Fading Harmony Rediscovered

It wasn't the same... just not like the old times. In the recent past, after my bike was transported to Jammu and back to be precise, the ease with which I used to ride, the comfort level and confidence were not at all what they used to be. Me and my bike were simply not running as a well oiled machine. :-) Was it because I deprived it the pleasure of being ridden on the highest motor-able road in the world, I am not sure. :-) I felt that the harmony was fading... The clear indication of it came last week when I actually, for the first time since owning the bike, banged another motorcyclist from behind. Sure, I was able to control the bike and stopped it from skidding and all that, and no injuries and not much damage to either parties involved in the accident resulted, but that was a big blow to my morale. There was a bent horn holder and a slightly bent crash guard. I did not feel like riding the bike in that condition so I used my car the entire week.

The thoughts of fixing the damage and going for a short ride started on Saturday night and after Vindy and Bandya responded in negative to my invitation I decided to do it alone, Swapna having her own plans. So first thing Sunday morning, I got to work. After taking out the horn holder I realized that the tools and tackles I had were insufficient, most of the ones I need with Vindy for their mega trip. That was a dampener and I decided to drop the idea of a ride and just go to Padmavati instead.

As I got ready at around 9.40 AM and locked the door, in a split second I changed my mind and decided to ride down to Lavasa (लवासा). Many a riders and non-riders have told me about how beautiful the scenery is and how lovely the road is for riding. So I tanked up at my usual petrol pump and checked the tire pressure and started moving toward Chandani Chauk. A board at CC informed me that Lavasa city was 44KMs. I was still a bit tentative and unsure on the bike but as the traffic thinned down and roads started winding the familiar feeling started to come back. The first sharp turn without applying brakes, at a slightly lower speed with hands pressed hard on the handle-bar and the rattle created by down-shifting of gears ringing in ears and vibrations getting transmitted through forearms. So that's how we do it :-) After that I just opened up, easily negotiating the small ghats at Bhugaon and Pirangut. This is a road well know to me so I was not looking around for the nature's beauty but just focusing on riding. Before I realized I was at Pirngut in under 30 mins taking a left turn for Lavasa.

Now I intentionally slowed down as the road changed and the scenery changed. The quality of tarmac was really good with barely a pot hole to be seen. The board indicated Lavasa to be 27 KMs away and the road was mostly a winding one through various hills. The recent rains meant that the entire landscape was covered in green and the sun was playing hide and seek due to the intermittent cloud cover. The traffic was very thin now with an occasional car here or a couple riding down there.

I was now very comfortable on the bike and ate up the miles like crazy. I was enjoying it so much so that I overcame the temptation to stop at some strategically located tea stalls for a cuppa tea. Soon the wall of Dasve dam came into sight and I was riding along side it and hit what looked like the final Ghat before Lavasa. This ghat was a riders dream with good roads and lots of hairpin bends and I was now really into it. Half way through the ghat, I finally decided to take in the view of the dam backwaters so halted and clicked a snap or two. It was 10.30 AM. Moving ahead I soon reached the Lavasa city entry gate at the top of the ghat. I had to make an entry in the register and off I went inside the city. The ghat road was now descending and I clicked a few snaps of the Lavasa city from the top. All along the journey I was planning for what I would be doing while returning, but as I approached the last hairpin turn, I noticed the boards pointing towards Panshet and Varasgaon dams.

Another impulse and I checked with the security guard, that the road really led to Panshet as promised and in the excitement forgot to ask him how far it was. The road which was smooth and gentle till now suddenly turned in to a one full of potholes and gravel and my speeds dropped down considerably. Driving down for 15 mins and so I realized I did not know how far it was. Saw a few villagers sitting by the side of the road and asked them. 20 KMs, I was told. 10 mins down again asked another villager and was informed that it will take 1.5 Hrs. :-) So finally another 5 mins and another inquiry, I was told it will take 20 mins. :-)

All this while, the road was still very rough but winding and scenery around was no less than what it was on earlier road. My confidence was back to normal, or so I felt. Controlling the bike from a slip on the rubble was no big deal now, nor was making the correct use of the entire road width while turning. An occasional car would pass, but for most part I was the lone soul on the road for kilo meters at a stretch. The road actually moves along the Varasgaon backwaters, so I always had the dam water to my right. Now I could see the wall of Varasgaon dam in the distance and was relieved to know that it will not take 1.5 Hrs. :-) Another turn and familiar shape of Sinhagad was recognizable from the mountains in the distance.

I was really thirsty now as I was riding almost non-stop barring a couple of photo breaks and the break at Lavasa entry gate. Soon negotiating the curves and gravel, I was passing along side the walls of Varasgaon and Panshet dams finally reaching to the village of Panshet at noon. The odo read 85KMs. Took a break to rehydrate myself and also had a wada pav and Tea and in 10 mins started my journey towards Pune. The road from Panshet till Sinhagad phata is really nice and smooth and I opened the throttle. As I neared the Sinhagad Phata, I remembered about a road which goes towards Bhor from here. I called up Vindy for directions, but as always he did not pick up the phone when needed. So I decided to keep going, only to realize what a big mistake it was. The moment I started my journey towards Khadakvasla, the road was full of cars and bikes and the traffic was moving at a very slow pace. From being the lone soul on the road to being surrounded by the crowd, it wasn't a transition I had wished for. I was getting impatient and soon I started ripping the bike along finally reaching the by-pass highway and in due course of time, to my house. The odo read exactly 125KM and the clock told me it was 1:00 PM.

This ride was a different one. Probably a first I did with no company. It took me through breath taking scenery, to not-so-good roads, to crowded places. But in the end I have to admit that , most importantly, the feeling of oneness when you are riding the stead, the harmony, is back.

How it all started...

It was one of those days, when I got really bored staring at the monitor and looking at all the work I was supposed to do. I needed some distraction and I happened to come across my own blog after more than a month. Sterted reading at the top and ended up reading all the junk I have posted till now.

Made me wonder what started it? And then did a random search in the brain's database to see if I can find out the whys-whens-hows of me starting to blog. Then it occured to me.

I was new to my company at that time and Vindy had started blogging about his outing and treks. He also made it sure to drop a mail to a group of people when he did some sort of activity, mostly treks and long drives, over the weekend.

So this one weekend in Nov 2006, I ventured upon a trek myself with couple of friends. When I came back to office on Monday, I wrote a mail to whole of the group, briefly describing the trek.

This time round, I did a renadom search in my Outlook mailbox but for some weired reasons that mail was nowhere to be found. With the least of hopes I pinged Vindy to see if he still has the copy of it and Bingo.. he did have a Google Desktop cached copy of it.

The mail goes siometing like this:

From: Nachiket

To: Vinod, Avik, Piyush, Biraja, Shailesh, Abhijit, Amol, Sanjay, Shirish, Manohar, Sheetal, Shailesh

Date: Nov 20 2006 - 11:19am

Subject: Trek to Torna

Hi,

Check out some Torna snaps from yesterday’s trek we ventured upon. Basically the story is that me and one of my friends were desperate for a trek. So we decided that this Sunday is the day. My friend brought along one of his friend though Vindya did not join in (probably the after-effects of the badminton session we had on Friday eve.)

We took a bus from Swargate heading in general direction of base village of Velhe and to cut a long story short we started the trek at 9.30 AM and were on the fort by 11.30. After spending an hour and a half on the fort looking around and having lunch we started descend at around 10 min. past 1. There were some jittery moments at one of the rock patched where a person from other group was shit scared to go down. We had a hold up of nearly 10 min. before that bloke finally got down losing a water bottle to the deep valley below in the process. We reached the base again at 3 PM. We just missed the ST bus so got in to a Sumo which dropped us at the main high-way. Caught a ST bus and were back in pune at around 5.15 PM

Cheers,

Nachiket

P.S. I know its more of a Vindy style…. But couldn’t help myself…. :-)

To this I remember Vindy replying either in mail (not found :-( ) or chat (may be): "Nice write-up man!! One suggestion, Start blogging"

I said to my self, "why not?". Had a few gazals ready for posting. So created this bolg and started blogging. Hmmm... so that's how it started!!!

Thanks, Vindy!! and thanks to all those who show patience to read the stuff I put in here. :-)

In the Fine Print...

सकाळ तनिष्का च्या नोव्हेंबर २००८ ’शेजार’ विशेषांकात माझी आणि स्वप्नाची मुलाखत प्रकाशित झाली आहे. ती इथे देत आहे. :-)

The Saga of a Stolen Purse

I had bought a new car recently, a Hyundai Getz Prime GLS ( the 1.3 Ltr one) and was driving it in and around Pune roads trying to build confidence. I had ventured out on small drives to Sinhagad in it a couple of times but nothing else.

It was a Sunday and by the time I was finished with my goofing about and sleeping, it was already 5 o’clock in the eve. My wife Swapna and we were deciding on the plans for the evening and decided to try and catch up with my friend Prasad and his wife Daksha for the evening. We tried calling them a few times but, as we later found out, they were deep in their slumber and did not hear the phone. We had to go somewhere and that too in the car. Otherwise it would seem like a wasted Sunday eve. So we hatched a plan to go to my home, pick up my mom and dad and then decide on where to go next. Just as I was about to put my car in the first gear, I got a call from Prasad and the plan changed. Now we would be heading towards Dhayri to meet them. So we did, and after 15-20 mins., we decided to move out again. We could either go to DSK Vishwa which, Daksha insisted, was a nice place. Or we could go to Khadakvasla dam and come back. We chose later. Prasad decided to get his bike and park it at Dhayri Phata for the convenience while returning. Rest of us went ahead and after a frustrating stop for buying some Samosas we caught up with him at Dhayari Phata and we were ready to go.

It was raining, the roads were wet, atmosphere cool and mood generally jovial. Then I remembered reading in papers that there was a change in traffic thru Khadakvasla village and the road which comes thru the village was converted to a one-way going towards Pune. It was a bad road which was assigned the job of taking traffic towards Khadkavasla dam from Pune, and after a bumpy and slow drive we could see the dam wall, and a lot of traffic in front of us. Luckily there were police monitoring the traffic and, although slow, it was not a jam.

The next problem was to find a parking place and we couldn’t find any on the road which runs along the dam’s water front. I got a place to park just after the road takes a slight right. It was raining so we decided to leave the electronic stuff (mobiles etc) in the car. Daksha left her purse and Prasad his sack on the back seat of the car.... I guess a mistake. We went down to water front, chit-chatted for a while and ate some Samosas.

Then I had a niggle in my mind that I forgot to lock the car. So me and Prasad left the waterfront and went back to where the car was parked. I was wrong. I had locked the car properly. After ensuring everything was fine, we went down again. The girls had entered the water and seemed to enjoy it, which both of us did not. This dam has a nasty reputation for drowning. Another ten mins. at water front and we decided to head back. It was already dark and the traffic had not thinned by any means. I was all tensed up doing a U-turn in that bumper to bumper traffic. So just got in and started doing the circus of forward-reverse until, finally, car was facing in the right direction.

All others started jumping in…. That's when my friend, trying to get in thru rear door on the left hand side, felt like he sat on something crunchy...... To my horror it was the small triangular window on the rear door lying broken on the rear seat. My first thoughts were, did I hit anything while doing that forward-reverse thing? But then I was sure I did not. So how did it happen?

Then I was enlightened and my first reaction was to go for the glove compartment to check if all the electronics were in place. To my relief they were. While we were still trying to figure out what was happening there, boooooom... MY PURSE IS MISSING. It was Daksha trying frantically to locate her purse some where in the car. By the time we realized that it was the purse for which this whole break-in thing has happened, Daksha was already in tears. There were quite a few important documents, a couple of debit cards, a mobile phone, some cash and other sundries in the purse.

After few moments of panic, we gathered ourselves. We drove a bit further and informed a police guy standing there about what has happened. He asked us to talk to his boss who was stationed further up somewhere. We located him, parked the car again. Swapna, Prasad and Daksha went to talk him, leaving me to guard the car with a broken window.

Some discussions later, the trio decided to go look for the purse if it has been thrown somewhere along the road, unfortunately, to no avail. We were advised to go to Kinwatwadi police station to lodge a complaint. Off we went again. On our way to police station we successfully blocked one of the debit cards. The other debit card was from a nationalized bank and, not for the first time, we realized why you should never do business with these banks. I got their number after a quick call to my dad. We kept trying to call them, but never got through.
All this while we also kept calling Daksha’s mobile and it was ringing. That, sort of surprised me... We reached police station and tried to lodge a complaint. The officer there was not very keen on putting it as a theft. I guess theft means an FIR, and FIR means work for them. He advised us to put it as “missing” instead. Finally at around 9.15 PM that part was done and we left for home. I dropped Prasad and Daksha at Dhayri phata.

What to do with the broken window was the next thing on my mind and after thinking through the matter I decided to go to the service center first thing in the morning and get that glass fixed. Swapna and I had our dinner at a near-by place and thru habit of last couple of hours, I dialed Daksha’s number again and it was still ringing. Swapna echoed my thought when she said that purse should be there somewhere on the road. So I called up Prasad and advised him to try driving by the road a next day morning as soon as possible.

In the morning I went to the service guy as decided, to get the window glass fixed. It was to take a couple of hours. So I was just waiting around when I got a call from Prasad, I guess for a customary check on my car window. I was very sure they would not have slept well through the night and expected some sadness and tired ness in his voice. But hang on, he sounded very fresh and most of all very exited. He almost yelled his first lines in the phone - “Nachyaaa, purse saapadli !!” (I found the purse.) This was one of the best surprises, though one of the most weird, I had got. And I guess we all needed this to happen to get us out of the gloom we were feeling since last evening. I mean here I am at service station, getting a window fixed on a car which is not even a month old. The mood was gloomy for sure.

Aparently they found the purse lying under a tree, may be a kilometers distance before the Khadakvasla village. The purse was neatly zipped and kept under the tree and only thing missing from it was the cash. The general feeling was – all is well. We shared another 5 min. on the phone discussing the matter in an excited state of mind and said good-bye. I called up Swapna and gave her the news. That must have set her mood right too.

I started thinking about the thief. The first thing I thought was that he must be a pro. Firstly, he did not try to unlock the door or anything. If he had, it would blow the siren on centralized locking system and give him away. He knew that. I also think what stopped him from searching any further was lack of time. There was heavy traffic on the road with people moving around frequently. So he probably had only few seconds after breaking the glass to grab whatever he could and run away. Secondly the mobile was still there in the purse. I wondered why? There was the answer. The mobile was a Reliance mobile, and as most of us know, no use stealing a CDMA mobile.

All in all it was an experience one, given a choice, would not wish to have, but worth having anyway. I guess I learned a few lessons from it.

1. The obvious one. Try not to make your car seat, a display to exhibit valuables :-) If you must leave the valuables in car put it in such a way that they can’t be seen from the outside. Boot space is provided for that I guess.
2. Always carry the bank/credit card customer care numbers and keep them separate from where you keep the cards and stuff.
3. Do not do e-business with nationalized banks :-) They don’t know how it should be done.
4. Trust your instincts. Prasad told me later that at one small moment he thought it to be a waste of time to go look for the purse the next day.
5. Throw those fancy mobile out. Use CDMA ;-) (well, not really!!!)