Quite a few amongst you have asked me to write about what happened yesterday in the Institute. Primarily because we are a little exasperated by it, a little saddened by it, and in tried and tested fashion, have chosen to laugh about it.
Humor, unfortunately, does not have an independent existence. It is what you choose to make of a situation. If what I'm saying is not clear, read Soumya's blog about the Toni Da Dhaba episode, and then read mine (available on this page itself).
We, in the Senior batch, are for the most part, pretty lucky, in that we choose to respond with laughter to almost all that happens around us. But every now and then comes along an occasion when we need to question ourselves about whether humor is the appropriate response, and the sad part is, as far as yesterday's episodes were concerned, it isn't.
For various reasons, all of which I will not enunciate here. Which is why there won't be a post about it.
But there is a select audience out there, one that has laughed together for all these many months, and will laugh over the next two months as well. Sometimes, as happened yesterday, without an immediately obvious reason.
But there is a deeper, more poignant reason. And that is the fact that we've had the time of our lives here. We've quarreled, gotten along afterwards, had our tiffs, organized programmes, gotten drunk, gone on drives, gone together for dinner, been completely stupid, and have grown the wiser for it. And at some level, we do not want to let that part of our life go sour. We treasure these moments, because we've lived life to the full here. And that's why we stand together, and laugh about it.
Not so much at anything, but for the purpose of laughing together. Which is why you don't really need to read my blog to laugh at what happened yesterday, because you wouldn't have been doing it anyway.
To all those among you who could identify even marginally with whats written above, Cheers. To those of you who couldn't, now what to do? I write for a secluded audience.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
I was surfing on the net today afternoon. Which, as you might have guessed, happens pretty much every single day. Today, though, I had a purpose in life, a call to arms and a tryst with destiny.
I was working on my thesis.
So five minutes into the research, I started searching for Calvin and Hobbes strips online. (There are two sets of people reading this blog. One set, who knows me in passing, as mere acquaintances, or not at all; who'll chuckle in quaint amusement thinking to themselves about how short an attention span I possess. And then there's this other set of people, who'll gasp, clutch their throats, come close to passing out, and generally fall out of their seats. "Five minutes?!" they'll think. "He lasted all that long?")
Well anyways, that honest assessment of the creeps who call themselves my friends aside, there's this quote by the most precocious six year old who ever lived, that I think epitomises all that is Gokhale:
"There never is enough time to do all the nothing you want to"
If, upon reading that, visions of the bench immediately outside the boy's hostel flashes on the minds inner eye, on balmy evenings at around four p.m. with lazy thoughts of chai, then you know what I'm talking about. Well, to be fair to you guys, it doesn't have to be the bench in particular. But you know what I' talking about.
A long time ago, in Greece, when all the guys in that country were hell bent on being Spartan and noble, and finding out that which was real and Good, and heavy duty philosophical stuff like that, there was this bunch of guys who locked themselves up in a society and dedicated themselves to living the good life.
"Balls!" , they said, bravely and in defiance "Great big balls!"
"We don't know the true meaning of life, and we don't care if change is permanent, or not. Pythagoras can keep his triangle to himself, thank you very much, and Socrates should have been fed that bowl of hemlock when he was a brat in nappies. As for Plato, he can put his Republic right where it deserves to be."
The other Greeks jeered at them, and sneered condescendingly. They thought that these decadent people were the very nadir of all that was wrong with their wonderul democracy. But that didn't deter our brave clan, who fought with tenacity, and passed their legacy on, so that future generations could carry the burning torch.
So long as they (the future generations, that is) had the time and energy to light the torch, and carry it.
We're all Epicureans, people. Make no mistake.
I was working on my thesis.
So five minutes into the research, I started searching for Calvin and Hobbes strips online. (There are two sets of people reading this blog. One set, who knows me in passing, as mere acquaintances, or not at all; who'll chuckle in quaint amusement thinking to themselves about how short an attention span I possess. And then there's this other set of people, who'll gasp, clutch their throats, come close to passing out, and generally fall out of their seats. "Five minutes?!" they'll think. "He lasted all that long?")
Well anyways, that honest assessment of the creeps who call themselves my friends aside, there's this quote by the most precocious six year old who ever lived, that I think epitomises all that is Gokhale:
"There never is enough time to do all the nothing you want to"
If, upon reading that, visions of the bench immediately outside the boy's hostel flashes on the minds inner eye, on balmy evenings at around four p.m. with lazy thoughts of chai, then you know what I'm talking about. Well, to be fair to you guys, it doesn't have to be the bench in particular. But you know what I' talking about.
A long time ago, in Greece, when all the guys in that country were hell bent on being Spartan and noble, and finding out that which was real and Good, and heavy duty philosophical stuff like that, there was this bunch of guys who locked themselves up in a society and dedicated themselves to living the good life.
"Balls!" , they said, bravely and in defiance "Great big balls!"
"We don't know the true meaning of life, and we don't care if change is permanent, or not. Pythagoras can keep his triangle to himself, thank you very much, and Socrates should have been fed that bowl of hemlock when he was a brat in nappies. As for Plato, he can put his Republic right where it deserves to be."
The other Greeks jeered at them, and sneered condescendingly. They thought that these decadent people were the very nadir of all that was wrong with their wonderul democracy. But that didn't deter our brave clan, who fought with tenacity, and passed their legacy on, so that future generations could carry the burning torch.
So long as they (the future generations, that is) had the time and energy to light the torch, and carry it.
We're all Epicureans, people. Make no mistake.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Gokhale always has been, and always will be, full of people who are, well, Gokhaleites. It is a term that escapes definition, and you only know what I'm talking about when you've met a Gokhaleite. For all outward appearances, they (Gokhaleites) are normal, easygoing, friendly, extroverted people. Look carefully and you'll notice the well hidden, yet omnipresent signs of complete, deranged and terrifying lunacy.
A shining example of this tribe is the remarkable Abhinav Kumar Rastogi, known to his fellow inmates by the sobriquet Chaman. Avid readers of these pages will recall that the undersigned had set off on a trip to Goa with Chaman about a couple of weeks back. This post is not about that trip, although that was the scheduled update. Nor is it about the football matches, which were catastrophic enough to make us pretend that they never happened. They didn't, by the way, so everybody, quit asking about them.
This is about a trip to Toni da Dhaba.
Toni da Dhaba is, well, a dhaba about 40 kilometers away from Pune on the Mumbai Pune Highway. It's a nice enough place, serving decent food, and slightly expensive booze, with a very whacky menu. Since the mess is closed on Saturday nights, six people set off for Toni da Dhaba on Saturday evening. Three of them didn't belong to the hostel, but what's your point?
Gautam Tamhane (a.k.a GT): Freak. Freakishly thin, freakishly funny, freakishly sarcastic, and all in all, well, an outstanding example of Gokhaleness. Some people maintain that the last quality resides in him a wee bit too much, especially at five in the morning, but well, you got to take the rough with the smooth.
Soumya Mahapatra: Sharp tongue. Friend. Buddy. Hair-raising sight when drunk. Hair-raising sight otherwise.
Vasundhara Sen: Refer above.
Bhavana Verma: Sweet girl. Friend. Buddy. Reluctant drinker (in our tribe, that's a foul, but we're working on it. The disease, we maintain, is curable)
Ashish Kulkarni: Tall, dark, and handsome.
Abhinav Kumar Rastogi (a.k.a Chaman): Read on.
MH-12-AT-422: Hero Honda Splendor No. 1. Owned by GT, and played an incidental role in the drama.
MH-12-BE-8015: Hero Honda Splendor No. 2. Owned by Shoan Joshi, whose patience has now been stretched beyond all appreciable limits. Driven by yours truly.
MH-12-G-4780: Yamaha RX-100. The lead actor.
The trip to Toni da Dhaba is sheer pleasure. One takes any road leading out of the University Circle, hooks up with NH-4, and motors along it up until and beyond the Expressway, beyond Talegaon, beyond Somatne, and just before Kamshet, on the right, lies Toni da Dhaba. It's a road that has been widened recently, is smooth, fast and all in all, a fun experience. Up until just before Toni da Dhaba, that is. Work is still going on for about a couple of kilometers out there, so the traffic piles onto one side of the road, and speeds are excruciatingly slow. Which, as it turns out, is a good thing.
In time honored Gokhale tradition, we set off for the place bang on time, exactly two hours behind schedule. The drive up to the place was uneventful, save for a loose nut on the Yamaha. The threading on the front mudguard had come loose, and the nut could not be fixed properly. So the front mudguard was a little unhinged, much like its rider, and well, since I'm brutally honest, much like its owner as well.
Oh yeah, as an aside, I must talk about the rumblers. About five kilometers or so before Toni da Dhaba, lies a thing that should be a source of revenue for the Tourism Department. There's a school just off the road, that is protected on its either side by the most fantastic speed-breakers ever. Ever. I exaggerate not. There's a wide bending curve leading up to the speed breakers, and then, in succession, there are about ten wide tall and handsome breakers on the road, about half a foot from each other. They shake the body and soul, rape the spinal cord, rob the rider off any lingering sleepiness, throw the pillion rider into the wilderness (that last statement doesn't apply to me. Boshu was behind me. They're seriously good speed breakers, but they ain't miracles), and generally announce their presence in a manner that stays with you for days to come.
So we reached Toni Da Dhaba, and had a good time during dinner, ably aided by the hilarious menu (they serve the Hakka Bakka Akha Bakra Biryani. I'm serious. And that's not the funniest bit. It's for 1400 bucks.) and the world's most talented burper. Oh boy, that man could burp. Really burp. I mean, to put things in perspective, Sumedh and Darshan wouldn't even make the cut when this champ started in with his tummy recitals. Yes, even Darshan.
I know he'll want me to put this up on record, and I suppose he's got a point. Just before we went in for dinner, Chaman said that the nut had come loose, really loose, and we should tie up the mudguard with some rope. I said (or maybe it was GT, you know my memory, now don't you?) that it could be done after dinner as well. There, posted for everybody to read, happy? Come to think of it, it was GT who said that we should do it after dinner. And of course, after dinner, we plain forgot.
It was about midnight by the time we set off for the return leg of the journey. GT, on the first bike drove ahead, I was in the middle, with Chaman bringing up the rear. About a couple of kilometers ahead, we got a call from Bhavna, saying that they'd fallen down.
So I go ahead, and yell out to GT that Chaman's down, and we turn back.
About a kilometer or so behind, there's a bit of a jam on the road, with Chaman standing beside the Yamaha, Bhavana sitting on the shoulder of the road, head in her hands, and concerned people standing all around. Just a tad scary, but there's this huge sigh of relief when you see that both are seemingly OK. Alive, man. We can take it from there.
Turns out the mudguard had come off, putting the bike into a skid. Chaman's got scratched, and pretty badly, on his knee and elbow, while Bhavna has got hurt, though not as badly, on her ankle. All on the left.
Now, with truck drivers all around, we figured, GT and I, that is, we couldn't leave Boshu and Soumya out there. I mean, yeah, Boshu and Soumya, sure, but still and all. Think about all those poor truck drivers. They wouldn't know what hit them.
So while Chaman and Bhavana waited, we went and dropped the girls at Toni da Dhaba. They were to find out if any cars were going back to Pune, and ask if Chaman and Bhavana could accompany them. And also pick up some first aid stuff from an adjoining store. We went back and picked up Chaman and Bhavana, and came back to the restaurant.
Turns out there was no car going back to Pune that night. Murphy, of course.
By the time we got back to the dhaba, Boshu and Soumya has gotten a pack of some antiseptic cream, along with some gauze.
Bhavna, ladies and gentlemen, is a freak when it comes to dressing wounds. Woe betide the poor soul who approaches her wounds armed with nothing more than some harmless cotton. Me, I'd recommend a Bazooka and a couple of large cannons. And valid life insurance policies. Two.
Chaman on the other hand. What a man. By the time the girls had finished dressing his wounds, it was clear that the damage was nothing very serious. The man, who'd up until that point of time been uncharacteristically quiet, got back to his chirpy old self with typical speed. First off, he suggested that, you know, now that everything is OK, and nobody's dead and all, well, seeing as we're all here, how about a bottle of beer? No? Well, OK, fine, I'll settle for a cigarette then.
The only solution that presented itself to us was to call up Malavika from the hostel, and ask her and GP to get their car to Toni da Dhaba, and get the two supposed victims back to the hostel. So Boshu calls them up and tells them that this accident has happened, and that they should come along. Gokhaleites. Of course they'd come.
Meanwhile, GT and I went back to the scene of the carnage to pick up the bike. The leg guard on the left was pretty much mangled, there was obviously no front mudguard, the left handle-grip was, well, there' no other word for it, screwed. The gear would work only if given a firm kick on either side. So we decided that it was pretty risky to drive it, and asked the guys at a nearby petrol pump if they'd consider keeping it. Those towering intellects refused, saying that the police would come and ask whose bike it was. (Objection to Insane Objection: Why would the police go around asking whose bike it was? Not only where the Yamaha was concerned. Do the police come to your place asking whose bike is parked down below? Not to my place they don't. Another Objection to Insane Objection: Tell them it's mine, you crazy ape. I'm giving you my address, my phone number, and my college address. What more do you need?)
So we decided that that it wasn't all that risky to drive it, and that's what I proceeded to do.
So we go back, and wait for the knights in the Daewoo Matiz. Who call up in about half an hour and say that they've reached the petrol pump, where they wanted to fill fuel. They've forgotten to get money, so they'll go back a distance of about ten kilometers, get money from an ATM, and then come back. Sigh.
They reach aforementioned petrol pump, where the attendant casually mentions that there was an ATM about a couple of buildings away. SIGH.
So we wait at the dhaba, which has emptied out by now (approximately 2 in the morning). We eat paan, caramel lollipop, and strawberry lollipop. I drop my strawberry lollipop. Chaman tries to take Soumya's strawberry lollipop and drops it on the gravel in the drive-in. He picks up the lollipop and proceeds to finish it. I say it so matter-of-factly because he did it so matter-of-factly. Meet him now and ask him about it. He'll still maintain that air of bemused puzzlement.
About half an hour later, we get a call from Josie, who is also in the car (oh, late in the day, but for what it's worth, some of you might not know who Malavika, Josie, GP, Sumedh, Darshan etc. are. Well, too bad, man.) saying that they're almost there. We tell them that since Toni da Dhaba is a little off the road, and since the lights are all turned off, we'll stand on the road, waiting for them. GT and I, that is.
So we go there, armed with nothing more than a packet of biscuits, and begin the vigil, munching contentedly on the packet. Five minutes into this watch, it suddenly hits me that the two of us must be scaring the holy s**t out of anybody driving our way. It's nearly three in the morning, its pitch dark and bitterly cold, and there are two guys standing out on the road, eating biscuits. Picture it, you're half sleepy, nice and warm in that heater equipped car of yours, thinking alternately of the wonderful dinner you had, and your bed at home, when suddenly you spot two guys on the road. Standing there with no aim in life. Looking closely at you and your car. Eating biscuits.
You see what I mean about we looking normal but being complete lunatics. Wodehouse thought he was writing fiction when he wrote novels with plots as outrageous as this. At Gokhale, we call 'em Saturday nights.
Then Murphy goes into overdrive. GP calls to say that they're stuck in a huge traffic jam, and that there's no way to go ahead. If we could drop Chaman and Bhavan at the pace where they're stuck, they just might be able to turn back.
Like we have a choice.
So we set off, GT and I, with those two behind us, and head into a traffic jam of monolithic proportions. Why it was there, we never could figure out. It just was. Long and messy and noisy and chaotic. On both sides of a road of which only one was complete. With these two behind us at three in the morning. Searching for a car that might be on either side of the road, possibly hidden behind trucks. You know, child's play.
Find the car we did, and put them in. Drove back and got those two. Reached Joshi hospital at four thirty, found that it was nothing major, went to Naani House and slept. At five in the morning, bravely fighting off a concentrated assault from GT, who insisted that we go get ourselves a bottle of booze. Just to round the night off, sort of.
You know, I studied like mad to get into DSE. For two years. Didn't come close. Complained like mad back then. He moves in mysterious ways, but he does perform his wonders, the guy up there. That much I'll give him.
A shining example of this tribe is the remarkable Abhinav Kumar Rastogi, known to his fellow inmates by the sobriquet Chaman. Avid readers of these pages will recall that the undersigned had set off on a trip to Goa with Chaman about a couple of weeks back. This post is not about that trip, although that was the scheduled update. Nor is it about the football matches, which were catastrophic enough to make us pretend that they never happened. They didn't, by the way, so everybody, quit asking about them.
This is about a trip to Toni da Dhaba.
Toni da Dhaba is, well, a dhaba about 40 kilometers away from Pune on the Mumbai Pune Highway. It's a nice enough place, serving decent food, and slightly expensive booze, with a very whacky menu. Since the mess is closed on Saturday nights, six people set off for Toni da Dhaba on Saturday evening. Three of them didn't belong to the hostel, but what's your point?
Gautam Tamhane (a.k.a GT): Freak. Freakishly thin, freakishly funny, freakishly sarcastic, and all in all, well, an outstanding example of Gokhaleness. Some people maintain that the last quality resides in him a wee bit too much, especially at five in the morning, but well, you got to take the rough with the smooth.
Soumya Mahapatra: Sharp tongue. Friend. Buddy. Hair-raising sight when drunk. Hair-raising sight otherwise.
Vasundhara Sen: Refer above.
Bhavana Verma: Sweet girl. Friend. Buddy. Reluctant drinker (in our tribe, that's a foul, but we're working on it. The disease, we maintain, is curable)
Ashish Kulkarni: Tall, dark, and handsome.
Abhinav Kumar Rastogi (a.k.a Chaman): Read on.
MH-12-AT-422: Hero Honda Splendor No. 1. Owned by GT, and played an incidental role in the drama.
MH-12-BE-8015: Hero Honda Splendor No. 2. Owned by Shoan Joshi, whose patience has now been stretched beyond all appreciable limits. Driven by yours truly.
MH-12-G-4780: Yamaha RX-100. The lead actor.
The trip to Toni da Dhaba is sheer pleasure. One takes any road leading out of the University Circle, hooks up with NH-4, and motors along it up until and beyond the Expressway, beyond Talegaon, beyond Somatne, and just before Kamshet, on the right, lies Toni da Dhaba. It's a road that has been widened recently, is smooth, fast and all in all, a fun experience. Up until just before Toni da Dhaba, that is. Work is still going on for about a couple of kilometers out there, so the traffic piles onto one side of the road, and speeds are excruciatingly slow. Which, as it turns out, is a good thing.
In time honored Gokhale tradition, we set off for the place bang on time, exactly two hours behind schedule. The drive up to the place was uneventful, save for a loose nut on the Yamaha. The threading on the front mudguard had come loose, and the nut could not be fixed properly. So the front mudguard was a little unhinged, much like its rider, and well, since I'm brutally honest, much like its owner as well.
Oh yeah, as an aside, I must talk about the rumblers. About five kilometers or so before Toni da Dhaba, lies a thing that should be a source of revenue for the Tourism Department. There's a school just off the road, that is protected on its either side by the most fantastic speed-breakers ever. Ever. I exaggerate not. There's a wide bending curve leading up to the speed breakers, and then, in succession, there are about ten wide tall and handsome breakers on the road, about half a foot from each other. They shake the body and soul, rape the spinal cord, rob the rider off any lingering sleepiness, throw the pillion rider into the wilderness (that last statement doesn't apply to me. Boshu was behind me. They're seriously good speed breakers, but they ain't miracles), and generally announce their presence in a manner that stays with you for days to come.
So we reached Toni Da Dhaba, and had a good time during dinner, ably aided by the hilarious menu (they serve the Hakka Bakka Akha Bakra Biryani. I'm serious. And that's not the funniest bit. It's for 1400 bucks.) and the world's most talented burper. Oh boy, that man could burp. Really burp. I mean, to put things in perspective, Sumedh and Darshan wouldn't even make the cut when this champ started in with his tummy recitals. Yes, even Darshan.
I know he'll want me to put this up on record, and I suppose he's got a point. Just before we went in for dinner, Chaman said that the nut had come loose, really loose, and we should tie up the mudguard with some rope. I said (or maybe it was GT, you know my memory, now don't you?) that it could be done after dinner as well. There, posted for everybody to read, happy? Come to think of it, it was GT who said that we should do it after dinner. And of course, after dinner, we plain forgot.
It was about midnight by the time we set off for the return leg of the journey. GT, on the first bike drove ahead, I was in the middle, with Chaman bringing up the rear. About a couple of kilometers ahead, we got a call from Bhavna, saying that they'd fallen down.
So I go ahead, and yell out to GT that Chaman's down, and we turn back.
About a kilometer or so behind, there's a bit of a jam on the road, with Chaman standing beside the Yamaha, Bhavana sitting on the shoulder of the road, head in her hands, and concerned people standing all around. Just a tad scary, but there's this huge sigh of relief when you see that both are seemingly OK. Alive, man. We can take it from there.
Turns out the mudguard had come off, putting the bike into a skid. Chaman's got scratched, and pretty badly, on his knee and elbow, while Bhavna has got hurt, though not as badly, on her ankle. All on the left.
Now, with truck drivers all around, we figured, GT and I, that is, we couldn't leave Boshu and Soumya out there. I mean, yeah, Boshu and Soumya, sure, but still and all. Think about all those poor truck drivers. They wouldn't know what hit them.
So while Chaman and Bhavana waited, we went and dropped the girls at Toni da Dhaba. They were to find out if any cars were going back to Pune, and ask if Chaman and Bhavana could accompany them. And also pick up some first aid stuff from an adjoining store. We went back and picked up Chaman and Bhavana, and came back to the restaurant.
Turns out there was no car going back to Pune that night. Murphy, of course.
By the time we got back to the dhaba, Boshu and Soumya has gotten a pack of some antiseptic cream, along with some gauze.
Bhavna, ladies and gentlemen, is a freak when it comes to dressing wounds. Woe betide the poor soul who approaches her wounds armed with nothing more than some harmless cotton. Me, I'd recommend a Bazooka and a couple of large cannons. And valid life insurance policies. Two.
Chaman on the other hand. What a man. By the time the girls had finished dressing his wounds, it was clear that the damage was nothing very serious. The man, who'd up until that point of time been uncharacteristically quiet, got back to his chirpy old self with typical speed. First off, he suggested that, you know, now that everything is OK, and nobody's dead and all, well, seeing as we're all here, how about a bottle of beer? No? Well, OK, fine, I'll settle for a cigarette then.
The only solution that presented itself to us was to call up Malavika from the hostel, and ask her and GP to get their car to Toni da Dhaba, and get the two supposed victims back to the hostel. So Boshu calls them up and tells them that this accident has happened, and that they should come along. Gokhaleites. Of course they'd come.
Meanwhile, GT and I went back to the scene of the carnage to pick up the bike. The leg guard on the left was pretty much mangled, there was obviously no front mudguard, the left handle-grip was, well, there' no other word for it, screwed. The gear would work only if given a firm kick on either side. So we decided that it was pretty risky to drive it, and asked the guys at a nearby petrol pump if they'd consider keeping it. Those towering intellects refused, saying that the police would come and ask whose bike it was. (Objection to Insane Objection: Why would the police go around asking whose bike it was? Not only where the Yamaha was concerned. Do the police come to your place asking whose bike is parked down below? Not to my place they don't. Another Objection to Insane Objection: Tell them it's mine, you crazy ape. I'm giving you my address, my phone number, and my college address. What more do you need?)
So we decided that that it wasn't all that risky to drive it, and that's what I proceeded to do.
So we go back, and wait for the knights in the Daewoo Matiz. Who call up in about half an hour and say that they've reached the petrol pump, where they wanted to fill fuel. They've forgotten to get money, so they'll go back a distance of about ten kilometers, get money from an ATM, and then come back. Sigh.
They reach aforementioned petrol pump, where the attendant casually mentions that there was an ATM about a couple of buildings away. SIGH.
So we wait at the dhaba, which has emptied out by now (approximately 2 in the morning). We eat paan, caramel lollipop, and strawberry lollipop. I drop my strawberry lollipop. Chaman tries to take Soumya's strawberry lollipop and drops it on the gravel in the drive-in. He picks up the lollipop and proceeds to finish it. I say it so matter-of-factly because he did it so matter-of-factly. Meet him now and ask him about it. He'll still maintain that air of bemused puzzlement.
About half an hour later, we get a call from Josie, who is also in the car (oh, late in the day, but for what it's worth, some of you might not know who Malavika, Josie, GP, Sumedh, Darshan etc. are. Well, too bad, man.) saying that they're almost there. We tell them that since Toni da Dhaba is a little off the road, and since the lights are all turned off, we'll stand on the road, waiting for them. GT and I, that is.
So we go there, armed with nothing more than a packet of biscuits, and begin the vigil, munching contentedly on the packet. Five minutes into this watch, it suddenly hits me that the two of us must be scaring the holy s**t out of anybody driving our way. It's nearly three in the morning, its pitch dark and bitterly cold, and there are two guys standing out on the road, eating biscuits. Picture it, you're half sleepy, nice and warm in that heater equipped car of yours, thinking alternately of the wonderful dinner you had, and your bed at home, when suddenly you spot two guys on the road. Standing there with no aim in life. Looking closely at you and your car. Eating biscuits.
You see what I mean about we looking normal but being complete lunatics. Wodehouse thought he was writing fiction when he wrote novels with plots as outrageous as this. At Gokhale, we call 'em Saturday nights.
Then Murphy goes into overdrive. GP calls to say that they're stuck in a huge traffic jam, and that there's no way to go ahead. If we could drop Chaman and Bhavan at the pace where they're stuck, they just might be able to turn back.
Like we have a choice.
So we set off, GT and I, with those two behind us, and head into a traffic jam of monolithic proportions. Why it was there, we never could figure out. It just was. Long and messy and noisy and chaotic. On both sides of a road of which only one was complete. With these two behind us at three in the morning. Searching for a car that might be on either side of the road, possibly hidden behind trucks. You know, child's play.
Find the car we did, and put them in. Drove back and got those two. Reached Joshi hospital at four thirty, found that it was nothing major, went to Naani House and slept. At five in the morning, bravely fighting off a concentrated assault from GT, who insisted that we go get ourselves a bottle of booze. Just to round the night off, sort of.
You know, I studied like mad to get into DSE. For two years. Didn't come close. Complained like mad back then. He moves in mysterious ways, but he does perform his wonders, the guy up there. That much I'll give him.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
So there's two Tuts coming up on Thursday and Friday, and I'm supposed to be making notes for one of them. As in the study group that I'm in (tears of laughter, please) has decided that I should prepare notes on something to do with Keynes and Business Cycles. Expect a lot of updates on the blog this week.
As the crow flies, Goa is roughly 400 kilometres from Pune. And while there are a whole host of roads that one can choose from Gokhale to reach Goa, Chaman and I decided that we would take one of the longer ones while going. Which meant that we would go via Chandni Chowk, past Mulshi lake, into the Tamhini Ghat, and from there on down onto NH 17.
On the bike, a 2001 Hero Honda Splendor (MH-12-BE-8015), were two guys, one of them slightly on the heavier side of things, two helmets, one extremely large haversack and a smaller bag containing a first aid kit, a towel, tissue paper, and other odds and ends.
Life's Little Lesson No. 1: Pack your bag for a trip like this, and then throw out 80% of the clothes, and 50% of the other stuff. Unless you have a member of the fairer sex accompanying you. Only in that case is carrying all of what we carried understandable, and maybe not even then.
You see, thing is, the Splendor was designed to ferry two reasonably thin people around, strictly within city limits, and even in those undemanding conditions, it isn't exactly the most comfrotable joy ride around. On a trip that's going to take the better part of a day, lugging a haversack that's as big as you are is no fun.
When we left Pune, the odometer read 14,007 kilometres. By the way, that is privileged information, since that (the odometer) was one of the very few functioning parts on the Splendor. The horn was non-existent, the indicators were not working, we did not have the registration papers or the insurance papers, or the PUC, and I certainly did not have my licence, having lost it last March. It was one of those carefully planned campaigns.
At the outset, taking the route we took seemed to be a rather bad idea, since it was narrow, pot-hole infested, under construction and generally a pain in the butt.
Life's Little Lesson No. 2: Always, always remove the helmet lock that all bikes in Pune have on the rear before you leave on as long a trip as this. That last sentence ends with the phrase "pain in the butt". Very literally.
But conditions improved drastically as we reached Mulshi lake, with the road becoming better, the air appreciably cooler and the scenery taking an undoubted turn for the better. A little beyond the lake we stopped for our first pee break of the day. A little word of advise for the uninitiated. Bike rides, and the breaks in between them, can be measured in terms of pee-breaks, or in terms of cigarette breaks. I plump for the latter, since smokers seem to have developed this in built clock that times breaks to perfection. Not only the duration between breaks, but the breaks themselves are measured out very nicely by the time it takes to smoke one cigarette. Always travel with a smoker.
And then owards into the Tamhini Ghat. Starting a little below Bombay, and stretching all the way down into Goa, strung out in a long proud line, are the Sahyadri mountains. Adjoining these mountains on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other, is that part of Maharashtra which is known as the Konkan. There are a number of ghats winding their way down the Sahyadri, prinicipal among them being the Tamhini Ghat, the Poladpur Ghat, the Amba Ghat, the Radhanagari Ghat and the Amboli Ghat. There are others as well, but we'll leave those for another day.
The Tamhini Ghat leads downwards into Madgaon, which is where one hooks up with NH17. Wooded, tall, imposing, winding, scenic, and quiet.
Quiet. When you turn off your bike and stop to smoke a cigarette, you hear the sound of nothing. No vehicles, no hum-drum, no horns, no twittering of the birds, nothing. Quiet.
I know you're not going to do it, I know I wouldn't do it myself, principally because Newton was talking about more than Physics when he dreamt up inertia, but its worth a ride to a place like the Tamhini Ghat just to be able to savour the true meaning of the word quiet.
Well, it's 12.30 in the night here, and Keynes beckons. I'll be up with the second post in about half an hour or so, I suppose. Sigh.
As the crow flies, Goa is roughly 400 kilometres from Pune. And while there are a whole host of roads that one can choose from Gokhale to reach Goa, Chaman and I decided that we would take one of the longer ones while going. Which meant that we would go via Chandni Chowk, past Mulshi lake, into the Tamhini Ghat, and from there on down onto NH 17.
On the bike, a 2001 Hero Honda Splendor (MH-12-BE-8015), were two guys, one of them slightly on the heavier side of things, two helmets, one extremely large haversack and a smaller bag containing a first aid kit, a towel, tissue paper, and other odds and ends.
Life's Little Lesson No. 1: Pack your bag for a trip like this, and then throw out 80% of the clothes, and 50% of the other stuff. Unless you have a member of the fairer sex accompanying you. Only in that case is carrying all of what we carried understandable, and maybe not even then.
You see, thing is, the Splendor was designed to ferry two reasonably thin people around, strictly within city limits, and even in those undemanding conditions, it isn't exactly the most comfrotable joy ride around. On a trip that's going to take the better part of a day, lugging a haversack that's as big as you are is no fun.
When we left Pune, the odometer read 14,007 kilometres. By the way, that is privileged information, since that (the odometer) was one of the very few functioning parts on the Splendor. The horn was non-existent, the indicators were not working, we did not have the registration papers or the insurance papers, or the PUC, and I certainly did not have my licence, having lost it last March. It was one of those carefully planned campaigns.
At the outset, taking the route we took seemed to be a rather bad idea, since it was narrow, pot-hole infested, under construction and generally a pain in the butt.
Life's Little Lesson No. 2: Always, always remove the helmet lock that all bikes in Pune have on the rear before you leave on as long a trip as this. That last sentence ends with the phrase "pain in the butt". Very literally.
But conditions improved drastically as we reached Mulshi lake, with the road becoming better, the air appreciably cooler and the scenery taking an undoubted turn for the better. A little beyond the lake we stopped for our first pee break of the day. A little word of advise for the uninitiated. Bike rides, and the breaks in between them, can be measured in terms of pee-breaks, or in terms of cigarette breaks. I plump for the latter, since smokers seem to have developed this in built clock that times breaks to perfection. Not only the duration between breaks, but the breaks themselves are measured out very nicely by the time it takes to smoke one cigarette. Always travel with a smoker.
And then owards into the Tamhini Ghat. Starting a little below Bombay, and stretching all the way down into Goa, strung out in a long proud line, are the Sahyadri mountains. Adjoining these mountains on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other, is that part of Maharashtra which is known as the Konkan. There are a number of ghats winding their way down the Sahyadri, prinicipal among them being the Tamhini Ghat, the Poladpur Ghat, the Amba Ghat, the Radhanagari Ghat and the Amboli Ghat. There are others as well, but we'll leave those for another day.
The Tamhini Ghat leads downwards into Madgaon, which is where one hooks up with NH17. Wooded, tall, imposing, winding, scenic, and quiet.
Quiet. When you turn off your bike and stop to smoke a cigarette, you hear the sound of nothing. No vehicles, no hum-drum, no horns, no twittering of the birds, nothing. Quiet.
I know you're not going to do it, I know I wouldn't do it myself, principally because Newton was talking about more than Physics when he dreamt up inertia, but its worth a ride to a place like the Tamhini Ghat just to be able to savour the true meaning of the word quiet.
Well, it's 12.30 in the night here, and Keynes beckons. I'll be up with the second post in about half an hour or so, I suppose. Sigh.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Back from Goa, and no matter what you say, or what I think, leaving Goa is a tough thing, so there. All the more so when the Gokhale you care about isn't back in Gokhale. Which should make eminent sense to all the equally schizophrenic Gokhaleites I know.
So yeah, the Goa trip. Expect (rather optimistically, since today was supposed to be the first installment) regular postings here about the trip, and small lessons in life gleaned during the duration (I'm sure that's phrased incorrectly, but its two in the morning and I'm not going to play editor) of the trip.
As a teaser, consider this first piece of wisdom, straight from Sage Chaman: "Goa is, like, so balanced, man! There's sand and there's beer. So you drink beer, and then you walk in the sand. Walking in the sand is tough, man. So you, like, get tired man! And that makes you thirsty. And so you drink more beer. Balanced. I mean... yeah, balanced"
There's a poet lurking within all of us. Some of us compose sonnets, and most Gokhaleites make the haiku look like an obvious art form, but there certainly is a poet inside all of us.
So yeah, the Goa trip. Expect (rather optimistically, since today was supposed to be the first installment) regular postings here about the trip, and small lessons in life gleaned during the duration (I'm sure that's phrased incorrectly, but its two in the morning and I'm not going to play editor) of the trip.
As a teaser, consider this first piece of wisdom, straight from Sage Chaman: "Goa is, like, so balanced, man! There's sand and there's beer. So you drink beer, and then you walk in the sand. Walking in the sand is tough, man. So you, like, get tired man! And that makes you thirsty. And so you drink more beer. Balanced. I mean... yeah, balanced"
There's a poet lurking within all of us. Some of us compose sonnets, and most Gokhaleites make the haiku look like an obvious art form, but there certainly is a poet inside all of us.
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