Escape:
Rather than giving reasons for the mad enterprise that I undertook starting Friday night, I will begin by telling the reader how at 3 O' Clock in the night, the sneaking out part of my journey was proving to be far tougher than I imagined.
Jong had come back from DeeTee dead drunk so naturally I expected him to be be asleep in his room. But when I returned from Planet Cafe after having a few snacks with my classmates, from one of whom I was borrowing money, Jong was there in his usual position, sprawled half-naked on the couch, a beatific smile on his face and Sid's laptop on his belly, watching one of his endless Korean dramas.
Now one of the major points on which my plan depended was procuring Jong's helmet. This was difficult enough to do with him sleeping in his room...and walking out of the living room in wrongful possession of the said object in the middle of the night, without raising questions was nigh on impossible...
So I devised a plot....It was dastardly and treacherous but I would ask his forgiveness later. Right now there was time only for action. So I got the other laptop and pretended I was using it. After 5 mins, I made a face and said I was running out of battery. Jong considered my statement for a moment and then passed me the charger(we had only one). Jong might have known that Sid's laptop ran out of charge quickly but what he didn't know was that recently it had taken to shutting down without warning in two minutes. And in two minutes time that was exactly what happened.Smiling inwardly, I offered Jong the charger back, but he chose the easier alternative of sleep, as I had known he would ;)
With the coast clear and Jong asleep on the couch, I fetched the helmet from his room, put random ironed clothes inside a bag. Sid did wake up for a second and regarding my activities without surprise, rolled over and went to sleep again. I grew even bolder and opening the cupboard noisily, took out a jacket because I knew the night air would be cold. Then picking up my charger and phone, I slipped out of the front door which, by design, had been left open and down 4 flights of stairs to where my bike awaited.
Gas Giants:
At 3:30 in the night the roads are absolutely empty and there is not a shadow to be seen moving except your own. I was grateful for the jacket because the wind was chilly and even with it I was shivering uncontrollably in a while. I saw just one thing worth mentioning until I reached NH-17 and that was two cars, one a van with flashing orange lights and the other a white Qualis. I don't know why but somehow I felt that in that car could be important people, people who might feel threatened by a helmeted rider, carrying a black bag following them in the night. And if it were the police then they might feel the necessity of stopping such a person especially since near Diwali the terrorist threat always increases. But the two cars let me pass them without any incident and though I tried to peer in through the glass, I saw only the reflected street lamps, and little more.
I did not have much petrol in my bike so as soon as I reached the highway, I stopped near a bus stop where I saw some autowallahs sleeping and and asked them where I could find the nearest 24X7 petrol pump. Luckily it was in my direction and so hardly 10 minutes into the ride I found a station where I filled up on air and petrol and then saving the time and progress in my message drafts, since I did not have anything else, I revved up my engine and soon I was talking to the wind(bad translation I know :))
Try to think of the worst, most potholed road you can imagine and multiply your imagination a 100 times to include huge pieces of rock that have no business being on the highway and you will have some idea of the road I was on. The only companions I had at that time were huge trucks carrying HP gas and in my limited solar system which revolved around myself, they were the lumbering gas giants, but on the darkest night of the year, even for their tail lights I was grateful. Further along I saw some crashes, most of them trucks, that like the failed planets between Mars and Jupiter had failed to complete the transit around the sun in one piece.It was very hard to see too far at night so I was literally riding on my luck, just locking my arms at the elbows so at least however bad the bump might be at least the bike would not fall. I was tempted to pull down my visor because of all the dust that was flying around but when I tried I could not see anything at all, so I just braced myself for whatever may come and continued onwards.
Around an hour later I came to a long white bridge where the road was much better and finally I could lean back and look up at the sky. It was a clear night and clearer still because by now I was far from any city that might conspire to hide the wonders of the night sky from my eyes. And to my left I saw a flash and I was transported into a different, much better world, that moment I felt the freedom and all the new experiences that I was rushing headlong into and upon that shooting star I placed a wish that....but I'm not supposed to tell ;) I could not see the end of the bridge and on either side there was only black void, but now I was not worried about anything...it was as if the cleansing silver starlight had purified my blighted soul and now my will had been reinforced. The bike gained a life of its own and accelerated into the nineties as it finally found its bearings on the kind of road it was designed for, and along it, with the gnarled, ageless, haunted trees bearing down on either side I sped along.
The first few signs of life could be seen now. There was a lightness in the sky to the east, when I slowed down sufficiently, I could hear the chirping of birds which I couldn't earlier and the place I was heading into seemed like a brighter one that I had left behind. It was 6:30 when I reached a T shape in the road from which, heading left I reached Murudeshwar. The huge statue of Shiva towered above everything else as I got off the bike, lifted off my helmet and surveyed the landscape....the dozens of boats on the beach just pushing off for the sea to return only in the evening, the temple, the clean roads, the empty parking. It had not been very easy but I was at my first pit stop and though I had a long way to go yet, all I was thinking was so far...so good(...so what!).
