I always knew i was weird but it wasn't until i read my post to my school yahoo group that the magnitude of my weirdness hit me.The year was 2005,the day a cold December day with temp. going as low at 0.5 deg C.
Two lunatics set off for Agra from Delhi at 2am on a bike.
There are two versions of the event ,the first part is Alok's which i must admit tends to be over dramatic and which starts with the circumstances that led us to take that trip
The second part is my version of the actual trip itself.
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PART I
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Ashu (Rakesh) visiteda couple of days (my mistake, I was not available) and we met at Pvr Priya. I also met Shweta (Sahay) after a long while. Then after
dropping her at JNU, we spent some time at Ansal Plaza, and got back
home late night (11 30 pm).
Ashu said: let’s go to
I said: sure we will
but I knew we were never going to
I was busy for another 4 days and over the weekends; Ashu took the
the graveyard shift. i came back from the shift at abt. 10 in the
morning (sat). Ashu didn’t let me sleep and i kept dozing the whole
day.
Towards the evening, we went to meet shweta, and ashu said in cold
words " we r going to
LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT THE SITUATION
TIME 5 PM
DAY SAT.
CONVENIENCE BIKE YAMAHA FAZER.
ASHU'S TRAIN LEAVES SUNDAY 8 PM
AND
We went to meet Shweta and told our crazy plan to her. She screamed
out" pagal ho gaye ho kya? itni thand hai". And she was right. The
temp. was as low as 4 degrees. We didn’t have hand gloves, driver’s
license, or the bike’s RC.
I said to ashu lets drop the plan but he was adamant.
We arrived home.
We made up a story.... our friend sunny's b'day. So we are going for
a night stay.
Finally, as the departing hour approached, I went in the kitchen,
packed some "badams", stuffed some newspaper inside my clothes ( we
were even short of winter clothes) and set off for our loooong
journey.
The first issue was the driver’s license and RC. Without that going to
south ex.II police station. i made up a story that I lost wallet that
contained all the necessary stuff..... Drivers license, RC, my credit
card, 8 debit cards, my college id card and all similar stuffs.
However I failed to convince them.
Then we did a daring act.
Went to south ex
told ashu to note the address of the house. That spectacle man
couldn’t see clearly, so I had to help him with that. Then we went to
the police station and came up with a leak proof story.
The police enquired for abt 1 hour. And ashu was wandering outside
the pol. station. He was too afraid to get in ... afraid that if ever
the police verified the address, our Agra plans would turn to jail's
plans
after a long enquiry that lasted abt an hour, they finally bought my
story, and we got the FIR paper stamped.
and we set off for Agra at abt 1.30 am on Sunday
ONCE AGAIN LETS HAVE A LOOK AT THE SITUATION.
2 People
DESTINATION 200 KMS FAR.
ON A BIKE
1.30 IN THE NIGHT
WITH ONLY A RECEIPT OF FIR AND NO RC OR DL.
IMPROPER CLOTHES
MONTH DEC. BEG.
TEMP. 3 - 4 DEGREES
...DRIVING AT 110 KMS PER HOUR.
I was wearing newspapers underneath, then a sweater, and two jackets.
Ashu was wearing similar stuffs exp. for the newspapers. I put on the
hand gloves we borrowed from Shweta (god bless her for that), then the
woolen cap, and then the helmet. Ashu followed my steps and we moved
on to a 200kms long journey in the cold night.
When we started, I drove at abt 30kmph feeling quite secured due to the
voluminous clothes I was wearing, we speeded up to 60. As we drove
past Lajpat Nagar flyover, I realized what big mistake we had done.
Although I had covered myself with ample clothes above the waist, I
forget to wear some more trousers. Also the gloves I was wearing were
very thin as a result; I felt the first pinch of cold in my hands
which immediately went numb. Slowly, I felt the cold sprawling down
to my legs and a cold shiver ran across my body.
We had just started!!
Ashu asked "kya haal hai?",
and all I could say was "tt..tthh..eeeeekkh hooon."
We drove past the ashram flyover and took a right turn for
road. After I had learnt to adapt to the cold, and was in a position
to speak, I whispered " ashu!, kaise ho?". The words echoed in the
helmet and I realized I had spoken too slowly. I made multiple
attempts and finally succeeded in passing my words to Ashu. He
said,"Maja aa raha hai." i felt like jumping off the bike and cursed
the moment I told him to come to
When we crossed Badarpur border, something happened.
We had two helmets and one of them had dark glasses. To get a clearer
vision in the night, I chose the one which was white and this indeed
turned out to be more disastrous since after attending the graveyard
shift I barely had time to sleep, I was feeling drowsy. I had speeded
to around 80kmph and was half sleeping on the bike.
Just then, i saw a truck coming from the opposite direction. The
headlight of the truck blinded me however; I felt I was
safe because the road had a divider. BUT what I didn’t realize was that
there was another road crossing the highway at right angles. Amidst
the blind vision, and dark night and the strong beam of the
headlight, I suddenly saw two dim red bulbs glowing at a horizontal
distance of about two meters, and about 1 meter above the ground on my right.
Almost at the same time, I saw a similar picture on my left as well.
I suddenly woke from a dream and realized I was driving right in the
middle of two trucks at a speed of 80kmph. And the trucks were
barely 1.5 meters apart.
I applied the rear brakes and the bike skidded on to the left. Since
the speed had decreased, therefore, we were just saved and didn’t come
below the truck.
a narrow escape!!
Ashu shouted "Abe mar jaenge! If you are feeling sleepy,
lemme drive" but I thought, the poor chap is not a pro driver.
So....
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This part is my narration from there on….
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Part II
So we set off from Delhi at 2 am with the idea that we would halt at
30 kms take a break and then continue again. But after the first stop
at 42 kms it was evident that this was not feasible since the cold was
something that we had not taken into account. Moving at speeds of more
than 80 kmph and then taking a break and setting off again only made
us more uncomfortable. So I got on the driver seat and with a challenge
to myself that I would take this bike as far as possible.
We soon came across a check post and the police there asked for the
papers. We were so cold that all I could say to alok was "get the
papers out" to which he said, "they are with u "...and then we pretended
to find them ...The guy asked me where we were off to and all we could
say was "AGRA" to which the cop gave us a strange look as if we were
the only two lunatics in the entire world...meanwhile the trucks were
lining up behind us and the cops got somewhat frustrated and asked us
to move on.
All that Alok told me was to get behind a truck whenever the cold got
unbearable. The first time I tried ,it was a relief but then the truck
was moving at 85kmph and I could go as high as 100 easily .So I said
to myself .."What the hell, get over it as soon as possible" and with
that gone was the shelter of the trucks and we were out on the open
roads again with no respite from the cold.
After sometime I felt something on my shoulder and I realized that my
dear friend was dozing off easily .This from a guy who never trusted
me on a bike. That in some way reassured me and boosted my confidence to
an all time high. All I asked him was what was the max speed that he
had done on his bike and he told me "105kmph" and in few mins I showed
him the speedometer which was hovering around 110kmph..my personal
best till then..
The next break that we took was at 102 kms from
to go. We had hot tea and after a break of some 10 mins off we set
again to hit the road. Moving at max speed we crossed
some 35kms from
It was still dark....
after driving at that speed for more than 2 hrs with no breaks the
eyes were bloodshot and as we entered
m still not sure what happened. But I feel that I missed a turning only
to realize it at the last moment and applied the brakes at the last
moments .Maybe the brakes failed at that time or maybe the disc brakes
played foul the end result was that the bike skidded and before we
could realize we were both lying down on the road and the bike was
like 2 mts away with some damage of course. How we managed to get away
without injuries can b best explained that we had at least 4 layers of
clothing and the helmets .That was the first time I thanked the
make helmets compulsory.
This was how we finally reached
stand and made sure we were among the first ones to enter the TAJ.
6 15a.m.
Standing before the Taj and shivering in the cold was a combination
that not many would have experienced and all I could say then was "The
trip ,the cold, the accident was worth it to see the grand spectacle"
Alok could only nod in agreement.
Somehow we managed to get into the Taj...and inside the main complex
both of us were lying down on the floor, looking up, and not saying a
word for close to 15 mins .I felt something akin to Wordsworth's
feelings sitting on a river bank and writing poems on Nature. That was
the best part of the entire trip and made every lie that we told to
get there or every hardship that we faced enroute, worth it.
After spending like 2 hrs in the Taj we moved to the Agra Fort and had
an extensive tour of the entire complex, read everything that was there
to read. Saw the Tajmahal from the place Shajahan saw it when he was
imprisoned by his son.
Somewhere around 10 we were off to
poor guy really had a hard time trying to keep awake and there was one
instance when I felt him leaving the highway and head towards a
ditch. When I asked him abt it he was like" sorry bhai aankh lag gayi
thi"..Whoever said drinking and driving was not safe forgot to add
"sleeping and driving was unsafer",....that is something Alok didn’t
know perhaps.
We took a stop in
that we moved more than 120kms at a stretch and within 90 mins we were
30 kms from
longest stretch of biking that I had done non stop. I needn't add that
my arms were aching like anything but at least we had a welcome sunny day.
By 1 30 we were in
our classmate and beloved friend Shweta. She was like "hey u guys made
it..u 2 are the craziest guys I have ever seen. I was thinking u would
b lying somewhere on the highway frozen"....that was the time that
realization sunk in that we made it. Something that was billed
impossible by all my friends there.
Came back home and had a nap for 3 hrs and then i was off to railway
station to board my train to Sbg. I slept for 18 straight hours on the
train to which a fellow passenger later remarked
"aap trains mein kafi sote hain"
to which I politely smiled but wanted to say
" u !@#$% if u haven't slept for more than 3 hrs in 36 hrs ,braving the cold and
traveling 500kms on a bike and then u sleep for 18 hrs it sort of makes up for it"
Even today when i tell my friends here in Manipal who are originally
from Delhi abt out trip they grin sheepishly and say
"don't cook up stories"
....that makes me realize the wise words of Alok when he said
"Rakesh u know what ...no one will ever really feel the sense of
adventure unless they have been there and seen and felt the cold at
that time"
Two days back i read an article that Delhi recorded 0.2degress ...and
i wonder to myself what the temp on the highway was when we were
moving at 100+ kmph speeds and when the helmet visors would turn
white in 5 mins due to cold and every 5 mins u had to wipe them
clean. At least when the temp is 0.2 you guys are in the cozy comfort
of
I never missed the comforts of my home than during that wild night trip.
But sprawling inside the main complex of Tajmahal and gazing the
interior of it or standing where once Princess Diana stood, and watch
the first rays of the sun hit the marble edifice made everything worth it.
That is the whole story of two crazy Xaverians who knew they had to do
it because they had to do it. Maybe it was the "Never say Die" spirit
that Xavier’s inculcated into our beings.
There was this discussion recently in my institute and there was this
female who went around asking everybody what was the craziest thing
that they have done. When she asked me all I could say was " I don't
remember" while in my mind of minds the whole
flashing. I could have answered her but refrained coz I felt she or the
other chaps there wouldn't truly appreciate our
One thing that always bothered me was why many foreigners know India
by Tajmahal but standing there and watching the monument made me
remember the words of Rabindranath Tagore "A drop of tear on the face
of time ".Need i add anything to that.
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