Monday 16 September 2013

Dinner


Let me create an imagery. 

After a hard day you return to home. Tired. Thirsty. Hungry. Frustrated. It happens right ! Yes of-course it happens and it happens pretty often - after all you are a human being. Come on. Don't feel shy. We are all on the same boat. Okay. So where were we ! Yeah, you are hungry. Leave apart all other stuff as they can be handled. Open the fridge, take out the bottle, pour the chilled water into the tumbler and go sit on the swing at your exclusive terrace in the pent house at the 30 th floor - what ! You want to go further up ! Okay imagine whatever floor you want to be. For me you are sitting on the swing and sipping from your tumbler and trying to cool down by forgiving and forgetting all the buffoons on the road today who overtook you so closely - my god, your new Q3 ! Thankfully safe - no scratch, but it could be - yeah yeah anything could be. Again you relax, your eye lids are becoming heavy. You come back to your conscious by the mild voice of your cook - he asks you, sir, what would you like to have for dinner ! You, half asleep, half awake, want to speak but can not speak, want to gather some energy but still feel lazy, somehow open the mouth and tell - something in rice item. Your decent cook goes back to kitchen and you pull your body to the jacuzzi. All the jet nozzles spray enough water on your body to rejuvenate you for the rest of the evening and make you ready for the dinner. You are whistling. Haha, you are feeling like a king. Finest linen clads you around and the sandal with small fine knobbies doing a gentle massage to your feet. Heavenly. French window is open. It may be a full moon night. The frangipanis are just good enough for the aura. What else do you want from life ! Oh yeah you are hungry. You call your cook to check out the dinner status. And you learn that its on the way to your dining table and its good to serve. You sit on your favourite chair - lovely arm rest with silk wrapped foam, jute stripes at the back rest frame with a gentle rigidity just fine with your back, the thigh support is so nicely chamfered that every time you sit on it, you just cant resist to praise the craftsman who crafted it for you years back. The table top is a chosen cross section of a teak with a perfect bull nosed edge and polished which you love to feel every time ! Cool, you have changed the runner to a lovely colour - 'nil pari'. You are poised for your dinner - isn't it ! Yes. Here you go baby. Your cook brings the hot, just taken out from the dish washer, white chinaware plate with a set of brass cutlery which has a very nice polka dot design towards the end. You are still murmuring some tune - may be the alap of that bhim-palashi you heard today by Kumar Gandharv. Whatever. Your dinner has arrived. You like to be served, he knows. He is on the job. Your age old cook, he is good at serving without messing up the silk runner, he serves the menu quite efficiently. No exception today. You are still excited about the item which you are going to see after a long time on your plate, which has motivated you since you came home and pulled yourself to freshen up and waited to have your favourite home made Biriyani - yes you were dreaming about it all these while and now its time ! Your eyes are restless to see it. Your sensation of hunger has gone to the extreme octave. And then, only then, my dear friend, you get to see a nice steaming whitish Prawn Pulao is being served on to your plate. Your eyes are still. Your mouth is half open and trying to find few words. Do you want to ask something ! I guess so. Please carry on. With a nearly explosive mind, you control yourself with a couple of sip of water and become unusually soft and ask him - did I tell you to make this ! He is even more polite than you at the moment and you get a very composed answer almost immediately from him - sir, you wished to have something in rice item, so I thought this would be a good choice. Should I put some more on your plate, sir ! You were trying to forgive and forget everything for the day just a while ago - right ! Please go ahead and do that for the last time for the day and you will be done. You just cant help it at the moment. You dreamt of biriyani but you got prawn pulao ! It happens. Please have something, you are hungry. Anyway this is also home made and I'm sure you will like it. See, tomorrow morning you will feel good about it, at least, if not now. Because you are not in a mood to understand now, that what mistake you have done. Oh, you want to know now only ! Okay, since you are insisting, let me tell you. Look, your cook is good but not intelligent enough to dive into your world of dream and understand what do you wish to eat for the moment - so, please be explicit when you are talking to your cook otherwise your dream may remain like dreams only !

You can mess up your communication with anybody but not with your cook. 

Monday 9 September 2013

Bicycle ride to Pondicherry - 7th & 8 th september 2013

The Culinary Arts are so powerful that it can white wash any sort of pain and put you up there in a different level of sensation. Yes, we reached Auroville safely and to celebrate the tour, we feasted royally. 



Auroville in Pondicherry is such a lovely place on earth which touches many spirits and resonate with the wind-chimes and invites you countlessly. 



Suhash reached there in the afternoon and was waiting for us anxiously till we reached Atithi Guest House at 11 pm



Me, Khuram and Chaitanya were reliving our childhood memories while penetrating through a nearly deserted pitch dark road in a rainy night with the accompaniment of the orchestra by the frogs all around - it was their night absolutely - and there were enough reasons for them to be so happy - it was raining heavily in Pondicherry ! It was so acoustic and fluidic sound that mesmerized us thoroughly on our saddles with almost zero visibility. 

The guesthouse people wanted to meet us curiously when they learnt that we will be coming from Chennai by bicycles ! It was so late on saturday night that the meeting had to take place in the next morning and they were very cordial. 



While riding within Auroville, we got a fun place to hang out for a while - Peaceful City. We spent some time doing some crazy stuff. 



As the main ride we could do on day one via Mahabalipuram with a fabulous lunch, we took the day two quite easy and set a relaxed pace for everything. 



On the way to Pondicherry through East Coast Road was heavenly and me & Khuram were racing in-between at 33 kmph - hard to believe for me but true atleast for good 15 kms or so and few smaller stretches. 





The road was flat and perfect for road bikes by any definition except the rash traffic towards the evening but thoroughly enjoyable with the scenic beauty all along the left side as you get to see the waves are breaking at the shore till Mahabalipuram and after that the ocean goes little far from you and again comes back near Pondicherry - the route was very playful.   



Manick joined us from Chennai till somewhere midway and he had to go back to Chennai to join his family and we proceeded to our destination just before people started getting crazy which normally happens on a long ride ! 







Two days just went off so fast that by the time we realised that its so refreshing we had already hit the most beautiful Pondicherry marine drive where Khuram was feeling so tempted to test his MTB realtime on the shore boulders ! 







The night was so calm and quite in Pondicherry that posted the next visit invitation in our mind - we will meet you Pondicherry for sure again !



Monday 2 September 2013

Bicycle Ride to Sangam


The concourse was towards Sangam, the place of confluence of River Arkavati & River Kaveri, about 40 kms away from Kanakapura and about 85 kms from Bangalore on 25 th of August 2013. 






While me and Santosh were having lunch by the side of the river others had already started heading back towards Bangalore which was a quite stiff climb right after the Sangam base point. But we two decided to take it easy and enjoy the day and feel good about the journey we just had made of 85 kms. 

Bangalore to Kanakapura ride was kind of good as most of the part was downward slope and little bit of rolling along with little bit of rain. We had a good breakfast at Harohally, around 30 kms from Bangalore. And took a group photo after that. 



The next meeting point was Kanakapura, 30 kms from Harohally. After taking the diversion from Kanakapura town towards Sangam, suddenly the road vanished due to some repair work for a kilometre or so and after that the entire stretch was good. 



And all the undulations started coming on the way which totally slowed me down and my only companion was Santosh as all others had gone quite fast along with Anil and I decided not to try to catch up with them, rather enjoy the beauty of nature which was slowly unfolding. 



The sky was bright blue, horizon was clear with lovely mountain range, paddy fields are green and the terrain was just in order. 



I took frequent pit stops. In some occasions 'it' were replaced by 'ee' in the word 'pit'. 



Refueled with my energy bar 'chikki' and water and take a deep breathe in the lap of clean nature. 



Lots of local people were joining me for a short distance ride way back to their villages, had  small chats with them. Smell of the soil which was so refreshing and the vista in front was so welcoming.
 


My bike also wanted to take a break. 



Finally the superb downhill for last 10 kms came and riding downhill for the first time was so much of fun, it felt like a free fall through multiple hair-pin bends. And finally I was there at Sangam. 



On the way back me and Santosh did not ride till Harohally and again started riding back to Bangalore from Kagalipura. When I reached my start point by around 5.30 pm, my cyclocomp was happy to score its second century !

But the road to Sangam was still vibrant in my mind ! What an amazing ride it was ! And the credit goes to my friend Hari for finding it and Anil for getting us together to go for the ride !