to study it.”
Rajesh raised his eyebrows at me, and smiled. “Do you read horoscopes then?”
“Yes. I am not a master at it, but I find it quite an interesting study. One can find out some interesting things about a person.”
“Yes…even I had a very interesting experience with an astrologer once.”
“Where? During the course of your travels?”
“Actually, no. It was before I went on my sabbatical. Have you heard of Nadi Jyotishya?”
“Only a little…but please carry on. Tell me about it.”
Rajesh leaned back in his chair, and stretched out his legs. “Well it was about a year and a half ago…”

It was a totally random happenstance; I had no idea that I would be going to Bangalore that month. But there was a business exigency, and my boss shipped me off to Bangalore to deal with it. I was planning to stay in a hotel, but at the last moment I decided to stay in the company guest house.
There I met another person, a Mr. Kumar. Kumar was an auditor, and he had come down to check our branch accounts there. He was from the Madras branch of our auditors, so we had never met before. I came home slightly early in the evening, and was sitting there wondering what to do. The TV was not working, and I had nothing to read, and I was not in the mood to go wandering around alone. That was when Kumar and me started chatting. Somehow the conversation shifted to Astrology, and Kumar asked me if I had ever heard of a branch of astrology called “Nadi Jyotishya”
“Nadi…sounds familiar, but no…I don’t really know anything much about it.”
“Oh, its really something…it can get scary sometimes.”

I had a fairly open mind about astrology. Though all the scientific community mocks it, I have seen astrologers and palmists come out with pretty surprising things over the years. Since then, I had maintained that “if don’t know, don’t scoff” attitude. However, I didn’t know too much about this “Nadi Jyotish” stuff. Kumar took a sip of tea and continued telling me about it.
“Well, the legend of Nadi Jyotish is like this. All of humanity are the progeny of the Lord Shankar and Parvati. One day Parvati asked Shankar, tell me – how will my children do in life? What does the future hold for them? Shankar said – listen then – and started telling her the future of all generations of humanity. Sometime during the recital, Parvati was swamped and she fell asleep, so Shankar stopped at some point. The whole thing was overheard by a pair of doves, and they went and told it to the Saptarishis, who wrote it down.
Thus, the theory is that the future of every man and woman on the planet is written down somewhere. The palm leaves on which this was written are preserved in some temple in the South, and now there are some copies with select people. We, the lay people, can access them from there.”

I was fascinated by the concept. “Really, and how does this work? How do you find your leaf?”
“The person doing the reading takes an imprint of your thumb print – right thumb for males and left for females, and then he goes and matches it with his database inside. Then he brings out a selection of documents and selects your manuscript from there.”

“How?”
“Er…by asking questions…possibly I am not the best explainer. Would you like to try it for yourself?”
“Really? Is it possible?”
“Yes. There is a person in Bangalore. In fact I went to meet him the other day. I can take you there if you wish; I am free tonight.”

Kumar went off to phone, and I could hear snatches of their conversation. He came back and said, “Come, if want to come – we have to leave now. He was cribbing that he wants to wind up by 8PM. Its already 7.15, and I promised him that we will be there by 7.30.”
We left immediately, and went by auto through labyrinthine gullies, and stopped at an entirely nondescript house in a nondescript locality. During our journey, we didn’t exchange a word – both us were engrossed in our own thoughts. As we dismounted from the auto, Kumar took me by the arm.
“Rajesh saab – remember one thing. Be sure that you really want to know the future, before getting into this house.”
“Arre, don’t worry. Come on.”

We were greeted at the door by a small, dark man – the astrologer’s companion- and we took off our shoes before entering the house. It was a small, bare and dusty room- Old fashioned concrete flooring, high ceiling, yellow light from the bulbs on the walls. The fan old, and with a long rod – the kind you see in old government offices – and was emitting breeze and creaky sounds in equal measure.
There was a temple alcove in the corner, with a variety of idols and pictures of gods and goddesses. It shone from the evening puja, with light of the lamps, the smoldering agarbattis and the fresh flowers at the deities feet. There was a small money box there, like a donation box in a temple.
There were no tables or chairs, the sitting arrangements were a cloth on the ground for the astrologer and the customers. Sitting there, expecting us, was the astrologer – Mr. Ramulu. I had gone expecting an ascetic looking person with a long white beard, and vibhuti on his forehead – but this was a small, dark tamilian in a white shirt and mundu, looking like any normal person on the street.
We exchanged greetings, and chatted for a minute. His Hindi and English weren’t too good, and the person who had greeted us at the door acted as the interpreter. Ramulu explained that he was not an astrologer, but merely a reader - a filing clerk, if you will. His job was simply to zero down on your scroll and nothing more – he could offer no explanations. The charges were quite modest, and one paid only if his scroll was found. If the scroll was not found, there would be no charge.
I agreed, and we started the procedure. He took my thumb print and went into an inner room. After ten-fifteen minutes he returned with an armful of scrolls and sat in front of me.
“Saar, I will ask you various questions. You must answer only ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This is the process to zero down on your prediction.”

“You are from the North”

“Yes”
“You are the eldest son”
I was startled. “Yes.”

“You are the eldest son, but you had an elder sister who was stillborn.”
There could be no answer to this. I couldn’t answer without consulting my mother, but if I calculate the date of my parents’ marriage and my date of birth, it was unlikely.
“No.”

“OK.” He put away the scroll.
“You are of the ‘Shwan’ gotra.”

“Yes”

“Your father is a teacher.”

“Er…” I hesitated. My father had retired some time back, and was now teaching part-time in some schools. Well, he is a teacher now, isn’t he?

“Yes”

“His name is of three syllables.”

“Yes.”

“He is one of three brothers.”

“Yes” this was absolutely fantastic.
“He is the eldest brother.”

“No.” I was relieved. This was too close for comfort.
“Ok.” He put away the scroll, and picked up another one.

“His name has three syllables. The first syllable is “Ra”, the second is “Dha”. The third is the same as the first or the second.”

I was speechless. I had told neither Kumar nor Ramulu, and this guy had got within an ace of my dads name - Randhir.

“Yes.” I whispered. My lips were feeling dry.

“Your mother is a vaid – a doctor.”

“Yes”

“She is the youngest daughter.”

“Yes”

“Her name has four syllables.”
Here, I was flummoxed. Moms name before marriage was Madhavi, but after marriage, it had been changed to Snehlata – which was four syllables. I decided to go with the latter.
“Yes.”

“The first syllable starts with ‘sa’, the second is ‘ha’, the third is ‘la’ and the last is ‘ta’.”

“Yes.” I whispered. I was beginning to sweat, and the hairs on the back of my neck were beginning to stand erect.

“Your mother’s brother has been in prison on a false charge, and hence was released.”

“!”
This was something no one could ever know. It was faintly possible that Kumar knew my parents names, and had communicated to Ramulu for some dark purpose of his own – but this! My families’ inner most secrets!
“Y-yes.”

“You have had an operation of the stomach three years ago.”

My fingers went of their own volition to the appendectomy scar on my abdomen. This was before I joined this company.
“Yes.”

“You are unmarried.”

“Yes.”

“But you have had sexual experiences, and picked up a venereal disease.”

“!!”
I was aghast. This was something no one – NO ONE, except me and the doctor – knew. “Y-yes”

“You have landed property.”

“Yes.” I had purchased a flat a couple of years before.
“This is your horoscope.” Ramulu showed me a diagram which was written on the old Tamil manuscript.

And seeing it, there was no doubt left. It was accurate to the last detail.

He was through with his questioning, and he stood up, gathering his documents.
“Sir, please go and have your food, and come back after half an hour. It will take that much time to find your scroll.”
I hurried outside and lit a cigarette, and found that my hands were trembling. My muscles were all tense, and the back of my shirt was soaked with sweat. I took a deep drag, and smiled nervously at Kumar. He must have been through the same feeling in his earlier visit, and he smiled back at me.

“Scares the shit out of you, doesn’t he?”

“I tell you. And the worst part is that he does it in his calm, sing song voice, as if he was reciting his shopping list.”

At this point, Rajesh broke off and burped a long and satisfying beer burp. I suddenly realized that I had been sitting there, holding an empty bottle for god knows how long. I got up and got us both fresh beers from the freezer. The owner was going to be really happy tomorrow, I thought, we have nearly cleaned out the fridge.

“Well? What happened next? Did he tell you your future accurately?”

Rajesh started laughing. “That’s a good one. How can I know whether the prediction is right or no? He made some statements, but it can be proved only in the future. But you got to admit, that the build up was impressive.”

“But, what did he predict?”

Rajesh was silent.

“Did he predict that you will be taking this major sabbatical and roam all over the place?”

“No…not really.”

“No? I thought he would give a detailed day be day prediction till the day you die. What major prediction did he make? He had scared you properly in his build up, didn’t he?”

“Oh, he scared me a lot more after that.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said that I would die within a year.”

“What?!!!”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say after that. I looked at him, and he looked at his beer bottle. The bright moonlight was casting weird shadows on the terrace.

A cool breeze blew, and made us shiver. That broke the tension building up, and we smiled at each other.

“Did you believe him?”

“As I said earlier, who can say? All I can say is that his build up was impressive.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Yaar, I decided that if he was right, then there was no point in grinding away at that sickening job of mine. If life is worth living, it is worth living well. I liquidated all my investments, and decided to spend the next year roaming around the world.

If he was right, then I don’t want to spend my life doing something I don’t want to do. I want to live life to the full.

If he was wrong, then so what? I took a sabbatical which I would not have the guts to take otherwise, and I will definitely get a job when I decide to get back to corporate life.

So I decided to do all the things I had always wanted to do – but did not dare. I went bungee jumping, white water rafting, para sailing, cave exploration…

I tried out various kinds of kinky stuff – wild parties, group sex, soft drugs… activities I would not have ordinarily tried, but I didn’t want to die regretting that I did not try something out.

Of course, one thing I was careful of is that I should be healthy and hale until the day I do die, so I did take care of my health.”

“Hmm.”

“One good thing about future reading though…it helps you to plan well.”

“Eh? Plan for what?”

“Death, of course. I don’t want my family to be left helpless in the event of my death, but I don’t want to restrict myself to saving and hoarding money when I have so little time left. So I worked out the optimal solution. I liquidated all my investments to give me liquid cash to enjoy my holiday. And to take care of the family in case of death, I took a huge life insurance cover. So now I am freaking out in life in the here and now, yet am totally relaxed, knowing that my family will be comfortably off in event of my death.”

He leaned over to grab a beer and relaxed back into his chair, totally relaxed.

“Ahhh! That’s what I call future perfect.”

Nearly murdered in Goa

2011-12-16T03:35:00.000-08:00

Nearly murdered in Goa

“Enjoy Goa, best vacation destination in India.” I was leafing through the classifieds, and the travel section was full of such ads offering various package tours and hotel stays in Goa. As I read through them, I grinned at the memory of our last trip to Goa.

We had got a free hotel stay at Goa through a credit card agent. He had first come to me and offered a credit card.
“Only six hundred rupees saar.”
“Get lost. I have four credit cards”
“OK…I will give it to you for free saar.”
“Get lost. What will I do with another card ?”
“I will give gold card free saar.”
“No.”
“I will give free stay in Goa saar.”
“Eh?”

And that was it, he got me. He offered a free stay in Goa for three nights and four days at the Resorte De Goa, which seemed to be nice place with swimming pool, lawns, tennis courts etc.
So the next weekend me, Vinod and Saurabh scooted off to Goa, with plans to bunk office for a couple of days. It was the first time I had driven down to Goa, and we had a great time on the Bombay- Goa highway – surely one of India’s most beautiful roads.

The stay in Goa was great, the hotel was nice (only the tennis court was a hash, with grass growing in the cement court) but we never did get to have a swim as Saurabh was determined to see all of Goa’s sights, whether he could actually see them or not.
It was nine in the night, and the road was dark as pitch, and Saurabh was determined to see the next beach.
“You stupid bugger! Its dark as hell, what will you do at the beach?”
“come on yaar…its just close by…” He seemed to be carrying a list of beaches and was ticking them off one by one. Visited Anjuna –tick…visited Baga – tick…visited Dona paula – tick…
‘What will you do there – goddamit?”
“Come on yaar…please please…”
And there was no help for it, we had to go and the only thing we saw was a vast expanse of black with the sound of waves coming from it.

Old Goa, Panjim, Miramar, Mangeshi temple – we went through all of them in an orgy of driving. Saurabh didn’t know how to drive, so it was Vinod or me who used to end up totally exhausted at the end of the day.
And one day, we were at Fort Aguada. We went up and down, admired the beach, sweet talked the lighthouse guy into letting us see the lighthouse, and then went back to the car to call it a day.
“Come on guys – lets go to Chapora fort, its just close by.” The list-man was at it again.
“What’s Chapora?”
“Arre its another fort – quite close by.” It was still early in the day, and so off we went.
It was a lovely drive to the fort, and soon we could see the ramparts of the tiny seaside fort. There was a nice black top road, and it seemed to lead straight into a pair of gates. There was no sign on the gates, so we assumed – after some hesitation – that this might lead to the parking area of the gates and drove right in.

That was a mistake.

As we entered, we saw a flame burning, and a group of men huddled around it. Like fools who rush in where angels fear to tread, we drove further in.

As we came closer, we saw that the flame was in fact – a body being burnt! Shit! A body was being burnt and a group of ruffians was seated around it, ensuring that no trace remained. They looked terribly dangerous, with skins burnt black by the sun, and corded tough muscles moving like snakes underneath their skins. They were dressed in lungis and none-too-clean t shirts, and their mouths were stained red with paan (or blood?). they all had a mean and deadly look, and – more scary was that most were armed with koyta’s or short knives.

Oh no! We seemed to have stumbled on a murder, and the gang disposing of their victim!

One guy approached us, he seemed to be less drunk and less mean than the others.
“What do you want?”
“I…er…um…Ch..Chapora ff-fort?” Vinod quavered.
“Chapora fort not here. Get out! Now!” he barked at us.
But suddenly I seemed to be affected with rigor mortis. I just couldn’t move. The gang came at us.
“You bloody $#$% $%#$ son of a $#%$%…” one of them growled at us. “What are you doing here you #$@#?” and without waiting for a reply he backhanded Vinod across the face. The shock of the slap splashed over me like a bucket of cold water. I finally got out of my stupor and revved the engine, but I had trouble engaging reverse gear.

The sound of the engine revving seemed to enrage them further, and they rushed at us screaming abuses. Two or three guys tried to slap Vinod again, and he was desperately trying to fend them off. Saurabh had quickly decided that discretion was his policy, and it was the work of a second for him to take off his glasses and dive on to the floor of the backseat, well out of the way of any physical violence. They were all around us now, and one guy pounded on the bonnet of my car. I was lucky enough to escape the physical part, but the blow on my car was like a scar on my heart.

“Start the car you fool, get us out of here.” Vinod screamed, and I finally put into reverse and screamed out of the gate. They followed us out, still banging on my car and shouting the filthiest of abuses and epithets after us.

I nearly put the car into a ditch, and had to stop the car, and for a second I thought it was all over. Visions of being murdered, drawn and quartered, boiled in oil, burnt alive flashed before my eyes. But luckily they did not come after us, they went back inside and closed the gates after them.
I somehow reversed the car and zoomed out of the vicinity. Chapora can go #$#@ itself, our lives were at stake here!

We stopped the car at the next beach, and had a soft drink to fortify ourselves and calm out jangling nerves.
Vinod wanted to complain to the police, but Saurabh was completely against it.
“Arre yaar…you don’t know the political contacts of these gangsters, they will finish us off. If you register a complaint, they will come and kill us. They have our car number, it would be so simple to find us in Bombay. I tell you, lets just be happy over being alive.”

But Vinod was still reliving the indignity of those slaps, and wanted revenge.
“No! We must do our civic duty and inform the police! And anyway, it is Ketan’s car, so they will know only his address, not ours.”
I was staring sadly at the dents those criminals had caused, but these words made me jump.
“Er…no no…let it be…why get involved…my address…”

Finally we managed to convince Vinod to give up his police complaint plans, but we couldn’t resist going to the police and asking him what was there beyond those gates. If it was an abode of criminals, then maybe we could take the matter further.

“Sir, what is there behind those gates near Chapora fort?”

“There? Arre baba, that’s a funeral ground. Don’t go there, OK. There was a death yesterday and they will be burning the body now. It would hurt their feelings if you interrupt them in their moment of grief. And these fisher folk can be so touchy…”

“Goa – the most exciting holiday…” I saw the ad again and grinned.

Oh yes, exciting is the word. My car still has those dents.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second sense (Short story)

2011-12-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

The second sense

Krishnan Iyer was intensely uncomfortable.

He was the vice president purchase of Bowden and Baker, the internationally famous fragrance suppliers. His whole career had been spent in the company of exotic and beautiful smells, perfecting one, twiddling the other, until he came out a particular smell he could sell to various companies, for making soaps, perfumes, oils, deodorants and such olfactory treats.

However, over the past few days, he had been troubled by finding terrible smells wherever he went. He shouted at his wife because there was a terrible smell of decomposing flesh in the house, he shouted at his driver because there was a disgusting stink of sweat, tobacco and hair oil in his car and he shouted at his secretary because there was a pong of burnt milk and uncleared kitchen waste in his office.

What really aggravated him was that no one was in the least sympathetic to his plight.

They claimed that they couldn’t smell anything, and that the whole thing was a figment of his imagination.

His wife finally got irritated and told him to hold a handkerchief to his ridiculously sensitive nose, his driver passionately defended himself saying that he neither smoked, nor applied hair oil and had taken a bath in the morning. His secretary just looked at him and walked out silently with her nose in the air. The funny part was that nobody else in his house or office could smell anything. He got a lot of suggestions to solve his problem, ranging from the practical “hold a scented hanky over your nose”, to the sarcastic “breathe through your mouth” and ending at the ridiculous “start smoking to reduce the sensitivity of your nose.”

Out of desperation, he jumped at the opportunity of a business trip. “At least, with the change in atmosphere, the smells will go away” he thought. He was to go to Nepal to speak with a fragrance supplier there. He had traveled all over the world, but had never gone to this neighboring country. It was not like international travel at all, he thought. No passport, no visa, no foreign currency…the whole thing was most unusual. Even the plane timing was unlike the usual unearthly hours of an international flight, as it was at two in the afternoon.

His driver dropped Krishnan to the airport, and as they reached Sahar airport, the strangeness of the trip struck him again. He had never seen the international airport in the day, and at that hour it was totally empty. Earlier, he had always associated the airport with nighttime and huge crowds of travelers, well wishers and irritating taxi cabs all over the place. Now it was basking the warm sunshine, and looked calm, peaceful and deserted.

After getting down from the car and giving him instructions for the next few days, he walked into the airport. As he walked to the Royal Nepal airlines counter, he was again struck by a terrible smell. Oh god, not here too, he thought.

At least here the smell was identifiable. An employee was walking around with a smoke pump that was spewing out a fumigating chemical to kill mosquitoes and other pests. What a smell - kerosene, DDT and poison. Due his fragrance training, Krishnan habitually remembered scents through associations – Warm sun, fruits, citrus, cedar wood, eucalyptus, rose, cologne, romance…- but the only association he could achieve here was…

“Death”

“Excuse me?” said a startled man next to him, and Krishnan realized that he had said it aloud.
“No...No…nothing…sorry, my mistake” stammered the embarrassed Krishnan and walked away, with the man staring after him.
Krishnan got his bag X-rayed and watched, bemused, as they ruined the shape of his expensive leather bag by tying it with an ugly nylon strip. Then he went to the Royal Nepal counter, where a slightly decayed looking Nepali took his ticket.

After carefully checking the ticket against his list, the Nepali officer looked at him.
“Sir, you will have to wait.”
“Why?”
“3.30 sir.”
“Eh?” Krishnan was confused.
“I mean that the flight has been delayed till 3.30 sir.”
“Only one and a half hour, eh? That’s not too bad. Just like our domestic flights. Heh heh.” Krishnan laughed.
“Heh heh.” The Nepali laughed along with him. “3.30 in the morning sir. Tomorrow.”
“What! Fourteen hours delay!”
“Yes sir. But don’t worry sir; we will put you up in a hotel.”
As his driver had already left, Krishnan felt that it would be a good idea to take up the offer and spend the day in the hotel. At least he wouldn’t have to tolerate the stink of the pesticide spray in the airport, he thought.

The airline officials herded all the travelers into a battered minibus, which took them to their hotel. The hotel was OK, but as soon as he entered, Krishnan was assailed by a terrible smell of cheap phenyl and naphthalene balls. He reeled, but recovered and completed the check in process. Again, he noticed that no one seemed to notice the smell except him.

“Wonder what’s happening to me?” he wondered. “I have heard that people develop extra ordinarily sharp sense of smell when they quit smoking, but I haven’t quit…I don’t even smoke…”
Still lost in his thoughts, he went up to his room. He had been given a single room on the third floor, while going up he noticed that the rest of the passengers got off at the second floor.

As he got out of the lift, there was a new smell – old stale carpets and rat droppings. He made an effort and ignored it.

After a bath and dousing himself with perfume, he came down for lunch in the coffee shop.
As he entered the coffee shop, he reeled and almost fell down as the extremely offensive smell of rancid fat and rotting vegetables hit him, almost like a physical blow. The whole atmosphere was redolent of disagreeable food smells- frying fish, acrid pork, musty boiled cauliflower and many others. He wondered how anyone could eat in this atmosphere. But being a diabetic, he was under strict medical orders to eat regularly, so chose plain bread and butter as the safest choice. But even the bread smelt stale and the butter rancid. He quickly gobbled down the food and bolted out of the coffee shop, as he couldn’t bear the sights and sounds of people eating in that stench.

He went up to his room and tried to relax with a novel he had brought along. But he found that he couldn’t concentrate on the story. The room seemed to be permeated with a smell that was growing all the time. He couldn’t precisely identify it, but it seemed to be something like wet carpets, rat excrement and mildew mixed into one. Krishnan called up the housekeeping and demanded they do something about it. But when the housekeeping boy came up, he coudn't smell anything.
“How surprising!” sneered Krishnan sarcastically. “No doubt you can’t smell the musty old carpet smell in the corridor either.”
The boy was totally taken aback.
“Old carpet smell sir?”
“And not that disgusting phenyl smell either, I suppose?” Krishnan roared, his temper rising.

The boy fled, and came back with the duty manager and an aerosol of room freshener. He sprayed while the manger tried to mollify Krishnan. By that time, Krishnan was tired of the whole thing, so paid no attention while the manager said something about new carpets and no usage of phenyl in the hotel. He just mumbled something and herded them out of his room, and then crashed on to his bed, and tried to sleep.
But sleep eluded him, he had a terrible afternoon, as the smell around him grew and grew, until he felt he was going out of his mind. As evening approached, he left his room and tried to go for a walk. As he went down to the lobby, he bumped into a fellow traveler.
“Hi Mr. Krishnan, how are you? You are looking rather ill.”
Krishnan was rather taken aback by this solicitous inquiry from such a casual acquaintance, but was grateful too. He was feeling quite miserable by now.
“I…er…yes. I am a bit under the weather…the air…er…”
“Oh, how sad. I understand. It feels bad to feel ill on the verge of a long journey. Come, have a drink with me.”
Again Krishnan was taken aback, but then he reflected, why not? He agreed and they turned towards the bar.
“My name is Chaudhary, by the way.”

They settled into their seats and ordered drinks. Krishnan carefully sniffed the air, and was extremely relieved to find no disagreeable smells. The relief was so great that he started drinking with enthusiasm. But after a few pegs, he realised with dismay that he was again getting a bad smell. This time the smell was amazingly bad, and entirely indescribable. It seemed to be a mix of rotten eggs, urea, hydrogen peroxide and overflowing gutters.
Mr. Chaudhary was telling him an anecdote about work, when suddenly the smell over- powered Krishnan, and he vomited all over the table, and almost collapsed on the floor. Chaudhary was shocked, and the waiters came running to help. As they cleaned the table, Krishnan recovered slightly, and started moaning.

“I… I am so sorry…”
“Nonsense, don’t worry at all. It happens, just relax and don’t say a word.” Said Chaudhary, as he wiped Krishnan’s face and clothes free of vomit with a damp towel.
“But I…”
“No, no please, Mr. Krishnan, don’t say a word. There is no problem. You need to rest. Please allow me to help you to your room.”
Krishnan was feeling too weak and miserable to protest, as Chaudhary supported, almost carried him to the elevator. The whole lobby seemed to be watching him. The waiters and the manager came to help, but Chaudhary waved them off.

The next thing that Krishnan knew, he was on his bed in his room. He opened his eyes and looked around, and saw Chaudhary sitting on a chair nearby.
“Wh…what happened?”
“You blacked out for some time.”
“How did I get here?”
“I brought you.”
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say, so Krishnan just lay there collecting his thoughts. As he looked at Chaudhary, he started to wonder whether he had seen him somewhere before.

Chaudhary just looked at him impassively, his green eyes shining like a cat’s.

Suddenly Chaudhary started speaking
“You are in the business of smell, aren’t you, sir? Have you ever realised the power of smell?”
“Eh?”
“All living creatures have 5 senses – Touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing. I frequently wonder which sense is the most primary. Some experts say touch, and I tend to agree with them. Especially mammals are most tuned towards touch as they spend 9 months inside the mother’s body, and the entire consciousness of the foetus is gained through touch.”
All his talk seemed to just flow a notch above Krishnan's consciousness, as he still wondered where he had seen this man before.

Chaudhary continued his monologue.
“However, mammals are a small part of existence. For the rest of all sentient beings, the most pre-eminent sense is smell. Smell is hard wired into the consciousness, don’t you agree? Plants attract insects by smell; insects attract mates by releasing smells. Mosquitoes find you by your smell, butterflies find flowers by smell. Many lower order insects have no seeing apparatus, but only a sense of smell. Predators find and hunt their prey by smell.

Smells can take you to great heights. Haven’t you ever gone into a temple and instantly been transported to a spiritual plane by the smell of incense, sandalwood and flowers? Haven’t you ever gone past a kitchen, and suddenly become hungry by the smell of food cooking in there? Haven’t you gone outside in a thunder storm, and been refreshed by the smell of ozone?”

Krishnan was staring at him. Finally he blurted out, “Who are you?”

Chaudhary leaned forward in his chair and looked at him. His green eyes seemed to be on fire, and gleamed unnaturally in the dark.

“Haven’t you gone near a woman and got attracted to her by her smell? The scent of a woman? Haven’t you been turned on by the smell of her sweat, the smell of jasmine in her hair, the hint of perfume on her arms, the seductive smell of her being?”

Krishnan stared at him with horror. “You are Pranab Chaudhary? Sarita’s husband?”

“What was the smell that attracted you to my wife, Krishnan? Was it her perfume, or the smell of her underarms? Was it her aroused smell that got your hormones flowing? The henna in her hair? The smell of the perfume that I bought for her? What?”

“It wasn’t me…I swear…she came on to me…I didn’t make the first move…”

“You preferred the second move did you? That’s OK, because the last move will be mine. Because smell can be used either for good or for evil. A good fragrance can take you near to heaven they say, but a stench can take you near to hell. But, haven’t you experienced it already, my friend?”

“Wh…what do you mean?” Krishnan croaked.

Chaudhary leant even further towards him, his eyes boring into Krishnan's very soul.
“It has been 2 weeks now that you have been suffering the torment of smell isn’t it? It is ironic that a man who deals in smell should be killed by smell. Or should I say stench?”

“Killed by smell?”

“Oh yes. I have developed a machine, which acts on the exact centre of the brain that recognizes scent, and I can control it by radiation. Want to see?” Chaudhary reached into his pocket and took out a small machine, the size of a mobile phone. He showed it to Krishnan and twiddled a knob.

Immediately Krishnan recoiled, as he was swamped by a terrible stench of old sweaty unwashed socks. His whole being recoiled, he couldn’t think, and started sweating profusely. Chaudhary pressed another button and Krishnan shrieked and vomited his guts out as another stench of rotting meat hit him. His eyes were watering, his head started bursting with pain and he started vomiting again and again, all over himself, as he was unable to move.

“Ingenious, isn’t it? It can be targeted on to a specific person, and can be effective from upto a kilometer. It acts through walls and other barriers and leaves absolutely no evidence. I actually developed it as a murder tool for a government agency. I have tried it on various lab animals, but you are my first human trial. I must say that I am quite gratified by its success. Don’t you agree?”

Krishan made a desperate lunge towards him, but Chaudhary just moved away and increased the intensity on his machine. Krishnan stopped in mid lunge and screamed, his hands tearing at his nose and mouth. He vomited again, and then looked at him with fear and desperation.

“Y…you won’t get away with this”, he screamed.

Chaudhary smiled.

“Oh, but I will. Every body saw you acting strange during the day, and then drinking like a fish in the evening. Then you got disgustingly drunk and vomited in the bar itself. Later some one will find dead, choked in your own vomit, and they will say – oh that old sot. He got dead drunk and choked in his own puke.”

Chaudhary got up and walked towards the door. At the door he paused and looked back as he twiddled his machine again.

“You know, the only thing the police might say, when they hear about your odd behaviour over the past few days?

They will say that…”

Krishnan tried to take a step and fell forward on his face and vomited again.

“…That some thing smells funny about this case.”

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This story appears as part of my short story collection Bombay Mixture on the Kindle store on www.amazon.com

Villager bathing his tired feet in an alga covered pond

2011-12-10T20:37:00.001-08:00

Drilled! (Fiction)

2011-12-10T08:59:00.001-08:00

Drilled !

“Open wide”

That was exactly what I said to his wife yesterday.

I had been banging this dentist dude’s wife for the past few months now. I had met her on the Internet, and after a lot of chatting and cyber sex, had met her in person and screwed her. Man, she was hot!

Ever since she told me that her old man was a dentist, it gave me a major kick in life to come here and get drilled by him, before going and drilling his wife in his own home. A few drinks, a compliment, a trinket or two – that’s all it takes to get her down and dirty.

I specialize in getting complicated jobs done, and have a good rapport with all the guys who matter in town. Police officers, Customs and excise guys, politicians, bureaucrats, goons and mafia guys…I know them all. Some regular bribes, some gifts and presents, some blackmail…and its amazing how much work you can get done.

The ‘whirr’ of the drill brought me out of my reverie as I saw the dentist bending over me. I closed my eyes and let him do as he wished. This modern dentistry is an amazing thing – I had closed my eyes and curled my toes as I waited for the pain – but there was no pain at all! I could feel the vibrations of the drill in my teeth, and the jet of water spraying in my mouth…and voila! He was done.
He showed me the hole he had made in my molars - nice big ones - and told me that he was going to fill them with some modern cement type filling. I shrugged and let him do his thing. Anyway, I can’t bear to see those shining implements, and had my eyes tightly shut as he poked around in my mouth.
Soon he was done, and I thanked him and paid him generously. He tried to say that this was too much, but I pressed it on him, saying that this was removing the fear of dentists from my mind. Ha ha. Fuckin’ pussy.

Time fairly flies, I must say. Nearly a couple of months had passed since I finished that dentist visit, and they were among the most fruitful ones of my life.
I was putting together the deal of deals. Four Tons of Cocaine! The mind boggles at what that must be worth in the US market.
The stuff was supposed to come from Burma, the heart of the golden triangle. From there, it would come to Calcutta through Bangladesh, and then come to Bombay by train, disguised as cement sacks. That lot would come into my go-down, and be taken out the back door and loaded on a Panamian ship going to Mexico. There the US partner would take it through the porous US- Mexico border and sell it.
The operation was huge, and involved tremendous coordination. So many people in so many countries to be bought off. Burma, Bangladesh, India, Mexico. Customs guys, Border Security Force, Train guys, Police, local mafia’s all across the route, Port authorities…and god knows who else. I was working like mad for the past two months, exerting my entire influence and authority. But the rewards were worth it. Once this shipment goes through, I would be a multi billionaire. I would be set up for life.

Apart from authority and influence, my money was also being spent like water – bribing people all over the country and beyond. To relax myself, I used to bang that dentist’s wife regularly. She was getting better and better, and more and more dependent on me for money and sex.
She thinks I love her. Hah! What a laugh!

Well, this is it! The stuff is through. What an operation, went through as smooth as butter. The stock came smoothly over 3 borders – Burma, Bangladesh and India, with almost no complications. A Few guys got killed when they stepped on a landmine in the no mans land, but the shipment got through OK.
Then it was filled in cement sacks, and loaded on in broad daylight at Calcutta railway station, and came quietly and without any hassle to Bombay. I had paid off all the mafias from East to West, so the stuff came through unmolested.
Now it was sitting in my go-down in the docks, and it was giving me the shivers. Just imagine, 4 tons of Cocaine lying in a godown! The dollar value would be probably as much as the turnover of many third world nations.
But it wouldn’t lie there for long. It would be quietly taken out the back door and put on the Panamian freighter heading for New Mexico. And the go-down would be filled again with cement sacks, which I had bought from the black market some time back. Then I would sell the cement openly, and as far as the authorities were concerned, all I had done would be a simple cement transaction.

Aahh! What a feeling. I had just leaned back into my chair, and lit an expensive Cuban cigar to celebrate, when it all went to hell.

Suddenly, there was a crash, and the door burst open and a bunch of policemen burst into my room. It gave me such a shock I fell over in my chair, and damn near swallowed my cigar!
Before I could say, “What the fuck…” ten or more policemen were pointing loaded guns at me. I decided to keep my mouth shut, and not move a muscle. They were looking very unfriendly indeed!
Just then the door opened, and a police inspector walked in, looking offensively cheerful.

“Hi dear. You are under arrest.”
Well, I had guessed that. But I tried to brazen it out.
“Why? I haven’t done anything.”
“No? Then who was banging the dentist’s wife, eh?”
It was like being hit in the middle of the eyebrows with a hammer. I could only look at him, I was so disoriented.

“Eh?”

The inspector went and crashed into my expensive chair, enjoying the stupefied expression on my face.
“Yes sir. You ran the biggest drug smuggling operation I have ever seen, you have been doing shady stuff in the city for years now, you lied, you stole, you cheated…but..” he stopped swinging the chair and looked me in the eye. “…But…your biggest mistake was to hump that dentist’s wife.”

He leaned back further, and put his feet on my beautiful teak wood desk. I started to object, but immediately subsided. He paid no attention, and continued with his monologue.

“You see, we have had our eye on you for a long time, but were never able to put our finger on you. You were too clever, and knew too many people, and were always one step ahead of us.
But one day, you got too smart for your own good. We saw you hump the wife, and then rub it in by going to that same dentist to see to your teeth.
At that moment I knew that you had become too big for your boots, and your arrogance would be your downfall.

We took pictures of you frolicking in bed with that woman, and paid a visit to the dentist. He was a bit upset at first, and wanted to get violent. But we cooled him down and told him a better way to get even.
In your next sitting he made a huge hole in your molars, remember? Didn’t you wonder at the time why he is making holes in two teeth, when only one tooth was paining? Well, I will tell you. We have got some new toys nowadays, thanks to the interaction with the US Drug Enforcement Agency. One is a miniature GPS locator, which keeps a track on where a person is; and the other is a miniature radio transmitter.

Both of these things were implanted in your teeth.

Obviously, they wouldn’t work through silver, so he had to put cement filling over them. Luckily, you didn’t question why cement, why not silver.”
I shuddered, as the implication of what he just said flashed through my mind.
“You mean…”
“Yes. We know exactly where you have been, to the last centimeter, over the last two months. And we had a bug right inside your mouth, so we have a recording of every word, which you have spoken over the last two months.
So we waited until the whole plot came to a boil, and now we have swooped down and arrested every single person attached to this massive drug deal you have been arranging. Every one of your contacts has been arrested – from the Border patrol commander to the Customs guys in Bengal, the railway agents, the corrupt police officers, the mafia…. even the captain of that Panamian ship of yours is behind bars.
Across the Atlantic, The US DEA has cleaned up the little operation of your nasty little friends, and they are damn happy about it.
Amazingly smooth operation. ‘Well Drilled’ if I may use the phrase…ha ha…all of you guys are going to be behind bars for a very long time…”

My knees turned to jelly, and I slumped to the floor. I couldn’t see…I couldn’t breathe…my head was pounding. I dimly felt the inspector come over to me and whisper in my ear.

“By the way, your dentist friend asked me to tell you…your teeth are gonna pain terribly in a few days. Ha ha ha. You gotta be real stupid to screw with a guy who’s got a drill in your mouth…”
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This story is part of my short story collection Bombay mixture on Amazon.com

A flight of pigeons (Short story)

2011-12-08T22:40:00.001-08:00

A flight of pigeons

“I hate these bloody pigeons.” I screamed.

“What is wrong with you? Leave those poor birds alone.” My wife answered.

“Leave them alone? I would love to leave them alone! But they don’t leave us alone. They are all over the place, flapping away and making that monotonous noise – gutar goo, gutar goo…tchah. They don’t have brains worth a damn, and are always humping away…”

“Shh! Mind your tongue! The children…” Laxmi (my wife) hissed at me.

“Sorry…but these birds are a pain. Constantly building nests, hump…er…laying eggs, stink of pigeon everywhere. And they are so stupid – they are suicidal. Banging into glass panes, getting electrocuted in wires, getting cut up by kite strings…and just smell that stink! Some stupid pigeon must have died somewhere, and is rotting! Ugh!”

“Yes (sniff) it does smell a bit bad, no?” she put her nose up, and sniffed like a dog. “But its not there all the time…comes and goes. Wonder where it is coming from? Definitely something dead and decomposing. Anyway, tea is ready.” She said, passing me a cup.

The tea was good, and it calmed my mind, as I went over the want ads in the papers. I had been downsized a few months back, and was still looking for a new job. I had managed to lay my hands on some money, so the situation was not desperate, but I needed a job.
While I was studying the ads and circling the ones which I found interesting, Laxmi came and tapped me on my shoulder. She looked suddenly worried and thoughtful.

“Aaho, that smell…it’s of rotting flesh, isn’t it?”

                  “Yes, how disgusting. Must be those mussalmans downstairs – probably not cleared out their dustbin.”

                  “Don’t be silly dear. Why should anyone keep rotting meat in their house? I was just thinking…”

                  “What?”

                  “Er…never mind.” And she suddenly walked away. I stared after her, puzzled. After a minute I got back to my paper. But before I could get engrossed in it, there was another whiff of that disgusting smell.

That’s it. I put down my paper, and went and put on my shirt.

“Where are you going?” Laxmi asked.

“Enough is enough! I am going down to give that mussalman, Syed Ali, a piece of my mind. Let him eat meat if he wishes, but the least he can do is to clean up his home and prevent it from stinking. Bloody rascal.”

                  “Aaho, what are you doing?” Laxmi caught hold of my hand. “Ever since you lost your job, you have been so violently angry. How can you go and accuse them? Every body in the building eats non veg – why blame Syed Ali alone?” She was pleading with me.

“Oh all right.” I extricated my hand from her grasp. “I will not attack them, don’t worry. I will just go up and down and see from where the smell is coming. Let me go, Laxmi, don’t worry.”

I left the house and started quietly down the stairs. We stay on the top floor, and so I generally take the lift down. Thus, people were quite surprised to see me on the stairs. As luck would have it, the first person I met was Syed Ali himself; fat and cleanshaven – dressed in Sunday uniform of vest and lungi.
“Arre, Kulkarni sahib. How nice to see you. We are meeting after so many days…”
“Salaam aley kum, Syedbhai.” I replied.
“Wale kum as salaams…come in, come in.” He caught me by my arm, and steered me into his house. Everyone seems to think of my arm as public property. But before I could react, I was in his house.
“Kulkarni sahib, I wanted to talk to you. You are the chairman of the society and a strict vegetarian, so I thought you are the best person to talk to.”
“About what?” I was foxed.
“Arre sahib…actually there seems to be some unhygienic person in our building. Every now and then, there is a whiff of rotting flesh. I felt a bit hesitant to talk to people…who knows how people can react. But you obviously could not be a source of this, as you are a vegetarian. Also, as you are the Chairman, you have the right to ask people to clean up.”
I looked at him in surprise, then blessed Laxmi for preventing me from going and blasting this guy – he would have been so hurt.
“You are right, Syedbhai. Even I have been getting a whiff of this smell. I tell you what, let’s go up and down the stairs and see from where the smell is coming. Then we will discreetly tell them to clean up their act.”
Syedbhai agreed, and we went down the stairs, sniffing away. It must have looked very funny to any observers – two portly, middle aged men going around sniffing away like prize bloodhounds on a scent. But try as we might, we couldn’t get a whiff from any house. Disappointed and puzzled, we back home.

“Well?” Laxmi raised an eyebrow at me as I returned.
“Nyet! I and Syedbhai went all over, but we didn’t get a sniff. Maybe it is after all a dead dog or something…shit” but even as I spoke, a whiff of rotting flesh passed by, revolting both of us. But even as I sniffed, it was gone again.
“Aaho…did you…did you check at Bagrecha’s house?”
I started.
“Ba…Bagrecha? Er…no. Why did you think about him?”
“Nothing…it may be silly of me, but there was an article in the paper the other day. A senior citizen was found dead in his house. Apparently he had been dead for months, but no one ever knew. His body rotted and stank, but the neighbors thought it was a smell from the fishermen village nearby. After all, who would think that a neighbor had died and is rotting in his home? So I thought….”
“Nonsense!”
“Why nonsense?” Laxmi was like all women, drawing strength from opposition. “Why is it nonsense? It is possible. Old man Bagrecha is a widower and lives alone. He mixes with no one, and is practically a hermit. Sometimes, he doesn’t come out of his house for days on end. He has children who live god knows where, and anyway he has had no one visiting him for years, the watchman told me.”
“Laxmi…”
“I don’t want to hear anything. Let us go right now and see if he is alright.” Laxmi switched off the gas, wound her sari pallu firmly and looked me in the eye. When she gets into this mood, she is absolutely unreasonable. I capitulated with bad grace.
“Oh all right. Let’s go and see if he is at home.”
We put on our chappals and went down three floors to Bagrecha’s house. As we walked, with every step, Laxmi became more uncomfortable. After all, we hardly knew the fellow…nobody did. He was an unpleasant old man whom no one liked to mix with. But still, under the circumstances…
We reached his door, and looked at each other. She nodded at me, and I rang the bell. No response. After some time, I rang it again; longer. Still no response. Finally, I leant on the bell for nearly a couple of minutes, and the sound was loud enough to irritate the fellow in the neighboring house. He opened the door and peered out.
“Arre, Kulkarni saaheb!” he was surprised to see me. “What are you doing?”
I was a bit embarrassed. It was difficult to explain to him that we were suspecting his neighbor of having died and disturbing the society with the smell of his rotting flesh. I tried to tread the middle path.
“Well…er …actually, we were just seeing whether Mr. Bagrecha is at home…just wanted to see that he is …ok.”
“Oh? I think he is not at home. Not seen him for days…even the paper boy has stopped leaving the newspaper at his house since some time now. Maybe he has gone out. He does that sometimes, just vanishes for days.”
“I see, I see. Then…I think we will take your leave then.” I and Laxmi beat a quick retreat.

Several days passed, and no job in sight. It is not easy for a middle aged clerk to get a new job these days, especially when he was been downsized. If not for that unexpected cash inflow, it would have been difficult indeed.

Laxmi was calm and composed about it; she had perfect faith in me as a good provider. What she was not calm about, was that damned smell. The smell continued to haunt us every now and then, and she still had that bee in her bonnet about a dead neighbor.
She wouldn’t raise the topic with me, but discussed with her friends in her kitty party group. Soon they decided to do some detective work on their own. These middle aged ‘kaku’s can be a formidable information gathering tool, I must say. If I were a criminal, I would rather have the CID and RAW on my trail, rather than these women.
They got info on all the families in our society, all the empty flats, and all the flats where elderly people were living alone. As ours was quite a large building, this was not that simple a task. But soon, they had identified 3 empty flats and one elusive senior citizen.
Soon, she came and proudly came and presented her list to me. The empty flats belonged to a couple of NRIs, and one to a local person. The elusive senior citizen was again, Bagrecha.

“What do I do with this?”
“Check the flats, of course. You are the chairman of the society aren’t you?”
“Yes I am…but darling, be reasonable…this notion you have is turning into an obsession.”
Laxmi grasped me by the hand and sat next to me. Her eyes were very serious.
“Narayan...” It was always something serious when she called me by name. Usually she used the honorific ‘aaho’ when addressing me.
“Narayan, I can’t explain it, but there is something going on. I feel it. I feel…death. Death is near. I can’t tell where, but you must humour me in this, or I will do something drastic – I will call the police, and then it will be a big hullabaloo, and either way we will get disgraced…”
“Here, here – relax. Calm down.” Laxmi really scares me sometimes. “OK, if you feel so seriously about it, we will open the empty flats. I have the keys. Non resident flat owners have to keep a set of keys with us, incase there is any emergency repairs or something to be done.”
I had to call a meeting of the executive committee first, and explain the situation to them. They agreed, and we went and formally opened the empty flats, one by one.
As expected, they were empty and entirely innocent of corpses, or any other sinister items.
Laxmi grasped my arm tightly, and looked so serious, that I decided not to release the various jokes I was going to crack at her expense.

And the smell continued, haunting us like a will’o the wisp.
One day I came home from an interview, whistling happily as I climbed the stairs. The interview had gone well, and the manager had hinted that I was in the final running for the job. It was excellent news, as my finds were running low, and even that unexpected money I had received was getting over.

Oh, what a feeling, I am dancing on the …. I stopped. There was a big crowd at Bagrecha’s door. I felt a cold shiver going across me.
“Here, what’s going on here?” I asked, and several people in the crowd turned around. There were a couple of watchmen and some members of the building management committee.
“Arre, Kulkarni saaheb is here. Good.” It was Chiplunkar, the secretary. He is the guy who really does the work of the society; I am just the chairman – a decorative post. “Arre saaheb, I was going over the minutes of that meeting we had last time, where we decided to check the flats for the origin of the smell. I realized that while we checked the unoccupied flats, we did not check Mr. Bagrecha’s flat.”
“But…”
“Now then, we said that we will check all unoccupied flats. If Mr. Bagrecha is not here, then the flat is unoccupied. Therefore we are going to check it.”
“But…you can’t generally barge into someone’s house…it is infringement of privacy. Anyway, we don’t have his keys…and we can’t just break down the door, can we?” I tried to grin.
Chiplunkar just shrugged his shoulders. “What privacy and all…Kulkarni saaheb, we are not in the US. Anyway, we are not breaking down his door; I have called Maganlal, the lock maker to pick the lock. Arre, Maganlalbhai, how much longer will it take?”
“Bas, its done sir.” The locksmith was sweating with concentration, suddenly he smiled and relaxed, and threw the door open.
Immediately a strong smell of decomposing flesh filled the air. I wilted against the wall.
“Hey Ram!” shouted the startled secretary and rushed in. The smell had me rooted to the spot.
“What a mess! Kulkarni saaheb! Come and look at this!”
I walked in, trying to compose myself. A grisly sight met my eyes, though not the one I had expected.

“Pigeons!” Laxmi exclaimed.
“What a sight it was. A whole colony of pigeons had made their nest in the windows, and had hatched eggs, so there were a lot of young birds also there. And a cat or something must have attacked them; there were dead pigeons all over the place. In the nests, the young pigeons had starved to death, I suppose. Then the rains must have come, and rotted the dead bodies. What a sight it was…dead pigeons and blood all over the place, ants and lizards eating the corpses, and the stink….”
“Tchee tchee. Stop already.” Laxmi shuddered. “How terrible.” She walked away into the kitchen. Just before entering, she turned around and looked at me. “So I was right wasn’t I? I told you I sensed death in the building.”
I smiled at her. “How right you are, Laxmi.”

Some days later I was feeding the pigeons, when I heard my wife remark to her friend.
“How Kulkarni saaheb has changed, no? Earlier, he used to simply hate the pigeons. He used to curse them at every opportunity he got, and throw things at them. But now, he has started liking them. Feeds them everyday with his own hands, and has established two bird baths and bird houses on the terrace.”
“So sweet.” I could feel the warm glow of the loving gaze being given to me by Laxmi’s friend.
I smiled, and continued feeding the pigeons. Downstairs, I could still hear the sound of Bagrecha’s son arguing with Chiplunkar. He had come down from Surat because he had wanted to borrow some money from his father. He was not pleased to find his father missing and even more displeased to find that we had broken into his father’s flat in his absence.
“Arre, so what if you are the secretary, eh? How can you break into a private house, tell me that?”
“Mind your tone, Mr. Bagrecha.”
“Arre, what mind your tone? Where is the money which my father kept in the house? He used to have minimum Rs Two lakhs in cash in the house, and now there is nothing. Where is that, eh?”
“Listen friend, we opened the flat in the presence of five committee members, got the flat cleaned in our presence and immediately sealed it again in our presence. I have no idea whether there was money or not in the flat, but I assure you that nothing was disturbed when we opened the flat. And furthermore, instead of shouting at me, you can thank me for having cleaned the house. Who will bear that expense, eh? And what about the pending society payments for the past four months, who will pay that…”
The argument continued downstairs, and I smiled and tossed some more grain to the pigeons, as they flapped around.

Thank god for the pigeons.

If they had investigated further for the source of the smell and found that old mans body in the cupboard…anyway, old men who live alone shouldn’t keep that much money in the house…the world is not safe nowadays…

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This story appears as part of my Short story collection - Bombay Mixture - on Amazon.com