Tuesday, October 14, 2008



“This is not a tale of impressive deeds, it’s a piece of his life when he was cruising along a given path with the same identity of aspirations and dreams”. These would be the introductory lines when a movie would be made on me and my ulti weird adventures. Alright a mini confession, these ain’t my lines. This is what The Motorcycle Diaries the movie says, which made me all enthu to do a similar feat. If Ernesto Guevara can tour the whole of Latin America on his motorcycle, so can I travel, if not the whole of India, if not the whole of Maharashtra, if not the whole of Pune, then atleast some parts in the outskirts of Pune.
So after a mundane office day, I sooooo wanted to do something which would rejuvenate every lil’ cell in my body. After some brain squeezing session a brilliant idea took birth. Night drive from Pune to Lonavala on Ducati!!!!! okie you caught me, so what if it wasn’t Ducati, in my mind all along the way I was cruising on the Superbike.
Our voyage started at 11 in the night, and we hadn’t gone far, that our adventure started. I would definitely call it an adventure, may be an ulti stooooopid idea of adventure in the world’s eye. The tyre got punctured in the middle of the highway, dragged Ducati for at least 2 kms where we found a puncture repair shop. What a brilliant start!!!!
Alright this might sound a lil’ crazy but this is how it is. I have got an imaginary adventure resume in my head. Now the question comes what the hell can an adventure resume be. Its like, it holds all the adventures I have ever been on and a wish list of freakish adventures I hope to be on one day. Whenever I am upto doing something loony, I imagine myself writing on my resume all the weird adventurous feats. And my resume reciprocates by always smiling back at me with immense joy and a sense of accomplishment. That’s the power of adventure, it can put life into an inanimate object, it can make a piece of paper smile.
So there we were, back on track. With a brilliant start I was all charged up. Riding the Ducati at mind clenching speed, on the soooooperbly built twisty curvy roads which looked more like a race track. I thought to my self, this ride is definitely better than what Ernesto Guevara had. Basically it was all about out doing Ernesto. Okie… whom am I fooling.
It must be around 1 o’clock owl’s hour, a full moon day had lighted up the road well. There were occasional thunderclaps which acted as supplement to pump up our already high energy. Wind gushing up to my face, distending the skin and the eyes, felt as if I was all high. The mountains looked pitch black, this made it look even more mammoth and perilous. There were some occasional harmless stunts on the bike, trying to redo the Sholay magic.
When I am out on an adventure its kinda rule for me to go insanely demented. An ulti weird idea struck. How about taking off the t-shirt and ride bare chest. Brilliant!!!!!! So there we were speeding at hundred, chilling wind gushing and goose bumps all over my body, what a feeeeeeel!!!! It then started raining, making the wind even more unbearable. But it never occurred to the demented me to put on the t-shirt.
Around 1:30 owl’s hour we took our first munching break at one of the trucker’s joint, then moved on to explore Lonaval. Our next stop was the Lonavala lake. The lake looked amazingly beautiful at this point of the hour, with the moon light sparkling all over the water. Appeared as if there were a zillion diamonds floating in the lake. We sat by the lake gazing it for long, enjoying the freshness in the air, appreciating the calm serene environment way away from our mundane stooooooopid city life. Just can’t stop myself from saying, umm wait for it, its coming…….. Brilliant!!!!!!
We then moved on from the lake to the Bushi dam, if one goes during normal human hour the place would seem like just another famous picnic spot. But it was the owl’s hour, and the gates were locked. The obvious solution was to jump over the gates, and that’s exactly what we did. How adventurous!!!! We went in and explored the dam; we could hear the sound of the water gushing, which was music to my ears. It’s an extraordinary bliss to hear water gushing; one must experience to know what I am talking about.
By now we were a lil’ tired, so decided to lie down next to the water body. The water was just a feet away from where we rested our buttocks. The view was breathtaking, the water body distended endlessly. The mountains were all covered by the clouds. It looked picture perfect, gazing and appreciating nature’s beauty, we were off to sleep. No kidding, we were actually sleeping under the open sky, open air, closest one can get to nature. So far the best sleep I have EVER got. After a while I woke up and saw from between my legs that the water body had disappeared. I thought to myself, I definitely am in a dream world. OMG!!!!! This is unbelievable, I shouted. We were surrounded by clouds; the visibility had drastically gone down. My craziness had no bounds; it felt I was in heaven. What a feeeeeeeeeeeel!!!!!!!!!!!
The dawn was about to break, we decided to move on. Our next destination was the Lions point which is at a great altitude. To reach there, we had to take the Amby valley road, which is an experience by itself at 5 o’ clock cock’s hour. As the altimeter reading escalated, I realized that we were again swimming in the clouds. The cloud cover was so dense that I was unable to see the tail light of my friend’s bike. What a feeeeeeel again!!!!!!!
On the way back from the Lions point we came across a huge waterfall. Parked our bikes at the side of the road and ran towards it like crazy. Stripped (well almost) immediately and plunged into it, the water was ice cold. Every drop that fell recharged all my drained batteries; I could sense every tiny miniscule atom in my body dancing with joy. Oh dancing with joy is soooooooper subtle; they were actually up with tribal dance, sheer crazy excitement. What a feel yet again!!!!!!
After all the exploration in Lonaval, we were on our way back to Pune. This time the mountains had changed their attire, clothed in a zillion different shades of green. The adventure streak had not come to an end yet, after being awake for more than 24 hours, we had to report for work.

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