There’s no logical explanation as to why this is. It’s not the cleanest of environments. There are huge delays. It’s noisy. It probably makes me feel like a foreigner ‘discovering India’ in a very poetic way. Though probably not.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I carry this camera with me. It’s free, I guess.

“Yes of course I could do it. After all, I’m hardly attached to all of this. I could in fact wipe my entire hard drive and still not worry about a thing.”

But did I do it? No. It would be stupid to do so, right? Of course it would.

When you watch movies like the Terminator, where machines turn against Man, it’s always a measurable war between the two. In that world, the humans want the machines to die — to stop functioning, or gain control, rather. But what if that’s not the way we lose control over our existence?

I despise dogs. I hate them to the core. That’s not part of this argument, but I had to mention it. Dogs are dependent on humans for almost everything. Without humans, I doubt dogs would survive. Most of them have long since lost their natural instincts to hunt for food, and survival in nature is out of the question. Even street dogs are fed and sheltered by civilization. Dogs wouldn’t wish humans to go, because they’ve grown comfortable with our existence, and have evolved to be dependent on us. They’ve evolved to be dependent, because life with humans is easier than life in the wild. A dog is mostly always assured of food (unless I’m in charge), but the trade off is that without us, they don’t.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I reach out for is my iPad. I check my email while walking around, look at what Twitter is up to, check some sites, RSS maybe, fill up a glass of water and drink it while still peeking at my iPad screen with one eye. For god’s sake I can’t make number two without a healthy reading list in my instapaper queue. Through all facets of my life, technology and the internet play a huge role in maintaining my happiness, my high. Even during my long biking trip to South India, I had my iPhone with me, guiding me with its maps, keeping me entertained with music, and in touch with everyone. I think of train journeys in terms of what videos I’ll watch on my iPad. I think of runs on the beach as which playlist I’ll load on my shuffle. And I’m not even calling out the things that are not directly related to technology in hand. These are of course good things, and our quality of life has vastly improved because of such amenities.

The thought of living without any information technology seems like a possibility, sure. Even though most of my work depends on using technology, I know I could tune out entirely and find something else to do. Something that’s less involved with computers and the internet. I could do farming. I could hang out with people who have no interest in information technology, and talk about sports. But it would be uncomfortable, and I’ve grown comfortable with technology. I have real friends on Twitter. Leaving this would be the human equivalent of a dog hunting for food in the jungle, when there is a meaty bone being offered right where it sits.

The terminator of the real world isn’t going to kill you. It’s going to keep you alive, it’s going to keep you happy, but you won’t be able to live without it. Skynet is already here; it’s called the internet.

But I think I’ve figured out sleep. After so much of first hand experience with the sleep monster, I think I know pretty well what causes problems, and a few solutions. There’s a saying I could have used here but I just can’t put my finger on it.

All of this is knowledge based on my own experiences, and wherever I say you, I mean me.

Insomnia comes over if you stay up more than an hour after you first feel sleepy. It’s your mind forcing itself into a second wake cycle, but your body still wants its sleep. Essentially your body is too tired to work any longer, and your mind is actively thinking up new shit.

My first bit of advice is to go the fuck to sleep when you feel sleepy. Nothing better than doing that. I sometimes practice regular sleep timings, and for a week or two I manage a strict 12 a.m sleeping schedule. Those days I wake up fresh.

If you’ve lost your way for a few days and want to get back on track, it’s a little difficult sleeping before your new usual time. Drink lots of alcohol, or smoke up. Bound to knock you out at any given time. Be sure not to knock out more than 4 hours before your usual sleep time, because this will trigger a nap, leaving you wide awake a few hours out. That state is so twisted even I’m yet to figure it out.

If you do enter into a state of insomnia, get up, eat a lot of food. Don’t eat carbohydrates or things that will turn into sugar. Meat, eggs, milk are the good stuff; basically heavy foods. Eating cookies is the worst thing you could do at this point, tempting as they might be. Don’t do this every day though, as it’s bound to muck up your digestive system.

Your thoughts also need to be conditioned. Think of vague things. Don’t think of the thing you’ve just been working on. Those are the things that will keep your mind engaged and ruin your sleep. Think of improbable things that you could only dream about (see what I did there?). It’s time to bring up those unholy fantasies (though careful not to take them too far or someone else will wake up).

Never listen to music or read something while on the bed. This is one sure fire way to stay awake. Unless you’re really sleepy, and you’re sleeping at your regular time, music and reading will trick your body into staying awake in that position (unless it’s some vague dreamy music—though I still tend to pay attention). Reading is especially bad—Instapaper being the main culprit here—because when you’re done reading, your mind can’t just switch off. I know this, and have since done my reading while sitting with the lights on, or even standing, and only going to bed when I really mean it.

Lighting. Apparently there’s some warm light cold light shit going on. I read this article by Jason Freedman, which talks about bad light. Apparently, evolution has tuned our body to waking up with bright cold light, and falling asleep to warm dull light. And we need to model our environment accordingly. The first thing I do when I wake up, is walk the fuck outside. I get my sunlight units no matter what time of the day it is. This first of all flushes all the sleep out of me, and second, resets my bio clock to mark this point as the day’s beginning. Now what do we do about night? I’ve switched my cold flourescent tube with one that glows warm. I also use f.lux, which automatically warms my Mac’s display temperature; although I had been using it more because it’s soothing to the eyes. I don’t know whether this works, because I’m too darned stupid to follow a schedule, but it does make a lot of sense.

But the most important thing, is you can’t keep your phone or notebook, or iPad next to you. The motherfucker will ring in a new email, your cunt of a brain will want to check Twitter, and its back to square one. Being woken up just as you’re drifting asleep is the worst thing that could happen, and you’ll inevitably land up with another hour of tossing and turning. The best thing you can do at this point is wake up, do some work, and then reset your mind into going back to bed.

Even with all this knowledge, my sleep problems still remain, as I write this at 7 in the morning. God help me. Oh wait, I forgot, he doesn’t exist. But that’s a topic for a different story.

Praying to God to get your wishes fulfilled was invented because that’s the only way you could get the ordinary unwashed masses to meditate, an activity which has actual scientifically proven benefits today; old Hindu saints preached that the cow was a sacred animal and that keeping one in the house as a pet would get you to heaven (and killing it would reserve you a seat in hell) because they knew how essential milk was for our health and wanted to ensure that we would have a constant supply of it. […]

The forebears of human civilisation realised that they needed to incentivise doing the everyday good deeds as well and make people fear doing anything wrong and that’s why they invented God. For that reason, I believe in God, even though I don’t.

Since Aayush went ahead and shared an anecdote to illustrate his point, I’ve decided to go ahead with one, too. I have a lot of vivid dreams during my REMs. Sometimes it’s an action sequence, sometimes it’s horror, and sometimes I’m about to get lucky with Carmen Electra. I mention ‘about to’, because some assturd will wake me up just as the good stuff is about to begin. As soon consciousness takes over, the dream starts fading, and I don’t want that to happen. I quickly shut my eyes, and try to get back into that dream. I try to dream of Carmen again, about how my hands were about to discover the plastic in her chest, but she’s fading away. Everything is slowly turning to reality. The pillow now feels like a pillow, and the simulated perfume no longer exists. I will never have Carmen.

Now whether you like Carmen Electra or not, is a different matter. I have my days; but mostly, I do. That’s besides the point. The point—hypothesis, as Aayush says— is that once you know, you know. There’s no turning back. You can’t dumb yourself down, because let’s admit is, religion is all about dumbing you down. The problem with Aayush’s convoluted mess of a hypothesis, is he confuses God, with religion. God doesn’t exist. End of story. You know it, I know it he knows it. If that’s the case, you’re an atheist, and I’m an atheist; there’s no argument beyond that. Unless, of course, you do believe in God, in which case you should probably stop reading this blog, rethink your beliefs, or just sit quiet in the corner—grown ups are talking.

Religion is culture, with God thrown in just to fuck with people. Aayush is right on many counts, on how many of the religious practices came into being. Whether they are good practices or bad, that’s a whole new argument. But he confuses religion with God. There’s two things about religion that one can be absolutely sure of is thats (a) it’s man-made, and (b) is heavily evolved. Religion of the cave men is different from the religion of the Rishis a few thousand years ago, to the religion of modern day god worshippers. You can single out a few instances where practices in today’s religions have real world benefits, but collectively it’s a waste of time, and mostly detrimental.

A little about my religious beliefs. I’m a Christian. I was born into a Roman Catholic family, and I went was forced to go to church till the age of 18. I’m essentially a Christian Atheist. But I respect other people’s I celebrate Christmas, enjoy village feasts of Saints (the food part of it at least), Easter, San Joao, all that. I even celebrate Hindu festivals with my neighbours. I do not have any Muslim friends though, sadly. To me, religion is about celebrating culture, about taking days off from your regular work-life, about your relatives and friends coming together, communicating. These are important social interactions for healthy human living, and I enjoy them. I do not however waste my time at sunday church, nor do I sit around chanting the rosary, nor do I write letters to the Pope. I am, in my beliefs, and actions, an atheist.

But atheists are not just non-believers. They’re people who think for themselves. Once you remove God and religious doctrines, you have to make up your own. Every decision is your own, and you are aware of it. An atheist understands—or at least tries to understand—the thresholds of what’s good and fun, and what’s detrimental, causes harm, or is just plain fucking stupid. ‘Make up your mind’ doesn’t mean violent, uncultured, anarchic or stupid. Atheists don’t around slaughtering cows, eating unhealthy foods, or refuse to eat neem leaves, any more so than they would if they were followers of a religion. An atheist understands the reasons behind any religious practice, and practices them because of that understanding.

Thankfully, modern civilisation and things-to-do-other-than-god-stuff is bringing about a change in thinking, with a lot more atheists roaming free on this planet. This is a good thing, for the points illustrated above. Aayush isn’t exactly wrong, but he isn’t right either. First of all, I think he’s got his concepts about Agnosticism wrong. He’s clearly an atheist, so we’re off on a good start. His folly is he wants to blindly follow religion because he assumes it’s good for him; and that’s an irresponsible decision. He quotes neem and meditation, and while those are acceptable religious practices, we’ve seen a lot of them which are detrimental to humanity. Besides, religion is not even required to perform them. As we have seen, you can meditate without praying to a God, you can have neem leaves without a morning sacrifice, and humanely rear cows without considering them to be gods.

But let’s excuse Aayush this once. I have a feeling the Hawas got to him which resulted in his thought-compass going haywire. I mean, on this very same day the idiot actually wanted the iPhone to have an extra button, that would serve functions like creating new tweets. Oh Aayush, get well soon.

[To note: A German Nazi helped me collect my thoughts.]

I obviously have a problem with this.

Let me start by saying I’m not against tigers. I think they should be protected, and allowed to regenerate their population. I’m not against killing anything—except bloodsucking mosquitos and maybe our three dogs—so tigers are safe. In fact, I’ve always wanted a Tiger as a pet cat; where even an extremely large house cat would do. But, I have a problem with this largely fake sympathy toward Tigers.

Tigers and other carnivores are ecologically redundant. Their purpose in nature was to make sure the herbivores don’t eat up all of the grass, thereby leaving the earth barren; ending life. Now, humans are very well capable of doing that job—trigger happy Salman is just waiting to shoot down some black buck—so where does the Tiger fit in? The Tiger is only for the saving. The vanishing of the glamorous cat puts us all in extreme guilt for our better lives, so we want to do something about it. Nature doesn’t give a shit about Tigers. Nature doesn’t need tigers. Existence is not depending on whether or not tigers roam this planet. What are we saving them for. Our children? Aside from knowing that there are tigers in the wild, when was the last time you ever saw one? I’m not counting zoos here. And if you did make a Safari trip, how do you feel about yourself, disturbing their lives with your fucking cameras and littering?

Say something against Tigers, and it won’t be a second before someone yells out, “what a fucking self-important self-riteous selfish ass-tard”. Which is what I am. All individuals are selfish. It starts at the individual level, them family, local society, country, and finally, the species. With animals on the other hand it’s much simpler. In many cases it’s a direct jump from individual to species. Sometimes not even species. My point is we’re all selfish, so it’s not wrong to think of our species first.

Let me get the trivial stuff out of the way. We have no reason to kill tigers. Poaching is just plain wrong, and people who own tiger skin should be hanged at the local beat show. But that’s not why Tigers are disappearing—rather, they’re not proliferating. It’s because of drying watering holes, lack of prey, receding forest cover, and things like that which lead to the Tiger crossing paths with a human. Should we do something about it? What can we do about it? Not much. No matter how many speeches and documentaries we watch, we continue to use motor vehicles, we continue to eat chicken and beef, we continue to live in concrete houses, and continue to breed. As long as there’s development, there will be a climb. The climb may show a steady decline in increase, but it’s increasing nonetheless. Selfish species for sure, but evolution taught us that. It’s nature’s mistake really. It made man so powerful and smart, that he has taken over the planet. I’d like to blame this God fellow, but I’ll leave him alone for a change. But then, the age old philosophical question is asked again, “what are we here for?”. We don’t know. Intelligence, collective consciousness, and documented history could be far greater evolutionary achievements on nature’s part, than something as minor as a four legged carnivore.

So what do we do then? Just stand by and watch? No way. Do something. My parents are one of India’s greatest environmentalists (please don’t tell them I said that), and have played a crucial role in saving Goa from destruction. Truth. My brother is one of the most knowledgeable natural scientists I know, and has been educating people about the harmlessness of snakes for several years now (don’t tell that asswipe I said this either). I have reared the most awesome cat in the world. He’s been bred to be soft, sissy, good looking, and a good internet marketeer apparently. Do something for sure, something selfless that will prolong the life of this planet as we know it.

The problem with this “Save the Tiger” bullshit, is that it makes you feel like you’re doing something by not doing anything. As long as you don’t kill any tigers, and maybe have your kid draw some shitty paintings of happy tigers, you’ve done your job. It’s as fake as using a fleshlight to jerk yourself off. The real problems are swept under the rug, because (a), they’re not glamorous enough to sell a story to the public, and (b), it requires major effort and lifestyle changes on part of the public. The Ganges has turned into one filthy flow of sewage, the mountains are being hacked by people who can afford to pay bribes; we’re not worried about frogs killed for their legs, or indigenous primitive trees being hacked to make way for teak and other desirable wood, or that forest mushrooms hardly grow these days. Our priority should be to create a sustainable environment for the natural ecosystem to thrive. We need cleaner sources of energy, better laws and administration at from our government, and we need to understand that the last link of the chain is not nearly as important as the first. Make that happen, and tigers will most certainly take care of themselves.

A rare red and white tiger, spotted in its natural habitat.

I don’t know what calls me to make a biking trip. Is it the poetic idea of ‘hitting the road’, or the fear that this is the only age I’ll get to ‘freak out’ so? I don’t know. So without an explanation as to why, I’ll give you a short note on what went down that road.

On the travel plan

I depend on Google Maps. I look through the images, jotting down my path. This time, it was a 400km straight ride to Mangalore, cut across to Metikali (Coorg), and ride through the Nilgiris, passing some flatlands in Kerala, Gudalur, climbing up into Ooty, and finally, Coonoor, where my aunt awaited my arrival with chocolates made just for me.

On Getting there

There weren’t any surprises. I had initially planned on staying at my uncle’s place in Mangalore, but I got there at ~2 in the morning. Add to that now-city is completely unrecognizabke from 3 years ago. Lodges were closed. I managed to find a lonely bus stop with ledges wide enough to accomodate me. It was some terrible mosquito ridden sleep, but I needed it.

I arrived at Coorg late afternoon, and got a royal welcome at Sujata and Anurag’s Eco tourism retreat—dad’s friends. Chilled. Ate. Slept (fucking cold). Left early next morning.

Nothing much to add here. Some rough roads in between, not the greatest of scenery, and food was nothing compared to back home. Fucking Keralites and their coconut oil. I reached Coonoor withi 48 hours of leaving home—actual riding time an unknown.

On Riding Gear

Unlike the last time, I decided to get me some good riding gear to protect me from the cold as well as reduce injury should I crash into a cow. I’ve got to hand it to the Cramster guys. Splendid jacket. Not only could I ride in extreme cold, the jacket beathes enough to make riding in the hot sun quite tolerable. At no point did I get any shivers of any kind, nor did I feel the need to take it off in the sub. Only, if I did stop in the sun , I had to immediately take it off because it just absorbed all that heat leaving me drenched in sweat. Overall amazing constriction, protection, safety, and it looks awesome too.

On The Nilgiris

It’s breathtaking. The green tea gardens, the deep valleys, the clouds beneath. Riding between Coonoor, Kotagiri, and Ooty was sheer joy. The roads are smooth and well maintained. The gear of course protected me from the cold.

After two days of this though, its artificial face showed through. Neatly arranged tea gardens doesn’t exactly spell out ‘nature’. There were of course evergreen forests; beautifully covering the road in certain areas, and I enjoyed riding through those under the thick canopy.

On Coldness

I hate the fucking cold. I hate sleeping under heavy quilts, I hate heating water every time I want to drink, and I hate having my dick frozen every time I have to take a piss. Maybe I’m too stupid to actually like the hot Goan weather; I just do. That is not to say I suffered all these days. I can very well take the cold for a few days or even months. But living I do only in the tropics.

On Aunt’s place in Coonoor

For all those family folks reading this, Anjie’s place is awesome. Really nicely designed, elegant furniture, utilitarian too. Awesome that she made time for even though she was so busy.

On Photography

I hate photographers who post awesome shots, and then complain that they didn’t get it right or some bullshit like that. Also, I’m not a photographer (yet), so I didn’t expect my pictures to make it to people’s desktop wallpapers. During my trip, I remembered something a photography great had said. It’s not about having great lenses, or having years of experience (although those help). Photography is about getting up early in the morning. It’s about hiking to the precise spot on that hill. It’s about stopping, setting up your equipment, and working just because you think a particular scene might end up being a good shot.

I certainly couldn’t wake up at 5 in the morning; it was too cold and I was lazy. But if you allow me to blame equipment for my crappy shots: First, I didn’t have a UV or Polarizer filter on my lens so there was all kinds of weird hues. Second, while travelling, my bag was tied to my bike. So I couldn’t leave it unattended. Third, my left toe was hurting.

On South India

It sucks. No one speaks English or Hindi, so all I could say was “illa placename“. Road signs are all in freakin hibberish—why would they renamed a lovely name like Ooty to Ugamimagadipadam?—and the the coolest place around town was a Cafe Coffee Day. The moment I crossed the Karnataka border into Goa, I could feel the difference. For one, there’s a bar every 200 metres or so (with increasing frequency until they’re actually touching one another). For another, the people are just fun.

On Aloneness

“Of course I’ll be joining you”, said one. Another had already set aside cash. Another was just a few hours away, so definitely. I knew ultimately I would be the only one going on this epic journey. First, I don’t mind the alone. While riding I don’t see how company helps other than for protection should something happen. It would have been nice to have someone on to roam around the place though. To see a breathtaking sight, and all you’re surrounded with are monkeys and yanda-gundu speaking people isn’t all that fun.

Oh I’ll be doing this again. For sure.

The pics are terrible as usual, and I’m not just saying that. Ambolim is a beautiful place, with a deep valley, but I just couldn’t capture it right. Notice the complete absence of those pics. But there’s time to learn. Meanwhile…

I love beer. There are many who don’t, and drink it only to get a high (or to be fashionably cool), but I honestly love my beer. Especially a cold one on a hot afternoon. That’s what they are known as, cold ones. There are of course many different kinds of beer, and different brands for each kind. In Goa at least, we usually have the standard 4.8% vol. light Lager, which admittedly is best suited to the climate.

There’s Kingfisher, Tuborg, Budweiser, Fosters, Carlsberg, and Kings Black. Almost every one I know has a strong preference for one or the other, and an intense hatred for at least one of these. I’m pretty sure Budweiser is one universally hated beer; down with that American horse piss! Which brings me to Kings Black.

Brewed out of maize instead of the standard barley, Kings Black is our Goan pride. It’s made in Goa, by Goans, and is sold only in the state of Goa. It’s that special. Now what might a small Goan company have against the mighty Vijay Mallya, or even this new found “pull here for fun” Danish Tuborg? Kings is one of the ‘warmest’ beers I’ve ever had in my life. Where the rest of the lagers have this sharp cold texture, Kings fills in with a warm, round taste, like none other. It takes a little while getting used to, but it’s almost comparable to the difference between a cultivated and free range poultry (none of this makes sense to that idiot vegan from Kolkata I suppose). Every one I know who appreciates beer, has been an ardent fan of Kings.

Indians of course are stupid. They like to go to where the cool is; pretty sure no one buys an Apple product in India to appreciate it for what it really is. Any ‘new’ beer is highly appreciated, especially when some jackass returns from an introductory event at a club with an “It’s smoooooth”. It’s not. “It’s marketing” is what it is. Multinationals have immense capacities to market their products, that there’s no way real goodness can make its way into public appreciation. Turborg was only recently introduced, and it’s already in every bar/club/pub/liquor-shop/grocery-store in Goa¹. And even though advertising alcohol is banned in India, these assholes find a way to make a splash on the front pages of the local newspapers—music CDs or some bullshit like that.

The end result is dwindling availability of the better product—Kings. None of the local bars stock Kings anymore, and the other day when I went to Assagao, a sick motherfucker tried to cheat me—a Goan speaking Konkani—into buying it at 35 bucks a pint. 35 bucks a fucking pint! I immediately told him to fuck off, and walked away. Kings is the cheapest beer in Goa, costing around 20 bucks a pint (and you can get it in wholesale at Rs. 15.40 per pint). Now that’s cheapness right there.

Fun facts:

1. Kings bottles come in two colours: dark and transparent. They’re both the same, but if there’s a white guy in your group, give him the transparent one. It’s a good way to be negatively racist.
2. Kings does have quality control issues, as you might find it tasting ‘burnt’, or there might even be sediments floating around in there. Life is not perfect.
3. Kings is the only beer which refuses to go flat. You can come back to an opened bottle even after a couple of hours when it’s warm and has lost its fizz. Days even.

So if you make a trip to Goa, make sure you stop by at a run down little bar, and ask them for Kings. Insist on Kings. If they don’t have Kings, and you’re a rich fuck, buy a bottle of the piss they’re serving, take a swig, spit it out, and insist on Kings. Trust me, it’s the best.

1. Admittedly, Turborg is one of the better beers out there, but why settle for better when you can have the best?

The lion wanted to join me, but dropped out at the last. Not important.

I finally got my bike registration papers, gave it in for its three month service, and was all set to leave at 4 p.m. one Friday evening. I did leave. From thereon, began a series of mistakes which I asses started even before I left. I didn’t sleep properly, so I started with dreary eyes. I reached Karwar, 120kms from home, by which I was totally exhausted and sleepy. Hadth the dinner, and checked into a lodge. My sleep timings, whereby I sleep during the day and work during the night didn’t allow me to sleep one bit. Finally at 3 a.m., which is a lot of rolling around mind you, I had enough. I left for the epic journey, 600 kms ahead of me.

Sleep deprived and ready to go

The planned route was to go along the River Kali, up the western ghats into Dandeli, then hit the NH-4 super highway at Dhargal. I made this plan looking at Google Maps. What an epic fail that was. At Karwar I asked for directions from the lone goods carrier passing by, and he warned me against going via Dandeli. “Your bike won’t make it”.

“How bad can it be?”. I had to prove it to the gods that my bike is indeed capable of everything.

That shed I’m talking about below

After 50 kms of seeing absolutely no civilization—no trucks, no houses, no street lights—I reached the road of death. It was more like a river bed lay there. With sharp rocks. I was as I could see, fucked. I decided to brave the road. Effective speed a good 7kmph. I was shit scared for my tires, my shoulders were killing me from dodging the rocks, and I couldn’t stop because the dark forest meant a fucking panda bear could swing in from anywhere. I almost gave up, but after 6kms of this I found a checkpost. The guy said another 3kms of bad road. It was 20kms. Wasted two hours on this ordeal.

As soon as I finished the bad road, it got cold. And to make matters worse, the zipper of my leather jacket gave way halfway through. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, and hid in a little bus stop. It was still too cold for me to get any sleep, so I just lay there shivering. The sun comes up—praise the lord.

As I look back, there were some amazing pics I could have shot. The bad road. The checkpost. The mysty curves. But at the time all I could think was I GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!

I finally hit the NH-4, and there awaited another big mistake. The NH4 as many know is one long piece of straight road, right through the deccan plains. And when they say plains, they meant fucking plains. I couldn’t do anything but sit on the bike, pull the throttle to 90kmph, and wait till the horizon inched closer. Only to find more road. I had to go through 480kms of this boring road, half of which was being reconstructed so there were some rough patches.

I did get a little nap under the tree though.

Bangalore sucks. It’s nice meeting a friend there n all, but for a biking trip I think the destination should have been a little more scenic. First of all getting directions is the worst thing ever—they all speak some kind of Arabic. After finally getting them to speak some broken Hindi, a crucial bit of mis-calculation dawned upon me. Their 50% Hindi plus my 50% Hindi didn’t make 100%. It was more like a goat trying to buy its way into disneyland. Directions in Goa are so much simple—”Go straight”.

At a McDonald’s, going through a Maharaja burger

Bling had exams coming up on Monday, so he could only devote Sunday morning to his Goan friend. I don’t blame him—mine was a surprise visit.

I left on Sunday evening, with one crucial piece of advice. Which was, to fix a zipper, you need to rub a wax candle along the line. I bought one and it worked fantastically. The journey back was 10 times more pleasant. To start with, I hit a lodge after covering around 300kms, so the journey was properly split in half. Second, I took the NH206, which is much more scenic than the NH4. Third, I strung my backpack onto the backseat, so my back didn’t have to carry the load, light as it was. Fourth, I exchanged my flimsy bedsheet for the world’s most amazing blanket which bling bestowed upon me.

I hit a lodge at Bhagravhdki (or something like that), the smallest room I’ve ever been in. Still, all I needed was a clean place to stay, so it did just fine. At 4 I was up again, so I doodled around with the iPhone for a bit, you know, checking maps, twitter, shit like that. At six I was out again, and oh my fucking god it was freezing. Within 15 minutes my fingers had gone numb. I could tell since I couldn’t use the clutch very well. I prayed that if the time came to brake, I’d have the courage to pull that off. Remember, the FZ’s rear brake is useless since it’s front-weighted.

You might bring up that point about warming one’s hands by resting them on the hot engine. I’ve tried that before. What you don’t realise, is that while you can’t feel it, the engine is burning your skin. Only light taps are fine, or I would end up with blisters. I did find some villagers beside warming themselves with their little campfires; I made the best of it.

There’s no much I can say about the rest of the journey. I rode. It’s a lot different from what one is used to on the regular commute. It’s different from what I had imagined. The bike performed admirably, as the ghats were a pure delight to go through. Right amount of power, balance, and speed. I had imagined I’d take a lot more pics than I did; I didn’t. Most of scenic moments with soft light were in the wee hours of the morning, but the fucking cold was a bitch. In the afternoon the sun is way too strong for photography.

Rest assured, I’ll be making another trip somewhere awesome, real soon. And I’ll be better prepared for sure. I’m addicted.

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