A weekend of thrills

I went for a medium distance ride on a fine Saturday a couple of months ago, to a temple on the Bombay-Pune highway (not the expressway), about 50 km overall, on my all-new Bullet :-D New bikes require a run-in period when you have to closely follow the prescribed speed limits, and this is particularly true of the Bullet family, which boasts the best and most powerful bikes in India - a situation that's not likely to change soon. The ride was pleasant, made even better by the fantastic weather, though my prescribed top-speed was only 50kph.

The next day, I went for a trek organised by a group of trekking enthusiasts at office to Dhak Bhairi, which is - no points for guessing - another fort built by Shivaji in the hills. We had breakfast at around 9:45, and started the climb by around 10:15 in the morning. The group was pretty excited, with some of them never having done any treks earlier. Ten and a half hours later, we reached the base village, exhausted by the climb, the physical danger - we climbed a sheer rock ascent using ropes and our hands and feet, a height of nearly 80 ft (I think), then climbed back down the same stretch - thirst, and anger at the poor estimation of the time involved by the trek leaders. The descent down the hill seemed never-ending, thanks to our guides, in their all-knowing wisdom, having chosen a longer route coming down (longer by about 50%). At one point, I was ready to give up, as were so many others. However, it was a move or get-left-behind situation, the alternative to reaching the base village being a night on the hills, with absolutely no food, no water and only the moon for any lights. We all chose life, water and food and in that order :-) Our decision was helped in no small measure by a timely reminder by some wise guys that leopards were not uncommon in those areas. And that helped in hastening our faltering steps!

Without doubt, it was the toughest trek I'd ever done. It was also the closest to mortal peril that I've ever put myself, not to mention the Survivor-like situation we were in during the latter stages. But now that I've overcome the fear, I'd do it again, not because I wouldn't be afraid the next time, but because I now know I have it in me to come through successfully, with little or no danger to life and limbs.

A weekend of physical thrills! However, no gains without pains. My hands, shoulders, thighs and legs ached every time I got up after a period of sitting. I walked for a couple of days with a bit of difficulty, but it was a kind of delicious pain, if you know what I mean. Getting up from bed the next day was a struggle, and walking a few steps, even more, but I doubt if I'd ever exchange it for anything else! In a sense, I'm paying for pain in these "adventure" trips.

Stunned by a stranger

As he was coming out of the mall, he saw her. He did a double-take to confirm that his eyes had not deceived him. Before he could take a good second look, she had turned away and was now walking down the steps. Then, as is the wont of many women in that city, she took out a long piece of cloth from her bag and proceeded to cover her face from the nose down - a process, he sadly noted, that did not go well with his desire to make visual confirmation. Even as he was staring at her dumbly, she turned, looked at him, probably noted something terribly wrong with his open stare, and turned away quickly. He realised that he was doing something that was not only stupid, but could potentially earn him a slap from a total stranger. He collected his senses and began to walk rapidly towards her. As he neared her, however, a strange fear gripped him: what would he say to her? After all, he had done her a terrible injustice in the past. He thought to himself, "Maybe he could simply say, 'S?' and the rest of the conversation would follow spontaneously." Damn it, her gait appeared familiar, and so did her profile! Yet, he was so nervous that he simply walked past her instead of stopping to confirm his doubt.

He walked up to his bike, started it, and turned it once more in the direction he'd seen her walking. There, there she went! He quickly went past her again, and stopped a hundred feet in front so as to not appear to be a stalker, having made up his mind to talk to her, come what may. But just as she came beside the bike and he prepared himself to accost her, a truck went past, drowning out his voice. Damn! He started the bike again, noticed her talking to an autorickshaw driver, hoped that she would ride in it (so he would be able to follow discreetly), saw her resume her walking, and moved towards her. This time, he stopped directly in front of her, lifted the visor of his helmet up, and asked tentatively, "S?" "Sorry?", came the reply. "Are you S?" he asked again, in what later seemed to him a very stupid manner. "No," she said, her hand going toward the cloth that half-covered her face. He mumbled an apology, was now sure it was not her (the voice was a dead give-away, he could recognize it anywhere), and sped off on the bike. Maybe she thought he was a road-side Romeo looking for a blind date; no matter, he had made sure he didn't miss an opportunity to talk to S.

His thoughts then turned to S. How was she? Was she happy? Did she think of him at times as he did of her many times in a day? As was usual in recent times, he felt a lump in his throat, a tightening of the muscles near the temples, and the beginning of a throbbing sensation that he knew would eventually result in a headache. And subsequent feelings of guilt and shame.