Love at first ride

The work that a biker has to do in the office is like eating broth. You never want to eat it unless you are ill. But you don’t really have any option since the doctor has ordered you to do so and your mama stands right above your head to make sure that you finish the plate completely. While your mommy would settle after mumbling for some time and maybe complaining your dad, your boss won’t mind landing his Bata on your behind to see you flying off the window if you didn’t finish the project report which was meant to be sent to god-knows-who. That makes even an easily pursuable and economical passion like biking look like a candy for a five year old. He knows it lies right there above the cupboard, but won’t dare use the stool and climb up to eat it, since mum would find out anyways, and the pain that follows a tight slap is incomparably more than the taste of a candy. Now when you have the Bossy analogue of mum around, with a Veerappan moustache and a fat belly, with forearms good enough to render him fit for a weightlifting championship and a Mogambo voice, you never even think about being a kid and stealing the sweet thing.

Sometimes it happens though that there is a celebration, and the kid is allowed to eat as much as he wants. The advertisements of Pepsodent and the disgustingly ugly looking germs which would unfailingly attack the teeth and eat them up overnight are ignored for a while and the child is treated like a king. Working bikers like calling that day a ‘Weekend’. On that festive occasion, the road is like a tubful of candies and the five year kid aka us cuts loose on the sumptuous feast.

It was one such weekend, and I hadn’t slept for the entire night in anticipation. This dates back to the time when I was new to Pune and didn’t have a clue that this city had a variety of steaming hot barbeque for the wheels of my bike. All they needed to devour it was to travel 60-70 kms, in any direction they wanted to. I am not sure whether I would have lived for the next day had I known these facts at that point in time. I definitely lived then, and from what the chowkidar of my building had to say, I looked like what Shakti Kapoor looks like when he is left all alone with Lalita in an abandoned house. I fathom he must have seen the glimpse of the villain in me as I approached the bike, rubbing my hands in anticipation with a broad, wicked smile of my face.

It’s clinically proven now that the size of my brain is exactly equal to that of a pea. It’s been six months since I came to this city and I still don’t remember any other way except the one from the office to my home. To make things worse, I’ve heard that the pedestrians, bikers, rikshawalas, drivers and the likes in Pune these days are especially wary of a guy who usually rides a Fiero, wears a chequered helmet and doesn’t know Marathi. He is reported to stop them in the middle of the road. He starts by inquiring about the way to someplace and then keeps asking weird questions the answers to which have either been given already or the answers to which don’t exist at all. He keeps torturing, tormenting and emotionally blackmailing them until they faint or run away. So, you know, these days it takes me nearly triple the earlier, usual time for reaching one point to another. All because of a psychotic dunderhead. I don’t even know why my colleagues start fearfully running around in the office, grumbling nonsense the moment I ask them the way to a landmark in the city.

I started off to nowhere that day. Somebody told me that Paud was a nice place to visit as it had plenty of waterfalls and there was a nice, winding road that led to the spot. I was surprised by the fact that it took me just two hours to come out of the city and find the road that led straight to the place. My brain was seriously outperforming that day. I am not sure, it might just have been the result of the excessive anxiety that I had to endure the previous night.

I cannot just stop telling you how much I loved the place once I reached there. I never knew that Pune would be so beautiful. I never knew that the opportunities to scrape footpegs could be so plentiful. I never knew that i would fall for this city at the very first ride