A Ride In The Rains!!

One of my favorite songs of all time happens to be John Denver's 'Annie's Song. Be it the arpeggio of guitars, or the ultra-soft yet clear voice of John's or the lyrics. The lyrics steal the lime light: Every line of the song is so carefully crafted that every lovelorn heart can empathize with the feelings, every poet can relish the words that are very truthful to the feeling that they carry and every nature-lover can's just help but be enthralled by the very rapture of the moments that are described in the song.

Of the three roles mentioned above, the first one does not apply to me, and right now, I choose to ignore the second one. considering that I am a nature lover, the line that impresses me the most is the one: “Like a Walk in the Rain.” I do enjoy walking in the rain. However, one experience that surpasses the joy of walking in the rain is the experience of riding my bike in the rain!!

I generally do not take my bike out in to the city, but there are times when an unruly brat in me surfaces and I get my bike to the highways. Before you start imagining things, I should warn you that my bike is a Hero Honda Splendor+...not some cross-country cruiser/chopper. It's an amazing machine and it can never go beyond 80Kmph in the maximum throttle...a bliss in disguise. The ride from my home to office is mostly on NH-45 and a little on the Pallavaram-Velachery road. Both these roads are really smooth and it's a couple of hours ride one way.

This, by itself, is an amazing experience....especially on days when the sun is on maintenance mode. The rains are something that garnish this phenomenon: Late in the night, after I have secured all my vulnerable possessions (I usually carry my laptop, a couple of phones, and occasionally, a camera.), just get on to the seat and kick-start my bike and set my ride in the rains. Every drop that kisses your face, the way the drops trickle down your spine and send a surge through your senses, the feel of getting head-on with a force of nature, all these are feelings of bliss that I will surely cherish forever. For me it's a show of attitude: Like in the BJ Thomas's song, Rain Drops keep falling on my head. It's a feeling of Nirvana: when you are cruising gently at 30 or 40 Kmph and you feel the rain all over you, transporting you to a feel of being suspended in intellectual oblivion.

Do you want to make it even better? Stop by a road side Tea Shop and order for piping hot tea. Please make sure that this happens in a local tea shop and not some hi-end cafe. Need I say more? You'll realize how magical it is to enjoy the duel between the chill that surrounds you and the warmth that fills you from within. The sound of the rain all around you takes the moment of relaxation to an unfathomed magnitude.

I feel lucky when I get to ride in the rain (my parents find it the other way round!). And the highway is another plus point I have; the road does not have people who cross the road darting like a meerkat and this avoids the pressure on my brake shoes. I know I might sound eccentric, poetic or philosophical, and impractical, but I really feel that people miss out on small but rejuvenating joys like these. All we can think of is to get in to an air-conditioned bus (now that Chennai has AC Volvos) and reach home as soon as possible and as dry as possible.

This riding-a-bike-in-the-rain experience has graced me more than once...and I don't seem to get frustrated or bored of this. As I've said in my earlier blog post, my passion towards riding my bike in the rain acts weird too. And I am sure I'll cope up with the weirdness!!!

When Women Dine…

Disclaimer: The characters and events mentioned in this post are 127% real and not born out of my imagination. The intention of this post is fun and fun alone, and not to demean womanhood or any person in particular. If anyone finds this post offensive, please email me or comment, and this post will be removed immediately. And I wasn’t eavesdropping in to the Eves’s privacy. It’s just a basic human curiosity, coupled with my crazy observation, which resulted in a post being born.

This wasn’t the post that I was planning to blog on. But I encountered this interesting episode in Gupta Bhavan, a chaat joint in Chengalpattu, when I was enjoying my fried Pav Bhaji one day. I came from the station and comfortably settled on the table just below the AC. I was waiting for my orders to come, when two women, of almost my peer level, came and sat on the table next to mine. In some time, the waiter came and they ordered for 4 RasMalais, stating that two more ladies will be joining them.

The RasMalais arrived and so did the other two women. It’s a usual women’s meeting, discussing about Madhavan and each others’ attire, and how the professors and some guys in the college ogled at them today. And all this, forgetting the fact that I was sitting beside them.

The waiter came, with a fair estimate that they would have finished the RasMalai, and to his shock, all the RasMalais were almost untouched. However, to comply with is professional ethics, he suggested they order the main course, and handed them a few copies of the menu card.

I knew that women were slow and extremely choosy with shopping, but food?? I was kinda astonished to hear a discourse on every main course. First, it was about how friend idlis are being made, and then came the most hilarious one concluding if one of the items meant Aappam or Appam. The discussion lasted for almost ten minutes, and I did not concentrate much on the discussion, because my order had already arrived. This was followed by a few discussions on the composition of Paneer, the nature of mushrooms, and how slim each person was.

After all these discussions, they (I thought) were ready to give their orders. There was still some RasMalai left in the cups when the waiter came to take orders for the main course. They started ordering. They were so confused with the dishes and with a total mess of the orders, they made the waiter discard the page where he took the order, and take it again on a fresh page. The waiter left their table with one forced smile.

Then discussions started all over again. I was done with my snacks and I paid the bill, and left my table. While leaving, I shot a last look at the ladies’ table, and some RasMalai was still remaining in their tables. Those poor Rasmalais, had been in the table for almost half an hour until then, and God knows when they got over.

I get emails about women driving, and using ATMs and almost every other thing that makes fun of how they act. I am no feminist and I ain’t a chauvinist either. I just have a subtle laugh and dismiss them, saying to myself, “I wouldn’t treat a woman this way.” But witnessing an even live, and that too in my hometown, I think I will reconsider my viewpoint. And I am grateful to my every gal pal, who have taken care not to put me in to this kind of a situation.

Peddling In Twilight

It was an everyday affair two years before, and then in suffered a two-year long hiatus. Now it’s back with a bang – the joy of riding on a bicycle in the morning.


The spirit is so refreshing when I start. It is a six-kilometer long ride from my home to the Chengalpattu Railway Station. My ride starts at around six-twenty in the morning when the sun is still a virgin, spreading its light in an aesthetically pleasing rate. The cold wind with its monsoon flavor and chilling touch caresses my face all over. A few more pedals and you are on the main road, flanked by green grass on either sides. The dew drops of the night sit and scintillate on the tiny blades of the grass, only to become traceless in a few hours. Just elevate your line of sight and you see the clouds scattered across the skies, giving a hazy-blue appearance. And in the middle of all this, little do you recognize that your feet are already in rhythm, and your body is contributing the grace too.


Then comes the most spectacular part – the lake, and it is a riders’ delight when the waters are full after the monsoons. A kachha road, with no tar, yet with mud as smooth as marbles, with palm trees on either sides and the leaves adding a crude phrase to the splashing water against the banks and the numerous birds that start their vocal exercises then – what more can you ask for?


And at the end of all this, I’ve a long, smooth road with nothing worth to be called traffic, all for me at that morning hour. The road is so free that you can, literally, ride your cycle with the hands off the bar. I feel like I am next to God, minus the responsibilities. It’s one abso-freakin’-lutely awesome hell of a ride on that road.


Remember how you felt when doing the first home-work out of fear when you joined your nursery or Kindergarten? And when you were three or four, you think of the days you spent in your freedom of being a child- no commitments and no problems, love, care and food, on-demand and in-excess. Perhaps, a human being’s first experience of work-related stress, and then Cartoon Network.


It’s almost a similar feeling in here. After enjoying this entire communion with nature and freedom like in the Garden of Eden, you enter in to the commuters’ chaos and a crowd like Eden Gardens. Welcome to the real Chengalpattu! It’s so congested with traffic which mainly comprises of vehicles driven by people who do not know what ‘considerate’ means. After battling your way on the road, you reach the railway station, where a different set of variables that define a pleasant ride enter to modify the equation of fun. (To know about train rides, visit my other blog at http://fizzyfootprints.wordpress.com )


Even when the traffic plays, and even when stress beckons, the joy of having experienced an unparalleled joy of a ride carries me further and keeps me moving. Though it is an everyday affair for me, it is still special. I think people who have been in a steady relationship for more than two years will be able to appreciate my feeling, and people who have had bitter moments and patched up later, will understand this even better.