ALCOHOL

Well to start with the title tells you the general outline of this piece of blog. Though staying in Pune is good fun and it synonymous with a gala time, there are no free lunches in this world (cheap ones exist though). So our time for some worthwhile work hath come. THE EXAMINATIONS. This test of our knowledge and skills or the lack of it, Iam certain poses as much of a challenge to the examiners if not more than what it throws at us. So anyway the hustle and bustle of Pune had all of a sudden become quiet for us, with most of us glued to our books and bound by the suddenly high walls of CME. However we got a breather or rather a pre-cursor to our freedom. The extended weekend gave my friends and me the liberty to take an evening off. So after a lot of deliberations and arguements and some good fellas leaving for Durga Puja, we the not so good guys decided to hit a lounge by the name of Kiva. The first to arrive were the three of us and the multitude x 2 (read couples) left us wondering whether we had made the right choice. A drink had hardly gone in when my phone rang for the first time ina series of endless calls to come. Two more guys had decided to join us there. So from the table for three we had to be shift to a table for five, space being a premium. And yes there was also a giant screen showing the Indian cricket team in all its misery. More liqour followed (i could have replaced folllowed with flowed). Several drinks several phone calls and after shifting our table twice we were thirteen guys in all. And instead of a terrible situation which stared me in the face when i entered which would have been being surrounded bu couples and not knowing where to look during their coochie-cooing, it was they who were looking at us now. A boisterous crowd of thirteen singing with the music real loud cheering for a boundary raising toasts trojan style, drinking fire shots and a few sober guys trying to calm down the others. After all the drinks and more of them suddenly a plate of food appeared from nowhere on the table. Apparently some guys were sober enough and hungry enough to order food. So after the food when we did manage to amble outside the general opinion was to go anywhere but our rooms, which as I see in hindsight was wisely put down by the sober wisemen (also popularly called by us as the uncles). The bikes were then revved up with the usual drunk dialogues of "i'll drive..i drive very well after drinking" and the more indian "bhai pe bharosa nahin hai kya". So after the melodrama and the 'great drivers' and the 'bharosas' we finally managed to get to our rooms. The next morning was for discussing the drama of the previous night which the lesser spoken about is better.

MOTORCYCLE DIARIES 2

An otherwise normal guy i sometimes wonder whether being impulsive(as i was on this particular day) has more pros or cons.Anyway putting that thought aside for a while i'll come down to another lazy afternoon on the 2nd of September which left me short of ideas as to what i should do in the four day vacation which started that day. The answers literally came from up above. One of my coursemates called out from the first floor asking me if i wanted to go to Goa. I replied in the affirmative. Precisely twenty minutes later two Royal Enfield Thunderbirds we revving and rumbling on the highway headed to a known place but on a scrarily unfamiliar route. Vowing to drive all night we reached Mahabaleshwar at 11.30 at night. Notwithstanding the cold i decided to go ahead and have the famous strawberries with cream, a thing mahabaleshwar is famous for. My buddy who by now had forgotten that he had a back (sitting on a bike without a backrest) and I then set course for Goa. It rained harder and we drove faster. An otherwise uneventful (read normal) journey suddenly shook me up, and much more than me shook up my pillion rider. My coursemates used to say (they still do) and can swear by anyone that Karthik can sleep anywhere and everywhere and lo and behold i pulled off yet another feat unthinkable for many. I slept on a bike moving at 70 kms an hour when noticing my inaction at a fast approaching vehicle my buddy jolted me out of my sleep and beleive me i could have jumped out of my skin when i woke up and saw a car heading straight for me and quite fast at that. Fortunately we just about made our way out of the car's path and I am alive and blogging here. The rest of the journey saw me at my alert best and was good except for a punctured tyre that took us three and a half hours to rectify and gave my fellow riders and me the much wanted dose of some sleep even if it was outside a village shop which was far from comfortable but i guess adventure and comfort don't form a part of the same package. We then reached Goa and stayed in a shack on a beach pretty much drunk for three days and a pretty wild night when two of us drank two bottles of wine in about fifteen minutes or so. The next morning of course left our minds clean oblivious to everything that had happened the previous evening. The drive back to Pune was a much safer one on a much better road which afforded us the liberty of riding at speeds of 80 kms an hour consistently. It might seem a little strange that a post about a trip to Goa has no mention whatsoever of any female presence. Well frankly and sadly there wasn't any. I would definitely make a mention of my biking buddy Ashish Tiwari for the benefit of those who do know him. Kudos brother!! As for thr trip and the MOTORCYCLE DIARIES hopefully there shall be many more.