Tripping (on Om Namah Shivaya)

I am into the 5th day of another trip.

You could say I have covered almost one eight of the distance of this trip, since this trip is to be for the duration of 41 days.

There are number of interesting things I am doing on this trip, things which I normally don't. For instance, I get up (mostly) at a time that I would normally call "uncivilized", the time that corresponds to Brahmakaalam to pray. And, in a throwback to my "wild enough to get splayed feet" childhood, I go around barefoot; learning with every step -- to tread slowly and carefully. There are some other interesting things about my daily routine these days, meant to inculcate high-thinking, focus and asceticism and each is a trip in itself...

Yes, I am talking of this Deeksha that I am undertaking. Something that (looking back) I should have undertaken long back; something that (when one considers my peculiar style of tripping) seems almost pre-destined.

Here's why.

For some or the other reason, from the very beginning of my motorcycling days, there has been a Shiva connection to most of my trips. When I started tripping around in the Deccan, Srisailam was my favorite destination and a trip that has taken me on quainter trips, like to Uma Maheswaharam, Alampur, Jatprole and other Shiva temples. It was on the way back from a trip to Srisailam that I had my first major fall -- a miraculous escape it was, all said and done, the only damage to me being a scraped knee and (most importantly) my pillion the rogue Chandra got away totally unscathed!

Srisailam still remains a destination of choice, a trip that I would gladly go on again and again, any number of times.

In 2004 (if my memory serves me right) while returning from Lonar, I left my Bullet and co-riders (they gladly acquiesced) and walked bare-feet to get Darshan at Grihaneswar (the Jyotirlingam near Aurangabad).

In 2005, on the way back from my solo ride to Ladakh, after a number of scary incidents (the Bullet's headlight had conked out, I had innumerable scrapes with trucks / tractors / in-betweens and a bat almost flew into my face) in pitch dark on the mystery stretch between Udhampur and Samba, I was close to losing it and becoming a nervous wreck when I came across a Mata Mansi Devi temple besides the road. What was initially meant as a ten minute stop for my knees to stop shaking led to an hour long stop and I remember praying too; fervently and at length and needless to say, I got my courage back.

In 2009, on the South India (Tirigi Vadamu) ride with the boys, post RM and Ooty, post Coimbatore (with my Bullet misbehaving and not pulling properly) I was praying like never before and totally focused on making it to the Meenakshipuram Temple at Madurai and thereafter to the Jyotirlingam at Rameshwaram. So much so, that on the stretch to Madurai, the white strips of paint on the trees that verge the road looked like the three vibhuti smears on a forehead to me. So much so, that I was continuously reciting Om Namah Shivaya to myself Madurai onwards...

I tripped some more on the journey called Shiva on that ride, spending some amazing moments at Vadakkumnathan temple at Thrissur, Murudeshwar and Gokarna. And considering the fact that all this was done in a chaotic "Bullet ride", it was some tripping indeed!

On my most recent ride (or should I say, half-ride?), I spent the night of my birthday in a dump of a hospital with a broken collar bone and a malfunctioning phone. That I didn't break out of that hospital was largely owing to the pain-killer drugs they had pumped into me. But (though I don't remember it) I am sure it must have also been because of my prayers (to you know Who)...

Thus then, you see, I have always been tripping :-) And though I wear my religion lightly, abhor rituals and all the other baggage that comes being with a Hindu, its nice to trip on Shiva.

Though its one road that I guess I will never completely know in this life.