Sometime during the last week Rocky had called me and told that they will be planning a day ride to Lepakshi and will let me know on the updates. Saturday evening he called and said that the ride is on for Sunday morning and we are meeting up at the Hebbal flyover. I was so happy! It was feeling like a really long time since both wifey and I rode together anywhere. Our lives had becoming really monotonous; wakeup, breakfast, go-to-work, come home, sleep… the days had become too boring and stress levels had started kicking in really hard, both of us needed a break and needed to feel some wind through our heads.
Sunday morning came too soon, woke up hurriedly and rolled out the bike to meet the guys there, by the time we reached MG road RedEye decided that she needed a full tank of fuel and we had to stop by at a gas station to fill her up. This was probably the longest, sloppiest and the most lethargic gas station service that I ever encountered till date; the staff there had no clue on who is filling the gas and who collects the gas, the quality of the fuel was the worst, after the fill-up they didn’t have change to give and they actually wanted me to let go of 10bucks since the didn’t have it!!!!! Fackers
Anyway, after this disgusting episode, we shot off towards the designated meeting point, must say that it had been a long time since I rode down that side of the town and those roads… the roads have changed drastically! The government actually had felled around 300-400 trees to widen the roads and to accommodate the traffic (no exaggeration) and to broaden the already broad roads. (Sigh, what is this city coming to? :( )
When we finally reached there we were already around 15-20 minutes late and everyone was waiting for us… the gang was Rocky and his wife Pallavi (who we met for the first time but it seemed that we had known her since ages) Prateek and his pillion Nita (who works with Oracle) and Orgy, I mean Mr. Arijit Ghosh (strangely, he is also Nita’s boss) everyone was there and getting jumpy to ride out as soon as possible to avoid the early morning traffic. After a quick round of introductions and pleasantries we all rolled off, Prateek and Nita were the spot and Orgy was the sweep… the roads to this side of the world looked so different! Everything felt new… after only about 15-20 minutes of ridding we pulled over into one of the south-Indian fast food restaurants for a quick round of Idli-Vadas and Dosas. The management probably found our crowd very funky since everyone around started jumping around trying to accommodate us there with our tankbags, helmets, riding jackets and all the works… we had a nice filling brunch and rolled out again.
The roads were reasonably empty and our riding was pretty eased. We were enjoying the scattered clouds and the cool strong winds… Prateek was the lead and I must say his 500CC bull with the rider and the pillion and its monster panniers was still roaring and keeping a pretty decent steady speed! I was right behind him and was sort of playing tag with Rocky, he’d overtake us then slow down and overtake us again… I was feeling happy to ride with a group of people who I like not only as bikers but are also great friends.
Then came the town of Chikaballapur and came Prateek’s initiation thanks to some drunk local on a cycle who didn’t know if he was coming or going… thankfully nobody was hurt, Pallavi used her amazingly polished Kannada on that drunk soul and gave him a piece of her mind… we didn’t want to stay there long and wait for the crowd to change its mind so we pushed off from there… after a few kilometers we stopped to asses the damages, thankfully there were none! Thanks to the riding gear both the rider and pillion were geared into. This was also a time was an amazing photo session, which also included Pallavi chasing an old woman leading two buffaloes or maybe the other way round and shouting ‘amma smile maadi’ while clicking the pics in the meantime Orgy showed us the long chain he kept on his bike and the ways he can beat off attackers in self defense, honestly I felt that if the attackers were of the homosexual tendency, they’d probably carry orgy along after looking at his self protection dance :D
Sunday morning came too soon, woke up hurriedly and rolled out the bike to meet the guys there, by the time we reached MG road RedEye decided that she needed a full tank of fuel and we had to stop by at a gas station to fill her up. This was probably the longest, sloppiest and the most lethargic gas station service that I ever encountered till date; the staff there had no clue on who is filling the gas and who collects the gas, the quality of the fuel was the worst, after the fill-up they didn’t have change to give and they actually wanted me to let go of 10bucks since the didn’t have it!!!!! Fackers
Anyway, after this disgusting episode, we shot off towards the designated meeting point, must say that it had been a long time since I rode down that side of the town and those roads… the roads have changed drastically! The government actually had felled around 300-400 trees to widen the roads and to accommodate the traffic (no exaggeration) and to broaden the already broad roads. (Sigh, what is this city coming to? :( )
When we finally reached there we were already around 15-20 minutes late and everyone was waiting for us… the gang was Rocky and his wife Pallavi (who we met for the first time but it seemed that we had known her since ages) Prateek and his pillion Nita (who works with Oracle) and Orgy, I mean Mr. Arijit Ghosh (strangely, he is also Nita’s boss) everyone was there and getting jumpy to ride out as soon as possible to avoid the early morning traffic. After a quick round of introductions and pleasantries we all rolled off, Prateek and Nita were the spot and Orgy was the sweep… the roads to this side of the world looked so different! Everything felt new… after only about 15-20 minutes of ridding we pulled over into one of the south-Indian fast food restaurants for a quick round of Idli-Vadas and Dosas. The management probably found our crowd very funky since everyone around started jumping around trying to accommodate us there with our tankbags, helmets, riding jackets and all the works… we had a nice filling brunch and rolled out again.
The roads were reasonably empty and our riding was pretty eased. We were enjoying the scattered clouds and the cool strong winds… Prateek was the lead and I must say his 500CC bull with the rider and the pillion and its monster panniers was still roaring and keeping a pretty decent steady speed! I was right behind him and was sort of playing tag with Rocky, he’d overtake us then slow down and overtake us again… I was feeling happy to ride with a group of people who I like not only as bikers but are also great friends.
Then came the town of Chikaballapur and came Prateek’s initiation thanks to some drunk local on a cycle who didn’t know if he was coming or going… thankfully nobody was hurt, Pallavi used her amazingly polished Kannada on that drunk soul and gave him a piece of her mind… we didn’t want to stay there long and wait for the crowd to change its mind so we pushed off from there… after a few kilometers we stopped to asses the damages, thankfully there were none! Thanks to the riding gear both the rider and pillion were geared into. This was also a time was an amazing photo session, which also included Pallavi chasing an old woman leading two buffaloes or maybe the other way round and shouting ‘amma smile maadi’ while clicking the pics in the meantime Orgy showed us the long chain he kept on his bike and the ways he can beat off attackers in self defense, honestly I felt that if the attackers were of the homosexual tendency, they’d probably carry orgy along after looking at his self protection dance :D
After that photo shoot we again rode off towards our original destination… I guess after Hindupur we took a left turn and the great, majestic 4lane expressway turned into a small two lane road… we were in biker friendly territory :D almost around 15-20 kilometers of riding into these amazing landscapes brought us face to face with the monolithic Nandi bull’s status which is supposed to be carved out of a single granite stone slab… parked our bikes and all of us were itching for some masala chai, sadly the solitary shop opposite the bull had only ‘cool drinks’ and nothing else… just say the cool drinks were also not all that cool :(
Here we saw quite a few interesting characters, the cripple beggar who also was a mute, the two old women near the Nandi who were very happy to pose with us while clicking pictures and I believe they also fleeced us of quite an amount to click the pixies… there was nothing much to do here so we finally went to the actual attraction of Lepakshi, the Veerabhadra temple; strangely this temple reminded me a lot of my ride to Hampi, similar pillared facades, almost similar stone structures and the same amount of tourists, touts and guides. I was in no mood to checkout the place, so when Orgy announced that he is going to sit around in the shade and not go anywhere; I readily agreed to give him company. The others left us sitting there with all our samaan and Orgy and I had a real heart to heart discussion about work, marriage, kids, and life in general.
After a while, everybody gathered back and persuaded Orgy and me to at least go and look around a bit at how the place looks like… we like slackers walked around a bit, made a few oohs and aahs while looking at the sculpturesand got back in less than 10 minutes… all of were now hungry and were contemplating on what to do next when suddenly Pallavi emerged like devi ‘Annapurna’ with a paper-plate full of Pulliogre and Curd rice (the typical South Indian dishes) we all jumped at this sight and realized that the temple trustees are offering prasadam to all the people there. We like bhukkads charged at the temple, stood in line and got ourselves a good helping of the prasadam, now I’m not a big fan of the southi delicacies but I’m not sure if I was so hungry or was the food cooked really well… I actually had 2 helpings of the food.
Bellies full we decided to roll back… the ride back was pretty similar, but the crosswinds had picked up really bad and the bikes were actually getting pulled away… now the cheap petrol that I had filled in my tank started acting up on the bike, I could feel sudden power loss in the bike at a steady speed of 80. I thought it’d be the cross wind but upon listening to the beats of the engine I could actually notice it missing a few beats every few minutes. Upon stopping at a roadside dhaba I informed the guys about this… first we devoured some egg preparations (must say the food was not all that happening) after this Rocky and I started trouble shooting on the bike and realized that the spark plug was not in a very good state and needed some cleaning, done that and we rolled again… dunno what took over Rocky post lunch on our way back… he and Orgy both disappeared into the horizons speeding line maniacs… I had maintained a steady 80 as I still didn’t want to push the bike too bad on the crappy petrol. Prateek was right on our tail all the while, saw Rocky, Pallavi and Orgy waiting for us when we reached the Hebbal flyover again… stopped there, talked for a while decided to make more plans like this and said our goodbyes… reached home around 6:30-7ish in the evening…
Reached home all thrilled and happy and glad that I’ve made friends with some of the most genuine people on this planet! Guess its too good to have a few food friends… the ride was just a day trip but my respect and admiration for my friends grew a lot!
Here we saw quite a few interesting characters, the cripple beggar who also was a mute, the two old women near the Nandi who were very happy to pose with us while clicking pictures and I believe they also fleeced us of quite an amount to click the pixies… there was nothing much to do here so we finally went to the actual attraction of Lepakshi, the Veerabhadra temple; strangely this temple reminded me a lot of my ride to Hampi, similar pillared facades, almost similar stone structures and the same amount of tourists, touts and guides. I was in no mood to checkout the place, so when Orgy announced that he is going to sit around in the shade and not go anywhere; I readily agreed to give him company. The others left us sitting there with all our samaan and Orgy and I had a real heart to heart discussion about work, marriage, kids, and life in general.
After a while, everybody gathered back and persuaded Orgy and me to at least go and look around a bit at how the place looks like… we like slackers walked around a bit, made a few oohs and aahs while looking at the sculpturesand got back in less than 10 minutes… all of were now hungry and were contemplating on what to do next when suddenly Pallavi emerged like devi ‘Annapurna’ with a paper-plate full of Pulliogre and Curd rice (the typical South Indian dishes) we all jumped at this sight and realized that the temple trustees are offering prasadam to all the people there. We like bhukkads charged at the temple, stood in line and got ourselves a good helping of the prasadam, now I’m not a big fan of the southi delicacies but I’m not sure if I was so hungry or was the food cooked really well… I actually had 2 helpings of the food.
Bellies full we decided to roll back… the ride back was pretty similar, but the crosswinds had picked up really bad and the bikes were actually getting pulled away… now the cheap petrol that I had filled in my tank started acting up on the bike, I could feel sudden power loss in the bike at a steady speed of 80. I thought it’d be the cross wind but upon listening to the beats of the engine I could actually notice it missing a few beats every few minutes. Upon stopping at a roadside dhaba I informed the guys about this… first we devoured some egg preparations (must say the food was not all that happening) after this Rocky and I started trouble shooting on the bike and realized that the spark plug was not in a very good state and needed some cleaning, done that and we rolled again… dunno what took over Rocky post lunch on our way back… he and Orgy both disappeared into the horizons speeding line maniacs… I had maintained a steady 80 as I still didn’t want to push the bike too bad on the crappy petrol. Prateek was right on our tail all the while, saw Rocky, Pallavi and Orgy waiting for us when we reached the Hebbal flyover again… stopped there, talked for a while decided to make more plans like this and said our goodbyes… reached home around 6:30-7ish in the evening…
Reached home all thrilled and happy and glad that I’ve made friends with some of the most genuine people on this planet! Guess its too good to have a few food friends… the ride was just a day trip but my respect and admiration for my friends grew a lot!
3 comments:
naah.. i dont want to read this ride log.. :(
but then, i read it.. :P
plan to scout this place one day, Bro. may b this month itself... looks good, and teh roads are good for stretching the legs a bit...
the graphics looks cool :-D
the roads are good, but after a while become boring as they dont have much to offer... i'd still suggest that you go see Hampi if you really want to checkout good archeological stuff :)
keep me in the loop for your ride, i might join in!
Catchy graphics on the bike! A bird in flight ... is it ?
Guess your ride itch was appeased to a certain xtent :-)
btw, what bunk was it ... we should black-list it!
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