Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Lonely Bicycle Ride To Chikka Tirupathi

This weekend was supposed to be a lonely one, with most of the people i hang out with comfortably settled at home. The good thing about loneliness is it gives an opportunity to convert the crazy ideas in mind into reality. One such i had in mind was to go on a long cycle trip and a trip all alone. Decided to put that into test with my friend's cycle. Knowing my energy levels, decided on Chikka Tirupathi, a small temple around 30KMs from my home and plan was to wake up early in the morning and start the trip before it is too becomes too hot. And that always turns out to be the difficult part of the trip. As usual woke up a little late when it became too hot to sleep :(

Finally started the trip at around 10.15AM. Soon felt like a wrong decision to roast yourself in the hot sun, when i had the option of spending the weekend peacefully at home watching a movie and roaming inside the city in bike. Still decided to continue for some more time and once i reached the outer areas, it became interesting with cool breeze adding a little to the motivation. Had stopped only once to take rest for the first 25Kms. Slowly and steadily i reached the temple at around 12.30PM. I was impressed, 12KMPH was not something i expected. The temple is pretty small and i spent little time roaming inside the temple.

Decided to start the return journey in the afternoon so that i can reach home before evening. Soon i realized it was a disaster. It was terribly hot and i was covered in sweat pretty soon. Short breaks didn't help in anyway and i was riding without having lunch too. While i could manage outside the city the conditions worsened once i reached city. It became more and more horrible. Read somewhere that while going you sit on a saddle, during the return journey it feels like a needle. Would agree with that 100% it was a hot hot needle. With many many breaks which i didn't want to count, reached home at last after four hours :-)

It was good trip to start with. Few mistakes from which i can learn. Hope to continue with this.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Travel Time Gossips

X: Why she should call me up and dictate me how I should drive. I am applying brakes often it seems. What else should I do, bang the vehicle in front ?
Y: What was your response ? Did you agree to what she said ?
X: No
Y: good.. if you start saying yes now, you will have to do for the rest of your life.

The conversation continued as I settled down in my seat, as usual it was the upper berth, the undisturbed berth and continued to listen to them when eyes lazily scanning lines of the book in hand.  I know i wont be reading much that day, eavesdropping was so much fun. X was still a bit furious. He was not clearly happy with his mother-in-law teaching him how to drive a bike and when to apply brakes over phone. While the conversation between two married guys is funny, the conversation between married couples is a bit scary, atleast for the bachelors.

From what i guessed, most of them seem to happen after the couple visit their in-laws and return back to bangalore. Once there was this young couple who decided to settle everything in the train itself. Though it was not serious, but nothing close to fun. It was a stiff argument between them, with the gal and the guy quoting numerous examples supporting their parents and against their in-laws. The gal was cute but sharp in words. She complained of his attitude towards her parents, and was stressing on the point how bad her parents felt and how the guy should have responded. The guy proved he has a good memory power too. It started when the train started from my home town and went non-stop for hours before i decided to sleep.

Once saw a little older couple and the ways they used to handle was ripe with maturity. The guy was like a rock, the lady poured like rain. Only action from him was nod of the head at times. He looked like an expert at handling these issues. To a bachelor, he was a walking example. When i look at things like this, just get paranoid about all these marriage stuff and later get convinced thinking they could just be exceptions. Hopefully time will have an answer :-)