Chapter 9_Nye-mae-el

Chapter 9

Nye-mae-el

It was a nice little hotel, managed by a girl of our age and her little brother studying in class 5. They too stayed in the same building; basically it was a house extended into a hotel – the ground floor rented, the first floor occupied by the family and the top one OYOed. They provided us home-made food as well, for dinner – roti, dal and omlettee.

After settling down in our rooms, we took bath and embraced the beds. We ordered burgers for our late lunch; Khan and Mahesh had been half way into their sleep when the food arrived. We woke up for dinner at around 8, ate and went back to sleep. We had to make up for a night’s sleep that we had sacrificed on the road.

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Out of Curiosity…

 On 22^nd May, 1975, Sikkim became India’s 22^nd state; before that it was an independent mountain kingdom. Sikkim is a landlocked state bordered by Nepal on the west, Tibet in the north and north-east, Bhutan in the east and West Bengal in the south. The Lepcha people, the original inhabitants of Sikkim, call it Nye-mae-el, meaning ‘paradise’. It is India’s first organic state (practicing organic farming).

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We woke up late the next day. The bikes had to be lubed and we spent around half an hour on that. We had poori, sabji and chai for breakfast – home-made. We left the place at around 10:30 AM. As we were loading our bags onto the bikes, Thorappan told me that deedi had wanted to take a photo with my bike. She had particularly liked my bike, it seems. Now that was an honour, especially after the embarrassment in Kolkata (Chapter 5: The Comedy of Errors). During the rest of the loading, half my vision and the whole of my heart looked out for deedi, who unfortunately didn’t turn up.

We were all excited about our soon-to-begin meeting with the mountains. The initial few kilometers of road from Siliguri, passed through a stretch of lush green forest. And then suddenly I saw a mountain range at a distance in front of me. I was very excited and caught up with Mahesh to tell him that it was probably our first sight of the mighty Himalayas. We weren’t very sure about it though.

The lush green forest route in Siliguri…

We filled our tanks to the brim, in the next village, which was around 40 kilometers from Siliguri. We were on National Highway 10, the one that connected Siliguri to Gangtok. Segments of the road were under construction and this lead to traffic blocks once in a while. The Teesta river meandered alongside the road and it was a treat to our eyes. There were many bridges on the way and we crossed the river many-a-times on those bridges.

Teesta river meandering along NH10…

The roads were narrow in some places; at times it was covered by gravel and rocks due to landslides. The monsoons were performing their annual rituals. Besides the mini buses run by both the West Bengal and Sikkim governments, that plied between Siliguri and Gangtok, there were plenty of jeeps that connected different cities. Some of them had the board ‘Darjeeling’ and our hearts longed that we had enough days and a bigger plan for covering the ‘Queen of Hills’ as well. But no, Darjeeling will have to wait for a blog of its own. The 'SK' registered taxis, mostly Altos and Wagon Rs, interested us for the initial few kilometers from Siliguri. I hadn’t seen vehicles registered in Sikkim before that in my lifetime. After around 70 kilometers from Siliguri, we reached the gateway to Sikkim – Rangpo. The ‘Welcome to Sikkim’ board did give us the very same excitement and sense of satisfaction as that of the ‘Welcome to the City of Joy’ one; we didn’t wish for a similar roller-coaster ride though (Chapter 7: A Roller-Coaster Ride).

NH 10…

A tunnel enroute Gangtok...

After a while, we stopped for tea and late lunch. It had drizzled along the way and we were already starting to feel the chillness of the height. We had soupy maggi and momos at the road side shop. Curious school kids gathered around our bikes. From where we sat and slurped maggi, we could see a two-storeyed house made out of wood and bamboo. A man sat on the balcony and took drags from his pipe. Mahesh envied the man’s state of peace and wished he too could live like that. I mulled over the possible hardships that this particular man could be facing in his life and how we in a matter of a few minutes had presumed that he was leading a peaceful life.

Bridges, bridges and more bridges…

Tough roads…

We booked rooms in Gangtok via Gobibo. Thorappan and Mahesh were particular about getting a room with a view. We continued our ride and soon entered the city of Gangtok. There was heavy traffic in the city and the ascending road made it even more difficult for us. My hands started aching due to prolonged engagement with the clutch and front brake levers. But what fascinated us was the discipline of the vehicles on the road – no overtaking and no honking, they just waited patiently in the traffic, one behind the other. Now that was indeed some ‘peace’ in life for the people of this city, if only they knew how horrible it was down in the plains.

"Welcome to Sikkim"

“Will be there soon…”

We reached the hotel at around 6:30 PM. It was a premium hotel with good facilities; luckily we had got it at a cheap price on Gobibo. The rooms didn’t have ACs or fans – of course, all one would wish for in this place were room heaters. We unloaded our luggage and went out again to get some quick service for our vehicles. Khan had noted a few service centers on the way, which he was quite sure were just a few kilometers from the hotel. After descending for about 15 kilometers, we inferred that Khan had hallucinated. Meanwhile, Thorappan had gone to meet Mr. John, our agent in Gangtok, who would get us the required permits and passes. After failing to find the service centers, we returned back to meet Thorappan and John. We lost each other on the way, but did re-join at the location shared by John. After collecting the permits, we headed back to the hotel. We had dinner on the way – chowmein and pork dry fry. The ride after dinner was fiery – the cold air pierced our skin. It must have been 9:30 PM or so, but the roads were empty. We inferred that Sikkim slept early. We hurried back to the hotel to earn a few extra hours of sleep, for we had the Nathu La and the Old Silk Route awaiting us the next day. Unfortunately, one of us wasn’t ready for the adventure.

(to be continued…)

Entering Gangtok …

Chapter 8_The Creature In My Head

Chapter 8

The Creature In My Head

They were a special security force and had a different sort of uniform. This is why we couldn’t recognize them from a distance, as police or security forces. They became very curious about us and enquired about our trip. One of them couldn’t believe that we rode all the way from Kerala. They went around our bikes, curious to know about the additional fittings. They then told us that it wasn’t safe to ride this late and asked us to stay for the night at Dumka. However, they cautioned us that the chances of getting a room in Dumka was less, as it was a festival season and most of the hotels would be filled with visitors.

We soon reached Dumka. The town was brightly lit with decoration lights. It was asleep though. It looked like a house where a wedding had taken place; after a hurry-burry day, when the festivities were over, but all those decorations remained. It was around 1:30 AM. We went into a petrol bunk. A guy came out of the small office room, rubbing his eyes. He had a smile on his face. While I filled my tank, Khan and Mahesh went room-hunting. I noticed a small cot lying in front of the office. “Ah, plan B is ready,” the miniature of me sitting inside my head whispered into my ears. (You all have those little creatures in your heads, don’t you? Conversations with them are more often the best.) Khan and Mahesh returned after a failed mission. We then together explored the streets of Dumka, desperately, for a room. The patrol police sympathized with us. They tried to help us by directing us to a few more hotels. Nah, Lady Fortune wasn’t in a good mood.

A car came by and the guy in it asked us to stop our vehicles. He enquired about us. When we told him that we were on a trip, he seemed excited. But then his speech was flowing like a stream. It was when he got out of the car and took a couple of steps that we confirmed that he was drunk. Sensing that it may not be wise to engage him further, we scooted. He followed us. We went back to the petrol bunk. The guy there came out, once again, with a sweet smile on his face. The other three filled their tanks. My plan B had been rejected and plan C was on – ride to the next town. The guy at the bunk told us that the next town was about 60-70 km away, in the next state. The drunken guy reached there. He started blabbering in Hindi. He switched to English once in a while. He was trying to tell me that he was a rider as well, an adventurous one. Apparently, he had been on many road trips and was planning an all-India tour on a Jawa motorcycle. He kept asking whether I approved him as an adventurous guy. I could see the petrol bunk guy sympathizing with me. Thorappan was giggling from a distance. I engaged our adventurous, drunk hero till all of them had filled their tanks to the brim.

Uncertainty is adventurous; but the little creature in your head will not give you a second of peace. “Where is the next town? Are there any hotels there? Would rooms be available there? How are the roads ahead?” It keeps shooting questions at you.

After about an hour, we entered Bihar and suddenly the roads became bad – terrible I should say. As we have seen over the past few days (and blogs), bad roads, dust and lorries are a deadly combination. We stopped at a roadside dhaba for tea. There were a couple of charpais there for us to relax ourselves. I do not know how to put it in words – that comfort you get when you get to lie down like that; even the creature in your head has its mouth shut and is at peace. There was a short man in this shop. He served us tea. We had two rounds of tea. Once in a while a lorry would stop in front of the shop; the driver would get down for a cup of tea.

The dhaba where we stopped for tea…

We tipped the short man as we left the place. He was a bit shabby, wearing a towel and a dirty banyan. He was short, very short and had grey hair; must be in his forties. As he took the tip from us, he had a smile on his face – a very innocent one. It filled our hearts, to the brim. We wouldn’t forget that smiling face for a while in our lives.

The ride ahead was very tough. We counted every kilometer. The creature inside my head started nibbling at my brain. We had no choice, but to ride on. There weren’t any hotels on the way. There were roadside dhabas though. Some of them had a few charpais in front of them. A plan D was evolving. We tried to push ourselves further. Finally, we decided that we should stop at a dhaba (locally known as line hotels) and rest for the night. But when we did stop, there was hardly any more of the night left. It was 4:30 AM. We had tea as we got out of our gears. After tea, we lay down on the charpais; we didn’t bother to ask the guy in the dhaba whether it was okay to sleep there. We assumed that it was fine; there wasn’t any other option either.

 Power nap at a line hotel…

I woke up suddenly. There was the road in front of me, across the road a vast field and the sun was rising above the horizon. Perhaps, one of the best scenes I woke up to in my life so far. It was around 6 AM. I woke up the others as well. We had to get going. This was supposed to be a power nap.

There was an old man in the dhaba. He was half blind. He too had been sleeping on one of the charpais. Two kids, perhaps the grandchildren of this man, were playing there. In fact, it was their chattering that woke me up. The boy was a naughty little one. He kept pestering the old man. A man came there on his bike. He had a chat with the old man. As he was leaving, the little boy wanted to go along with him. The old man grabbed him off the bike and put him on a charpai. The other guy escaped with his bike. The boy started throwing a tantrum. He snatched the old man’s towel and dragged it on the ground. Revenge it was. The poor old man had a tough time chasing the little one. This another man, apparently the father of the naughty boy and the son of the old man, came and scolded the kid. It felt odd, to just sit and watch those tender moments of a family, in an unknown town in a faraway place.

 The wake up frame…

We asked for tea, which never came. After about 20 minutes of waiting, we got a feeling that it was a signal for us to leave the place. (We do not know exactly why the tea didn’t come.) They didn’t charge us for the charpais, which was very strange as well. Nevertheless, we are indebted to that family for those two hours of much needed rest.

We left the place at 6:30 AM. The bad roads continued. The villages were waking up to the day. It got busier with every passing kilometer. Soon we reached another highway and thankfully the roads were good from then on. We stopped at a highway restaurant for breakfast. My palms were clammy and there was a layer of ‘dust and sweat mixture’ on my face. We had another 250 kilometers to Siliguri.

Most of the ride from breakfast to Siliguri was on auto-pilot mode. It is that mode in which a 100 different things keep going on in your head, but at the same time your sub-conscious mind is alert on the road. And then there are those moments when you are shaken awake from your day dream – like when I was over taking a lorry and there was a portion of a banana tree lying on the road and my mind couldn’t decide whether to ride over it or to evade it and we eventually rode over it and my back tire made some zig zag movements right in front of the lorry and I almost thought I had made it to the newspaper.

When the palm skin started peeling off after four days of ride…

It was a very hot day and we were very exhausted. Mahesh and I were feeling sleepy as well. We booked an OYO room in Siliguri, as we stopped for a drinks break.

At around 2:30 PM, we reached the hotel. This time OYO didn’t disappoint us. We got our rooms there. Almost 20 hours had gone by since we started our ride from Kolkata, of which around 17 were spent on the road. It was not an achievement. It was out of helplessness.

Nevertheless, we and the little creatures in our heads were very excited. We would soon be saying goodbye to the plains and embracing the mountains. Our two-year old dream was just another 120 kilometers away, high up in the mountains!  

(to be continued…)

Chapter 7_A Roller-Coaster Ride

Chapter 7

A Roller-Coaster Ride

Our hero from the last chapter, Khan, had been an amazingly cool guy so far. I had even wondered how one could be so calm and composed in the midst of all these confusions – forgetting to bring the documents, couriering it to a random hotel, trying to convince the others to go ahead with the original plan and so on. However, this time, along with the money he lost his cool as well. He was almost in tears. We tried to pacify him. We made him to contact his bank and block his account. He then rang up his uncle, who is a police officer in Kerala, and sought his help. His uncle suggested that we lodge a complaint with the local police. However, he said that the chances of getting the money back was very bleak. I rang up Sandeep ettan, my senior in college and currently an assistant manager in Federal Bank, and narrated the events to him. It surprised him as well that this guy had managed to loot our money even without the UPI PIN. Apparently, this was a new development in the ‘bank fraud’ sector! Sandeep ettan gave us a little hope when he said that it is possible that the bank would give us the money back (even though they may not be able to recover it from the other guy), as we hadn’t shared the password with him.

In a later conversation with Sandeep ettan, I had shared my concern of how we, despite our schooling and exposure to the digital world, had easily fallen into such a trap and how people who may not have had such an exposure were even more vulnerable. However, his response was thought provoking – “the irony is that, they are the least affected; they are extra careful, because they know that they could be pulled into trouble.” He had a point there.

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Out of Curiosity…

Fake Customer Care Executives: It is quite natural that we all search on Google for ‘customer care numbers’ of various services (be it Blue Dart, Tez, Zomato, Airtel or EPFO). Beware! There are scamsters waiting for you out there. Of late, there have been several cases where fake customer care executives elicited information such as bank account details, debit/credit card numbers, UPI IDs and passwords etc. on the pretext of support and initiating refunds. Read more…

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Sensing that something had gone wrong, the taxi drivers came towards us. We narrated the whole story to them. All they could do was sympathize with us. They gave us the directions to the nearest police station. We gave them a small gift as a token of gratitude for accommodating us and giving us company. We then headed towards the police station. Of all places in the world, we had a tough time finding the police station. After umpty number of re-routings, we finally reached ‘Hare Street’ police station. It was located a little away from the main road, on a small street. We parked our bikes on the main road itself; Khan and I went to the station. It was a red coloured building and was air-conditioned. Four police officers were seated behind a table in the first room. Each of them, heard out the petitioners, one at a time. We waited for our turn, which came after about 20 minutes. The officer who heard our story wasn’t surprised at all about it. Apparently, many such ‘bank fraud’ cases were reported every other day. He asked us to submit a written complaint. We came out of the station. There were a couple of road side shops there. We got a few A4 sheets, but the shops didn’t have pens. Of course, it was bound to be so. Inside my head, a video from a couple of days back was retrieved and played again. In that flashback video, I could see the past me packing my bag on the day before the trip. I could also see me giving a lecture to Mahesh on why it is essential to carry a pen and notebook on a trip. And now, we had a practical example here. I hadn’t brought the pen with me though! We borrowed a pen from a stranger and wrote the complaint.

 When we took shelter in the street shops… (Chapter 6)

Thanks to all those letter writing exercises from school, we didn’t have much of a difficulty in writing the complaint. Khan, quite a tall guy, was half bent as he kept the sheet on the seat of a scooter and wrote the complaint. “Kolkata, I’ll never forget our first meeting”, my mind said within. But the very same mind then quoted Mahesham – “road trips are like this”; what’s in it without such roller-coaster rides!

Again we had to wait for our turn to submit the complaint. Meanwhile, I observed the other people in the station. All of them had a long face, like Khan. The atmosphere was filled with grievances. I walked out of the room. A police jeep arrived. The officer parked the vehicle in front of the station, on the small lane itself. Now there was hardly any space for another four-wheeler to pass by. Soon a car came that way; the lady in it started yelling at the officer. Unlike the south police, he didn’t swear back. He moved the vehicle to the adjacent street and allowed the lady to pass by. However, after that he brought the vehicle back to its old position itself and blocked the entrance to the lane from both the ends with barricades. Moral of the story: you don’t mess with the police, be it the south or the north.

Another interesting thing about Kolkata is the way people park their vehicles.  Not even a centimeter is wasted, to the extent that all vehicles kiss each other – a light touch, soft enough to not leave a mark. “Skill, pure skill,” an astonished Mahesh had remarked.

Kolkata traffic…

If you are able to recall your school days, you might remember that your compositions (including letters) wouldn’t be approved by the teacher in your first attempt. Some changes had to be made – always. Even that is done intentionally, I assume – to prepare you for life. Yes, the police officer asked us to rewrite the letter with a few changes. Another stranger, another pen, another letter.

It was 5:30 PM by the time the letter was submitted. Our prayers were answered when the officer didn’t ask us to rewrite the letter a third time.

We were unanimous in our decision to leave Kolkata as soon as possible. We decided that we should keep ‘Dumka’ as our target and ride for as long as possible, at least till 10 PM. After tea, we took the alternate highway as suggested by the traffic police whom we met near Howrah Bridge. In about 70 kilometers, we had to take another highway. The roads were good, but as we progressed on the second highway, it became deserted. It was a narrow, single lane road and there were not many people or buildings out there. Once in a while, there would be a signboard which read ‘this is a highway’. My mind would reply, “thanks for the reaffirmation!” Our stomachs started murmuring; however, we couldn’t find any restaurants on the way. I started to panic after a while. It was 11 by the time we found a small restaurant in a little town on the way. The tawa roti and channa masala were too good; just that we had to gobble it up as the guys there were in a hurry to close the shop.

Adios Kolkata!

Outside the shop, we met a guy who enquired about our trip. Like the traffic policeman in Kolkata, he too was planning a trip to Kerala. He then told us that it would take us just another hour to reach Dumka. We had to cross a dam and a forest stretch before we reached Dumka. He warned us not to stop our vehicles in the forest area. I could already feel the rhythm of my heartbeat.

We crossed the dam. We were the only creatures on the road, besides the frogs that crossed it every now and then. We were almost done with the forest stretch as well, when suddenly, at a distance, we saw a jeep parked in the middle of the road. There were three men waiting for us, with guns in their hands.

(to be continued…)

Chapter 6_The City of Misery

Chapter 6

The City of Misery 

[In the last chapter I had dedicated a paragraph to Thorappan. This chapter, the whole of it, belongs to Khan. When you finish reading this one, let me know if you think he deserves more.]

It kept accelerating consistently – my heartbeat. Suspense is a strange feeling; it does funny things to you. I almost lost my balance while getting into my night pants. I was in a hurry. I rushed down to their room. The ambience was perfect – dim lights and chilly air. Mahesh smiled. “Parayeda koppe…” (Tell me koppe [a Malayalam slang word]), I retorted impatiently.

Khan had forgotten to take his license and vehicle documents. I don’t remember how my face responded to the news. I couldn’t believe it. These documents were the last thing one would forget on a bike trip. Khan explained himself. He had kept the documents in his duffle bag. However, at the 13^th hour he had a doubt whether he had kept his raincoat inside the bag. He had to unload some of the stuff from the bag to dig his hands deep in and check for the coat. To his delight, the raincoat was in there. But our King Khan forgot to keep the documents back in.

When we tried a few formations on the deserted AH45… (chapter 5)

Now what? Sikkim is very strict about the vehicle documents. Besides, we were to pass through multiple states and it would be a daring adventure to ride without the docs. Khan had a plan in his mind. He had asked his friends to courier the documents to Kolkata. To whom or which address? I too had the same question. He had picked up a random hotel in the center of the city and asked the guys to courier the documents to that hotel’s address. The Blue Dart express service would deliver the consignment the next day itself. Khan’s plan was to go and wait in front of the hotel for the courier guy.

I recalled a few events from the day. Khan had been getting very many phone calls during the day. He had told us that his colleagues were contacting him for some work related stuff. As we were nearing Decathlon Kolkata, I got a call from Unni (a mutual friend of Khan, Mahesh and me, who also works in the same company as of Khan). He had tried contacting Khan and as he wasn’t responding, had called me. He told me that he was at the courier office and wanted the address to which it was to be sent. “What address? Send what?” I had no clue of what Unni was talking about. Little did I know then about the drama that was happening in the background. Unni must have sensed that I was unaware of the issue, that he cut the call.

I could connect the dots now. So Khan had asked Unni to courier the documents to ‘Hotel Floatel’ in Kolkata. He had even considered getting it couriered straight to Gangtok; thank God he settled for Kolkata in the end. Now there was another issue. The RC book (a card) had a chip in it and therefore couldn’t be couriered as per regulations. Khan went to the extreme of getting a recommendation from the MD of his company and thankfully the documents were couriered to Kolkata from Mumbai. It would reach ‘Floatel’ the next day by noon.

Khan wanted the rest of us to go ahead with the original plan and leave Kolkata the next morning itself. He would collect the documents and catch up with us in Gangtok. Mahesh and I disapproved straightaway. There was no question of letting him ride alone. It was the matter of just half a day. We could do away with the ‘rest day’ in Gangtok; but we were riding together. Khan tried his best to convince us, but in vain.

Thorappan walked in with a few kilograms of biriyani, evenly balanced in his both hands. “Nee ithu vellathum arinjo mone?!” (Did you come to know about this?) I exclaimed. I didn’t get the expected ‘surprise look’ from him (pling!). Apparently he had been informed about it, just before he left for the biriyani quest. Nevertheless, Thorappan was also in agreement to our decision to ride together.

The biriyani was delicious. Each of the biriyani box had a treasure hidden at the bottom – a boiled potato!

We woke up at 6 the next day. Our bribe (we had bribed the watchman to park the bikes inside the hotel's compound) would expire around that time (as the manager of the hotel was expected to arrive around 6:30) and therefore we had to park our bikes outside the hotel’s compound. Khan left to ‘Floatel’ at around 11. The courier was supposed to reach there by 12 PM. Mahesh accompanied him. Thorappan and I rode towards Howrah Bridge. Thorappan had the Gopro on. The bridge was huge, with its frame towering above us. We could see gigantic vessels on one side, in the Hoogly river. We crossed the bridge at a slow pace. There were footpaths on both sides; besides pedestrians, there were vendors selling snacks. Yellow Ambassador taxis plied up and down. Thus riding on Howrah bridge was off the list.

The Howrah Bridge

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Out of Curiosity

Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans over the Hooghly river. A cantilever bridge is built using cantilevers, which are structures that project horizontally into space, supported only on one end. The bridge does not have nuts and bolts and was built by riveting the whole structure.

The bridge was commissioned in 1943 and it links the two cities of Kolkata and Howrah. In 1965, it was renamed Rabindra Sethu, after Rabindranath Tagore.

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After crossing the bridge, we didn’t have anything to do in particular. Thorappan wanted to go another round, to get the video from another angle. After Howrah Bridge round 2, we decided to have tea. Google Ammachi asked us to take a left and we did so. Suddenly a traffic policeman stopped us and said something in an unknown language (Bengali obviously). He pointed towards something behind us at a distance. We turned back and saw a couple of cops standing in front of a traffic booth. We were signaled to go there. People around us were looking at us curiously. “Pettenna thonnunne… (looks like we are in trouble)”, I mumbled to Thorappan. We turned our bikes and went towards the traffic booth. A young officer was standing there; he had a well maintained physique and he wore sunglasses – basically he had an air of Bollywood. He spoke to us in English, informing us that two-wheelers weren’t allowed on that road. He enquired about our trip and told us that he had an admiration for riders. Thorappan and I were relieved. When we told him that we were from Kerala, he was excited. He was planning a year-end trip to ‘god’s own country’. Another officer too joined the conversation. They advised us not to take the main highway to Gangtok, as the roads were in bad condition; they gave us a few alternate options as well. When we told them that our fellow riders were waiting for us at ‘Floatel’ they gave us the directions to reach there. But we wanted to have tea before that. There was a parking lot beneath an over bridge and the cops asked us to park our bikes there and have tea from the nearby shops. However, we were a little hesitant to leave the bikes there with all the luggage on them. So we crossed the Howrah Bridge to look for tea shops on the other side. The day was getting hotter and we were already feeling tired. We ended up having cake and energy drinks from a roadside shop.

Crossing Howrah Bridge

We contacted Khan and Mahesh. They were waiting near Floatel. Khan had tipped the watchman of ‘Floatel’ and asked him to inform him when the courier guy arrived. They had then parked their bikes in a taxi stand and taken cover under trees. The taxi guys were giving them company. They even told them that they had seen a Pondicherry registered bike and another bike passing by in the morning. Apparently, we were the talk of the town (exaggeration alert!). Thorappan and I proceeded towards Floatel. We had to cross the Howrah Bridge again – round 4.

Floatel was apparently a floating hotel on the Hoogly river. Khan and Mahesh were camping a few meters ahead of it, near the Calcutta High Court. The taxi drivers arranged parking space for our bikes as well. One of the drivers’ face seemed very familiar to me. I had to rattle my brain for a few minutes to retrieve the video file (stored in my brain) that featured him. While riding towards Howrah Bridge in the morning, there had been a minor traffic jam at one point. A car was attempting to make a U-turn and the other vehicles didn’t seem to give it the time and space to do so. Then, a young man walked to the middle of the road, stopped the traffic from both the sides and allowed that car to turn and go. I had taken note of that man’s kind gesture. That kind, young man was the familiar-faced taxi driver. (A pat on the back for my brain.) Perhaps, this was when the other drivers had seen my Pondy registered bike as well. Besides taxi services, their major business was providing parking space for cars and guiding the parking. They seemed to earn a good deal of money out of it.

As we sat there waiting for the courier, it started drizzling. There were many street shops on the pavement, with make-shift tarpaulin roofs. We took shelter under them. The shops sold tea, pav bhaji and other local snacks. We had hot tea in mud cups – authentic Kolkata tea. Thorappan had four cups in a row. It felt good to experience the heritage Kolkata.

Our bikes parked in the taxi stand…

Meanwhile, we tried contacting Blue Dart. Their toll free number wasn’t reachable. The tracking system showed that the courier had reached a nearby Blue Dart office. We searched online for the contact number of that office and surprisingly found one. When we contacted on that number, a guy told us that the delivery had been already attempted once and since they weren’t able to contact Khan, they had returned it back to the office. We had to pay a fee of INR 3, for them to attempt delivery again (yes you read it right, three rupees). He then sent Khan an SMS with a link to a Google Form. It had Blue Dart’s logo at the top. He had to fill up the form and sent it back within a minute. The conversation with this guy went on for a long time - almost 30 minutes. Thorappan lost count of the number of teas he had. Khan seemed irritated. Khan then told us that the guy had asked for his Google Pay PIN. When Khan refused to share that, he asked for the ID, which Khan shared (as there was no apparent danger in sharing the ID). We felt something fishy though. Khan then got a call from another guy who told him that he was waiting in front of ‘Floatel’ with the courier. Khan went and collected it. This was when we realized that the guy whom we had contacted previously was a fraud.

A tea shop on the pavement

Khan’s phone beeped. There was a message. It said that the entire amount in his bank account, a sum of twelve thousand rupees, had been debited!

(to be continued…)

Chapter 5_The Comedy of Errors

Chapter 5

The Comedy of Errors

After a ‘puri-fied’ break, we woke up at 4:30 AM on day 4 and got ready for the next phase. The original plan was to ride to Dumka, Jharkhand, via Kolkata. There did exist a shorter route to Dumka; ‘Kolkata’ and ‘Howrah Bridge’ were the two magnets that pulled us into the longer route. However, based on the experiences from the first two days (and unfortunate nights) on road, we decided to halt in Kolkata (and not ride till Dumka on the same day). I had rolled out an intricate plan where the extra 150 kilometers could be adjusted over the ride days, without losing an exploration day in Sikkim.

We left the hotel at 7 AM and headed towards the Sun Temple at Konark. The route was a very scenic one, along the seashore, with pine forests on the other side. We regretted not having explored the route on the rest day. We stopped at a place to click some photographs and Khan identified the nearby resort to be the one where our very own DQ and Sunny Wayne stayed while in Puri (in the Malayalam movie ‘Neelakasham Pachakkadal Chuvanna Bhoomi’).

The route was a very scenic one, along the seashore…

We imbibed the beauty of the Sun Temple from the outside. We didn’t explore much there as we had a long day ahead of us, on road. Thorappan was delighted to see lime soda stalls near the temple. He had two glasses while the rest of us had one each; tea, lime soda and *censored* are Thorappan’s weakness’! From Konark we had around 50 kilometers on the State Highway. The roads were narrow, passing through busy little villages. One had to be very alert for gutters, humps, cows, goats, dogs and hoomans. We stopped at a road side restaurant for breakfast. We were the only customers there at that time. The food, which took a long time to be prepared (to the extent that our conversation went into the cliché mode of “has he gone to harvest the grains for the roti?!”), was really good and compensated for the long break we had to take.

Soon we were back on Asian Highway 45. Every passing milestone that showed lesser kilometers to Kolkata gave me a sense of ‘satisfaction’. There’s this signboard and milestone on the Perungulathur bypass (Chennai) which shows 1600 odd kilometers to Kolkata. During my college days in Chennai and random visits afterwards, I used to pass by this board and wonder how far a place Kolkata is and why anyone in Perungulathur would be interested in knowing how far Kolkata is by road. And now, here I was, a few kilometers away from Kolkata, riding the very same route.

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Out of Curiosity…

The Asian Highway Network (AH), also known as the Great Asian Highway, is a cooperative project among countries in Asia and Europe and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The project was initiated by the United Nations in 1959 with the aim of promoting the development of international road transport in the region.

AH 45 runs from Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu to Kolkata in West Bengal, covering a distance of 1982 kilometers. It passes through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal.

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Khan and Mahesh were ‘gone with the wind’ on the highway. The road was wide enough to play whatever you like. The first 100 kilometers went like a weekend. We stopped for chai after 150. After another 100 we stopped for lunch. We were at the Orissa-West Bengal border. At the restaurant we met a couple who were on their honeymoon bike trip, returning from Puri on their Mahindra Mojo. They gave us a few tips on the roads to be taken after Kolkata – a forecast of the thunderstorms ahead.

We imbibed the beauty of the Sun Temple from the outside.

With just 200 kilometers of ride left and half a day in hand, we were in a very relaxed mood. The free roads prompted us to try a few formations and record videos. I found pleasure in video bombing Mahesh’s solo attempts.

Thorappan had a Gopro camera mounted on his helmet; most of the photos and videos of the trip were taken on this Gopro. Thorappan is a very patient fellow, I should say. Over the 16 days of the trip, he had recorded hundreds of videos for us. I dedicate this paragraph to Thorappan.

At around 5, we stopped at a roadside tea shop for yet another chai break. The retreating sun adorned the sky. The setting was so beautiful that my body twitched (a phenomenon which occurs mostly when I’m happy and relaxed; not sure whether it is universal). We had another 80 kilometers to ‘Decathlon Howrah’ where we had to buy a couple of gears. The store would close at 7 and we had to rush a little bit to reach there in time.

I waited outside the store, while the others went in to get the gears. A little boy and his father walked towards me. The kid went around the bikes curiously. He enquired about the ride and particularly about the specifications of the Dominar. And then he made this statement which broke my heart, “Himalayan, Duke and Dominar are okay, but how did you manage to bring this FZ all the way from Chennai.” (I haven’t yet revealed this (underestimation) bit of the conversation to my co-riders; of course Mahesham would have had a good time teasing me throughout the trip!). The father prompted the son to invite me to their house, which he instantly did and I politely refused.

The retreating sun adorned the sky.

We booked a room on Oyo and entered Kolkata. As we bid goodbye to AH 45 and entered the roads of Kolkata city, the scenario changed – the obvious city traffic and the unique traffic rules. Vehicles travelling in the same direction would have to enter different lanes at junctions and wait for signals for their respective lanes to proceed further – an interesting way to control the traffic. We soon lost each other in the traffic. I followed Google Ammachi and headed towards the hotel. Then there came this sign board which read, ‘WELCOME TO THE CITY OF JOY KOLKATA’, and it was a joyful sight indeed.

With less than a kilometer left to the hotel, I lost myself in the labyrinth of a residential area; even Google Ammachi was clueless. I managed to find the place with the help of the locals; Khan and Thorappan were already there, Mahesh yet to be traced.

…‘WELCOME TO THE CITY OF JOY KOLKATA’…

I released myself from the riding gears and walked towards the reception. I was sweating like a horse. To my utter dismay, the receptionist informed us that there were no rooms available. Apparently, there were some technical issues with the OYO app due to which they were unable to update the status on it. I lost it, completely. I rang up OYO and shouted at them. I was very exhausted after the city traffic and I vented my emotions on the unfortunate customer care executive at the other end of the line. Bang!!! There was a glass door in front of me, which my sensory organs failed to detect. The rest of the conversation was done with one hand on the phone and the other rubbing the forehead.

Mahesh arrived; he had lost his way and reached a market, from where he had a tough time getting his bike out. The call with OYO went on for almost an hour, much of the time listening to their advertisement, being on hold, as they connected me to their various departments. Finally, we were shifted to a premium hotel, at the same price, as compensation. It was about 8 kilometers away from the first hotel. We followed Google Ammachi and pushed ourselves ahead through the traffic. Thorappan and I were together; we lost the other two somewhere in the traffic. On reaching the ‘premium hotel’, we were informed that they had no connection with OYO at present and there had been no such booking. A cross verification made us to realize that we had entered the wrong location on Google; instead of OYO 30062, we had entered OYO 3062. It was one of those moments in life when you were confused whether to laugh or cry. We tried contacting Khan and Mahesh; the call didn’t connect. We set the new location on Google and proceeded towards OYO 30062, hoping that the guys would call us on reaching OYO 3062. At a particular junction, we saw Khan and Mahesh on the other side of the road, waiting for their signal. Before we could call out to them, both of us got green signals and crossed each other in the opposite directions. (Does this remind anyone of any particular movie?)

Thorappan and I followed Google Ammachi and reached the location of OYO 30062; there weren’t any hotels there! It was a residential area; yet another maze. We kept circling the same road again and again, hoping for Google Ammachi to change her mind or a hotel to sprout out from the earth. There were many people sitting on the pavements, in front of their apartments. They seemed to be out there for their daily dose of post-dinner social interaction (a practice I would appreciate, if my assumption is right!). Khan and Mahesh soon joined us (they had contacted us after reaching the other OYO – the one with a zero less). We sought the help of the locals, who spoke to the hotel guys (over phone) and directed us to the correct location. If you think we reached the right location after that, no, there were two OYO hotels two buildings apart, and yet again we reached the wrong one.

Thus after a ‘comedy of errors’, we were finally in our ‘premium’ rooms. The ‘premium’ guys wouldn’t allow us to park our vehicles inside their compound and we had to bribe the watchman to sneak the bikes in. It was around 11 PM already. There had been plans of meeting my bong friend Apramit, and also trying out the much heard of ‘aloo biriyani’ at 'Arsalan' near Howrah bridge. The eventful three hours after Decathlon, led us to drop the plan. But Thorappan wouldn’t give up so soon. He decided to go on his own to the biriyani shop and ‘take away’ some biriyani (three cheers to Thorappan’s undying spirit).

Khan and Mahesh got a room on the first floor while Thorappan and I got one on the second. Khan and Mahesh were engaged in a serious conversation when I went into their room to get some of my stuff. Mahesh told me that there was something important to be discussed. He asked me to leave the stuff in my room and get back for the ‘breaking news’. As I climbed upstairs, I got a feeling that something was terribly wrong. Little did I know that what I was about to hear would change the course of the whole trip itself!

(to be continued…)