Thor in his magnificence

The title might imply a certain defference to the Norse god of thunder and lightening but its actually a tale of terror, namely mine!

It all started with a bike and a love for the open road. I'm known in some parts to be one of the slowest while in control of a moving vehicle, but thats only because my detractors are speed demons!!! Anyway, one glorious sunny late summer morning, we set out on a 350 km trip on gasolina, my brother's beloved Bullet. Sunny had broken his hand a couple of days earlier so all the riding was upto me. I didn't mind one damn bit, because anyone, who's had to sit on the back of a bike for over an hour knows that it soon begins to feel like your posterior will no longer stay post!

We made our first msitake even before we started. The plan was to egt out by 6:30 so we'd beat the morning traffic and hopefully, just hopefully make good time before the sun came up. No such luck. We got up at 9:00 and left by 10:30. By the teh time we left Bangalore, it was already 11:30. But so much for that. I began my leisurely ride along the Old Madras Road and the bike felt like a dream. Easing in and out of turns, we covered decent ground. The only hitch was the road was lousy, which meant taht eevrytime I picked up some decent speed, we'd run into something that resembled a crater on the moon.

All said and done, the trip was pretty uneventful till we reached chitoor. A good 200 kms done and dusted, at least we were. So we headed to our usual reststop, Mayuri just outside the town. mayuri's famous for its emu biriyani, though thats not what we ate. We stuck to the regular chicken biriyani with some of teh spiciest chicken fry I've ever had. Then it happened.

The wind picked up and rustling the leaves. And slowly but steadily the temperature began to drop. RAIN!

It rained for the better part of an hour and that really put us behind schedule. When it finally stopped, we decided to ride as fast as possible to make up as much ground as we could before it came down again. That, unfortunately, was not to be as we were riding into the rain. But we still managed to reach the main higway before it actually beagn in earnest. And then it rained. this was no ordinary rain. An electric storm. With storng gusts of wind blowing across the road. The palm trees on the side actually looked like tehy were in the middle of a hurricane.

The rain coming down as it was, we decided the best course of action would be to get some shelter and wait it out. So standing under a rickety tea stall overhang, we waited for an hour and a half. To give you an idea of how bad it was, truck drivers were pulling over because of the lousy visibility!

Anyway, half a packet of cigarettes and a lot of deliberating later we got back on the bike. The rain seemed to have abated. trust us not to learn. That night Mother Nature gave me a glimpse of what will happen if we fuck with this planet anymore. With Thor as her aide, she brought the fury of heaven upon us poor mortals. Imagine this. Two extremely wet people on an unprotected vehilce made of cast iron, riding though open fields which had power lines running through them. You can almost guess what happened next. LIGHTENING!!!

Bolts of lightening streamed across the sky hitting the ground on either side of us. Albeit, they hit maybe half a kilometer away but the intensity was plain to see. Close your eyes and then open them up about a couple of inches away from a white light bulb or tube! Thats how bright it is when you look at lightening as close as we did. All I could do was pray. Look ahead, hold the bike in line and pray that we could reach Sri Perumbudur. And it worked. God always comes through, you know. It's only in our most desperate times do we realise this fact.

Anyway, we stopped at Sriperumbur and made a real mess of this pretty posh rest stop. Had some coffee, warmed up, wrung out the clothes and Hallelujah, the rain had stopped. I then hightailed it back to Chennai. Screw being cautious. Lets get home! A little outside Chennai it started pouring again but we didnt care. We'd reached home and tahts all that mattered.

13 hours. For 350 km. 13 hours! is what it took. But it really and truly was the ride of a lifetime. ANd i'm hooked now. Can''t wait to get me my own lil baby and break her on the tarmac on india's highways. Next stop, Gokarna. 800 km, easy! 1 week's trip. 4 days riding, 3 days of chilling out on a white beach with beer and calamari. If anybody's interested let me know.