Check-list life...

1) Get hamster feed

2) Fill air in cycle

3) Buy a pair of black formal shoes

4) Get a new cover for love bird cage

5) Clean turtle tank

6) Pay airtel bill

7) Change bullet speedometer cable

8) Buy eggs and apples

9) Return library books...

...till saturday night, this is what my sunday looked like. A checklist of things to get done before the hustle of the week begins and all avocation is overcome by vocation.

But saturday night saw me sleep badly, I guess my mind was filled with the countless things I needed to get done, all the goals I had to achieve and all the dependencies I had to conquer to achieve those goals. I finally semi dozed off pretty late, wondering if I had gotten so busy trying to be someone in life, that I had stopped living at all (metaphorically ofcourse, otherwise I am quite alive).

I woke pretty early, as habit wouldn't have it any other way, and went through the  motions of getting ready. So preoccupied was I in some train of thought that I barely realised what I was doing till I very impulsively slipped on my riding boots. Snapping back to reality I reasoned that I couldn't possibly ride because I had a lot of things to get done today and I hadn't preped the bike for a ride, but then I had already gotten ready, and maybe I could just do a small ride and come back and get all the chores done...

Not trusting myself to the Bullet, I started the Jawa and set off on a highway around sunrise, hoping that since I had never ridden long on the Jawa before, I would be home in time for breakfast. But, before I knew it I was preoccupied again with some train of thought or the other and kept riding, when the bike went into reserve after Sangareddy, is when I came back to the present. It was too late to make it back home for breakfast, I muttered to myself "to hell with the checklist", found myself a fuel station, grabbed a bite and kept going.

As often occurs on long rides, I soon found my preoccupations fall away and began focussing on the ride and enjoying it. The 2-stroke 250cc engine hummed and fired perfectly along the smooth highway, the experience is very different from that of a 4-stroke, where you can dominate the highway, with little care for gearshifts or gradients. With a 2-stroke, you are cruising, responding to crests and troughs of the road with gear shifts and easing into corners rather than flooring the throttle. With the beauty of legacy behind it the 43 year old machine glided along the tarmac, leaving me to wonder if she could have been any different if she was brand new, and also leaving me to wonder if I had come too far from home, for in reality I had crossed the state border into Maharashtra!

Quite immediately, the road condition worsened and traffic increased. Stuck at a railway crossing for 15minutes, I  realised for the first time, how hot it was (40 degress Celcius). I was also aware that I was fast approaching a town called Degaloor, which is a major heavy vehicle transit point. This would mean more traffic and bad roads, looking for a way out, I found a mud road through a eucalyptus plantation and instantly, gratefully took it!

To my pleasant surprise, the trail wasn't a short dead end road and I did almost 5 kilometers in the dirt till I could no longer hear the sounds of civilisation. Taking a break in the peaceful wood, with the wind rustling through the leaves and the parakeets singing their happy song, I sit by my bike and write this blog post!

I will head home from here and I will reprioritoze my checklist. I will get done the absolute essentials in the time I have left today. We all need to keep putting those ticks in the checklist, it is an important part of our lives. But what is also important is to break away from routine sometimes and find ourselves in the middle of nowhere. For when our days draw to a close we will not remember the bills we paid, okay I might remember the bills because they are quite a lot! But I will not remember the routine, I will remember the adventures! 

I'll sign off and head home with a little bit of cliched Robert Frost and a picture! Happy Riding! 

 "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep..."

Of sways and longings...

I must confess, my latest longing has been for the sea. And 4 times in the 2 months that have passed this year have i found myself parked on a beach lost in the mesmerizing, almost hypnotic motion of the waves. It must be a similar sway that the moon has on the sea, that causes her to rise and fall at its movements. 

I digress, and must steer quickly to the point. Another and more important longing i fail to supress is ofcourse the longing to ride. But something is different, something has changed. It isn't the familiar almost irritable excitement that usually takes over before a long ride, it isn't the craving for the dizzying exhiliration of pulling a tight corner, nor is it the sheer thrill of gunning down an open highway. These more familiar sways have been replaced by a longing to move. Move more than just physically, if i may call it so, a longing to be moved. A quest almost, for serenity. A desire to go go and keep going irrespective of distance, time or speed, and not stop until everything within me is calm. This longing has been so indescribable and baffling to me, that i have taken up the good part of almost a week to come up with the lines i have so far and am still not sure i got it quite right.

Maybe it is what old riders call the spirit of the motorcycling. That the bike moves you more than just physically. Inexplicable yet constantly active, this sway draws me to search for the first opportunity to get on my bike and not look back, ride and not race, steadily constantly conquer miles and miles of highway, and most drastically different from before- be completely indifferent to all data and calculations of milestones to reach, time and speed such as what commonly plagues a long distance rider, and just ride with your heart and soul lost - in thought or in scenery, in philosophy or on the map, but lost to good effect- moved.

Consequent to what i have endeavored to expound, most of my rides now start at night, and last almost all night, with very few short breaks and long stretches of continous cruising till i reach a peaceful beach far away. There is something extremely synchronous between riding and the sea. Which bears out best when you hit a highway parallel to the sea with its waves crashing on its beach. Maybe the sea symbolizes everything a motorcycle is, calm and steady inside but raging and rearing to go on the outside. Maybe it symbolizes life itself. Beautiful yet deadly, silent yet strong.

Now i may have finally been able to give you a glimpse of what i mean by the changed frame of mind and the kind of thoughts that run through it.

I rode to Ramapuram beach, Chirala, last weekend. Rode out on Friday night after work and reached the beach by 3am. Keeping warm with a small bonfire on the beach. The sunrise, warm expresso and subsequent relaxed weekend was worth the wait. I remembered to take my camera gear for a change. So the result i will let u scrutinize below.

I don't know much about how long the current swaying for philosophy and the ocean will last, but i do know this, when some old biker wrote "two wheels move the soul", he couldn't have put it better.

To view a rider's eye perspective of the ride by the beach, check out: https://youtu.be/EuHqyZmnfwc

Three is crowd??

No more bikes this year! Let's see if that resolution holds! Well it should atleast until i can figure out more garage space! To answer the question, three is definately not a crowd, in fact its just getting started! A biker can never really have enough bikes, having said that, i hope i stay true to my resolution for this year!