Another Rider Mania, another ride...

Last time around Rider Mania was in Shillong. While I had any amount of leaves (read that as "not employed anywhere") and the urge to take a road trip was stronger than ever, I couldn't make it.

Why?

Let's not get into that :-)

This time around, luck was a lot favourable (so to say) and I registered much in advance and thereafter also managed to get leave etc, etc.

So, come the 16th of January, I was on the road again (without any preparations whatsoever, on a borrowed, spanking new, Classic Chrome 500) and surprisingly enough had a pack of Bullets riding along too.

The agenda was simple. Get intimate with the road again, rediscover it for the pure thrill of motorcycling, connect with the basics of biking again. Naturally then, I chose my painful motorcycling boots (if not for which I would have lost a toe or more when I had fallen and broken my collar bone en-route Kolkatta for another Rider Mania) over my birding shoes (and lenses and cameras).

The agenda was also to rough it out (I had carried along my tent -- I did not need to pitch it because a fellow rider -- who also snores -- invited me to join him in his tent) and have fun in "life is a beach" terms.

Must say I managed to do all that and more.

And though I do regret on not being able to photograph a Marsh Harrier, any number of Common Kestrels and countless Black Shouldered Kites and White-breasted Kingfishers; I don't regret not having to lug the heavy backpack with me, for all of approximately 800 kms each way.

More importantly, I do regret not being able to do justice to the landscapes on offer with my puny camera phone, but then at one level motorcycling is all about framing and freezing those vistas in your being -- with no camera involved!

Yes, it was  good ride. I had company both ways; tucked into some amazing food all over the ride, connected with a lot of biker buddies and made quite a few new friends too.

But the icing on the cake was the fact that I started my birthday with a 200 kms odd trip (from the place where we had called it a night, at a seedy lodge somewhere after Pidiguralle on the absolutely hypnotic SH-2) to reach home for have the privilege of touching  my parents' feet.

That this ride was through inchoate early morning fog, under a drowsily weak winter sun added to the magical quality of the whole experience. Having the Classic Chrome 500 to stride and the challenge of maintaining a fast clip (while weaving in through the occasional truck traffic) gifted it a very special edge.

So you could say I gifted myself a grand present for my birthday. Because, as someone known to me said -- If you don't celebrate your own birthday, who will?

Most importantly, now I have the contextual depth to compare two different birthday rides. On the ride to Rider Mania, Kolkatta, I was riding all through my birthday and intent on getting the ride over and "partying". That's when (though I was not speeding) I fell and broke my collar bone. As such I spent the night of my birthday in a decrepit Kolkatta hospital, wracked with pain and surrounded by ghoulish looking, post middle-age, matronly ayah type nurses firing Bengali phrases at me.

This time, I was more sensible and had 4 hours of sleep behind me and the mental focus -- "I will not fall, come whatever." As it turned out, I neither partied (came to work right from the ride in fact and got a nice talking to, as well) nor wore any new clothes, nor cut a cake (that way, someone has to celebrate our birthdays, no?) and spent most of the evening in a sleep-deprived vigil waiting for some biker friends to come and shack up at my place. But heck, I did manage to enjoy a "Beer and Biryani" before the night was over. And, I slept under my own roof, without any painkillers in me :-)

I am not comparing, but its nice to survive all of life's vicissitudes, if only to celebrate small joys like a birthday ride.

Om Namaha Shivaya (oh yes, I prayed a lot on the ride!)