Oh no I be going elsewhere

After years and multiple posts on this blog (many of which also deleted), I have decided to not post any more content here. The blog will remain though and I won't be deleting any more posts. All further posts would be made on chethankrishna.tumblr.com

kthxbye

Cage mentality : Biker rage

I am often told by cagers how dangerous it is to be on two wheels on an Indian highway. To be honest, I am of the opinion that people who say it's safer to be in a car are the people who are making things dangerous for the bikers. Given a clone of some of those people, one driving a car and the other riding a bike. The car clone will definitely run over the bike clone more often than not. Here are some of the behavioral traits I have observed, obviously it is very difficult to categorize people into exactly one behavioral trait.



The Sneak Attacker: Will creep up from behind and quietly pass you, often catching you by surprise. You will not be aware of his presence on the road, neither will he make any attempts to let you know that he is there and he wants to overtake you. No flashing lights, no indicators, no horn. He is silently acquiring more road real estate by filling any available gap between other vehicles. He is like the wind, there one minute, gone the next.

The Ass Kisser: Very much like the sneak attacker but he will let you know of his presence. In fact, you will be scared to bits that he is present. Within one and a half feet from your arse. The ass kisser will flash headlights, honk and do everything to get you to move out of his lane and the minute you take reactive measures and switch lanes, he does so too. The ass kisser will chase you across lanes and hound you for kilometers.

The Heisenberg: Nobody can certainly tell what lane the Heisenberg is on at any given point in time. He is either switching lanes too fast or straddled across lanes.

The Dick Dastardly: Is usually ahead of you. Treats the road like his trash can and ash tray all rolled into one. Will throw polythene bags, orange peels, cola bottles, beer bottles, half filled beer bottles (such that it sprays a copious amounts of Kingfisher Blue on those who are behind him), cigarette butts, pretty much anything he decides to discard. At the very least, he will turn on his wind shield cleaner water spray.

The Astrologer: Lines himself up in the fast lane to overtake a slow "Yellow Board" (see description below) but waits for an eternity for the stars to align properly so that he can start and complete his passing manoeuvre, keeping hundreds of other road users blocked behind him and the slow Yellow Board.


The Mother Trucker: By far the most difficult to describe. Mother truckers usually sit on the fast lane at 40kmph. Among other things, they are known to believe that learning to use the headlights is enough to drive on highways. The Mother Trucker will flash his lights while coming in the opposite direction and turn into your lane. He flashed his lights FFS! Now it's your job to take care of the rest. Mother truckers, from time to time, appear on the fast lane in wrong direction with their, you guessed it right, headlights on, it's now your job to sort things. They don't pay heed to your head lamp flashes or honking. Contrary to popular belief, Mother Truckers don't usually drive trucks.

The Flaccid: The Flaccid is very optimistic and strongly believes that four wheels are always faster than two wheels. He will become visibly upset when you pass him on your motorbike. He will take that as a challenge and politely request you to allow him to pass you by flashing the headlights of his overloaded Nano or Maruti 800 from ten years ago. If you allow him to overtake without slowing down, he will try with all his might, but can only match your speed at best before going flaccid. If you encounter other traffic in this long drawn process, you are forced to cut his attempt short and pass the slower traffic first. After which, the Flaccid will signal his request and start the routine all over again.

The Fiesta: The Fiesta is exactly like Flaccid, but the only difference is he will successfully manage to overtake you. Once the overtaking is done, he will drop his speed to alarming levels there by forcing you to overtake him again. The process continues in an infinite loop until one of you get bored or stop to take a leak.

The Regret King: The Regret King is often seen reversing in the fast lane on a National Highway to take the U-turn or the right turn he missed. He doesn't mind reversing 500 meters to take the service road that looks empty (or beats the traffic signal and jam ahead). Always regrets and doesn't mind coming back in reverse gear.

The Escort: Unlike the other behavioral characteristics, this one applies to our two wheeled brethren (by and large). The Escort will make any and every attempt to well... escort you to the end of his town, often dropping his current errands and making huge detours to his route. He will happily rev the tits off his 100cc commuter bike's engine to keep up with you. Usually seen seated in the customary one butt cheek hanging off the seat position.

The Yellow Board: Species clad in white (or some shade of it) driving "for hire" vehicles. Doesn't belong to Earth.

PS: Not all cagers are hopeless, obviously :)

Why I won't bite the Apple

I am on the market for a new computer. Actually, make that I might be; if I can't get my lazy rear assets to fix the broken desktop and laptop in the next few weeks. They have been broken since a good six months at least now. I need to make a confession at this point, I am a severe gear whore. I like to know what people are using, to the minutest of details. Be it computers, laptops, software, cameras, lenses, sports equipment my favorite players use, players my favorite brand (which is Slazenger by the way, for cricket) sponsors. The lot. To that end, I started following this site religiously since a year (maybe more). I was surprised to see so many mac users (actually just about everybody). Then I realized maybe the site interviews only mac users. I don't know.

As you may have guessed, the various i pads pods and phones are out of the scope of this post. I am particularly interested in knowing why people buy Apple computers. I understand macs were way ahead on the multimedia front, but PCs have closed the gap since. At least for photo editing, for video editing purposes the mac world still holds the edge. Then why are so many photographers still making the jump? After days of going through articles and posts where mac vs PC was debated ad nauseam, I paid a visit to an Apple store today. To me, macbook pros and mac airs just felt like ... computers. Computers, that will go obsolete. Actually, computers that are already obsolete compared to what I can buy outside. It's always been function over form for me, If I wanted something that would blow my mind off with it's looks I would have bought Scarlett Johansson. Never mind her clock speed.


I thought maybe it will take a week's proper usage for it to grow on me. If it's really so worth it, the finances will be arranged some how. I could always choose eating one less meal a day. So, I visited the Apple site. That, was the death knell. The last straw. It's just the way the products are presented, in the way the descriptions are worded. I beat a hasty retreat and directed my browser to more pleasant places on the internet. It's downright insulting to the human intellect. They're saying "hop on fellows we will take you for a ride" and people are willingly putting their hands up for that. As a last measure, Apple fanatics resort to "Apple did it first", to which I ask Ford built the first affordable car, are you still buying Fords only? The Apple product ownership idea lacks character, imagination. I have nothing against Apple users, you are all fantastic people. Just that I am not willing to join alongside you folks in this wonderful lunacy.

PS: I happily accept any Apple product as gifts though.

Life's like that

Those unscrupulous minds will one day turn maudlin
You keep plowing on my lad, laughin'

It will be sold

I sat on the fence for a long time, the whole of last year. So, after 6 years and 28 days, I am leaning towards selling it. My first bike, the kick start, non-alloy version of Honda Unicorn. I rode out of the showroom with my dad riding pillion, I had had no training on riding bikes. But, I had waited 18 years, during which I had obsessed over shifting gears by flicking my toes in the air, I had ridden one so many times in my mind that I needed none. So, I slipped it into first and slowly pulled away. Not a care in the world that I have never ridden in the peak evening traffic before. Not a care about anything at all.

A few months later, when the odometer read 4624 KM I took it out on the highway. Back then, the only hang out spot on the now crowded Mysore road was the Cafe Coffee Day at the 68th mile (KM) marker. Today, it resembles a crowded city main road. I never dropped below three digit figures on that entire trip, on a bone stock Unicorn (It came shod with 3.00x18 MRF zapper at the rear). With no Google maps or Wikimapia in those days, the only landmark I knew was, it was somewhere after Channapatna town. After seeing no signs of any Cafe Coffee Day even after crossing the town, I pulled to the side and rang a friend up.

Dude! Where is it? I have crossed the town.
It's after the town man, keep looking to your right. Are you going with her?
Yes!
Bugger! :P

Once back in town, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had returned a whopping 48 to the liter even after caning it both ways. Be it filling up 1.2 liters of petrol for the only Rs.50 note I had in my pocket and setting off on a city tour, or filling exactly 4 liters of petrol to complete a round trip to Kolar, it was all done. "What if it ran dry somewhere? What if?" That was never a possibility, it wouldn't let me down. It never did. The serious craving for cornering also grew, I would become so elated for two days if I took a corner perfectly and hit the apex. I had a few favorite corners on all my routes, pegs were scraped often, today I will shy away from attempting those corners with such ferociousness.

I did many trips on it, way too many to recount all of them in one post. More than half of the entire running was done on highways and ring roads. I will recount only two of them.

The first one from a one day return trip to Mudumalai in the July of 2007. On our way back, shortly after Gundlupet, Santa's modified P180 threw in the towel. After an hour's failed effort to resurrect it, I and Praveen (another Unicorn rider) had to push home, it was getting dark A glance at the watch showed it was five minutes to six-thirty in the evening. We both started in a staggered formation, in torrential downpour, in the dark, two stock 35/35w Unicorn headlamps for illumination. His requests for butt breaks by flashing his headlamp went unheeded, I convinced him that we will rest for a while at Kamat Lokaruchi and eat something at the same time. Taking two breaks would slow us down, we made it into Kengeri by 9:45 in the night and it was still raining. Roughly, Gundlupet to Bangalore in about three hours, in the rain, in the dark with stock headlamps. I wouldn't even attempt it today.

The second one from the last day of the Jog/Gokarna ride on the Gandhi Jayanti of 2007. We had six bikes, two each of zmas, unicorns and thunderbirds and both 'birds carrying pillions. On the last day, the group split up, one zma, unicorn and 'bird deciding to skip the arduous two wheeled trek till Yana. The day began early, at 0500 in the morning we checked out of our hotel in Kumta and went to Yana forest check post. On our way down from Yana, we stopped over at Devraj's house (the only house on the trek route) for a sumptuous meal. He even tempted the others to stay back by enticing them with naati chicken delicacies. But, I had to head back home. So, by 1:30 in the afternoon we started from Yana forest check post. It was four in the evening when we hit the NH4 near Haveri and it started pouring (doh!). A short break at a Reliance A1 plaza near Ranebennur and patches of broken road around Davangere, four hours later we hit outskirts of Chitradurga. The guys started contemplating taking a room to crash for the night and continue in the morning, as it was still raining relentlessly. A quick call to the guys who had started ahead, we find out that they will be stopping for dinner after Tumkur. They were only a hundred odd kilometers ahead of us even after skipping Yana. So, I offered to ride solo till Tumkur where, I will regroup with the others by the time they finish dinner and continue from there, while these guys can find a hotel and continue the next day. But, it was decided not to split the group any further and we ploughed on. By ten in the night we made it to the Kamat at Dobbspet, some members of the first group were still gnawing on the last crumbs of their meal. I had a filling thali and went back home in a state of trance (I was extremely tired and sleepy as I had a heavy dinner, the only thing I could see was the tail lamp of the guy ahead of me). Close to 650 KMs in a single day (including a trek) in rains, I wouldn't attempt it ever again.


Its funny and ironic that all the roads I have listed in my five most awesome roads I have ridden on post were done on the Unicorn. I bought a zma wanting to get out of the city every weekend, while it has seen good mileage on the odometer, very few of those were churned on the highways. We make grand plans, we grow, we earn, we do a million things. But, nobody can really escape from pining for what we once had or did. The "Ah! those good old days" nostalgia will never spare anybody. Strange is the way of life.


As it's now evident, I can go on another two days recounting every kilometer logged astride the Unicorn. The (fond) memories associated with it are plenty. They are so deep rooted and far reaching. It now becomes obvious why I didn't sell it as soon as I got my second bike. Also, every time I consider selling it, what she said rings in my head

We will never sell this bike, this is our first bike. I will never let you sell it. We will keep it forever!

Well, she said many other things too. I have realized that it's not what you had but the experiences and stories they gave you that remain. This being  the season for disassociating myself from everything I had grown attached to for the last five or six years, this being the time for moulting, it is only fair that the Unicorn should be sold!

Farewell girl, may you bear better glory to him than your former master!

Soap

All soapy and lathered
A million times scrubbed
Viscera tattered, blue and gray
Will somebody make it go away?

Stranger

No Stranger to this
Not unknown to that
Got this, that, the other
and everything in between
in the bag,
Ain't no stranger to nothing at all
Hmmm, strange how it all
filled up my bag