Crazy Driving in Country Roads.....

Me: "Please Let's Go out of bangalore this weekend.."
Deepu: "OK. But in my bike"
Me: "So where are we going?"
Deepu:"Pondi...?"
Me: "Its summer and i prefer karnataka coast. How about Gokarna?"
Deepu: "Road is not good. Driving will not be fun. Lets go to Tadiyandamol"
Me: " I had been there once but four years back. So not a problem. What about you?"
Deepu: "5 times"
Me: " Did you say 5"
Deepu: "Yes"
Me: "Are you sure you want to make that 6"
Deepu: "Why Not?"
Me: "OK Lets Do it. What time we will start?"
Deepu: "tom morning 5"
Me: " OK then tomorrow morning 5, my place"
Deepu: "Done"

So with a two minute conversation we have decided on place and time, though i was not sure whether we will be able to start at 5 in morning.

Morning 4,30: My alarm goes off. I called up deepu to make sure he has started on time. No Response. I called him up 5 times but ended up getting no response. So this guy is still sleeping. I also went to bed for a small nap.


Morning 5.00: I got a call from deepu.
Me: "Where are you man?"
Deepu: "Outside your house. Are you still sleeping?"
Me: " Just give me 10 minutes."

Morning 5.45: We were racing in empty roads of bangalore city which was just waking up in a festive mood.

It was a easy driving in city roads at 60 till we reach our first stop after kengeri for fuel. Within couple of minutes Avenger's tank swallowed 14 litres of petrol. We opted for a full tank. From there it was my turn to ride the bike. It was my first date with avenger. So i preferred driving at slow pace till i get good control of bike. Its an awesome experience driving Avenger on bangalore mysore highway. After Bidadi it was time to push accelerator. We were just cruising around 100 and never felt that we are hitting 100. We took first piss stop after mandya and there goes a red car with couple of babes in it. Now Deepu wants to chase it so he takes control of riding.He was just ripping it at 120, overtaking everything on way. In Srirangapatna we went past red car and there was a smile on Deepu's face. Around 8.00 we reached GTR in Mysore for breakfast where PC our host and sponsor er for breakfast was waiting for us.

After eating masla dosa, idli vada, uppitu and kesaribath one plate each, we started off from GTR. PC told that he will follow us till vijayanagrar. But I did not see him after one km from GTR. Our next stop was hunsur some 50km from Mysore. Deepu has spent all his childhood in this town. So he showed me couple of places, his school and started with his childhood stories. He showed a hill which he used to climb alone and sit on top of that and enjoy.

By the time his stories approach a end we were racing inside Rajiv Gandi National park. I was curious to see some animals in national park. But we were able to see only dozens of monkeys, couple of peacocks, a elephant and lot of birds which i have never seen before.

We reached Virajpete at 11. So we were ahead of our plans. Thanks to some ripping from Deepu. This is the last town we will be getting, so we did a quick shopping of food and beverages :). Now I started feeling hungry and we have already left virajpet and there are no more hotels ahead. Deepu came up with this idea of visiting Iguthapa temple where prasada will be served till 1. He told that it was a remote temple and no one will be there. I did not see any other options so we headed towards temple around 10 km from our base camp. It was a remote place and I thought no one will be there. But for our surprise it was Ugadi and some 150 people were there in traditional madikeri outfits. My God! Girls really look sexy in madikeri style of dressing. After a quick lunch we started towards our base camp. Now I got a call from home and i told sis that i came to madikeri in a bike. For a while she thought i am kidding.

Tammaya - friend of deepu and owner of room where we are going to stay in base camp.

We reached Tammaya's house and luckily rooms were empty. After some rest we went for a walk. It was cloudy so we decided to trek next day morning. After thirty minutes of walk we reached the base of mountain from where actual climb begins. Now i can see bunch of bangalore engineering students climbing ahead of us. They had left base camp almost a hour before us. Deepu wanted to reach top before them and i thought its very difficult as they are way ahead of us. So we decided to give it a shot. We started to climb very quickly and went past that group in less than thirty minutes. It was still 4 in evening and was getting very cloudy. So after some climbing we reached the top. The whole top was covered with clouds and visibility was less than 10 meters.

After some time students group reached top and they were very excited. They were planning to camp on top all night. One of them had a chat with deepu and was thrilled to know that we came in a avenger all the way from bangalore and this is deepu's sixth visit. It started raining and i just felt sorry for these guys because i am sure they will not find any firewood here and it will be very cold in night. Deepu gave them some instructions and we left the place after wishing them good luck and started to climb down. For our surprise it was raining only on top of mountain.

After reaching room it was time to do some preparations for night. We lit up a fire and sat in front of that before it gets dark. Then it was just chatting couple of hours before we finish cup noodles and biscuits. After 280km of drive and trek i was really tired. So wanted to have a nice sleep.

Next day i thought Deepu will not wake up before 9 ( i am sure you can guess why ???). But he woke up before me and we started off early in morning. We took a break in virajpet for breakfast and i got second call from home My mom was bit furious about this whole trip thing. I just explained that i am fine and had fun. Its an awesome experience to drive in empty roads of madkeri covered by green estates. Actually Deepu had some work so plan was to reach bangalore as early as possible. So just took one break in Maddur Macdonalds for lunch and by 2 we were back in bangalore.

The problem with Avenger is pillow rider seat is very hard and small. So if roads are not good then bottom is going to get some nice beating.

Overall it was a very new experience for me because it is the first time i travelled such long distance in bike. There was no gang and we were only two people, so decisions were quicker and were more crazy than before.I just hope that it is the beginning of a new ride.

Where people will go after death…

Everything that has a birth has to die. That’s a Rule of nature which holds good for all things. But we forget about this death all our life. Only when we get close to it or when we see a death close to us, jus a thought crosses in our mind that one day even we have to pass through that junction and experience death.

The existence of this earth depends on only one question. Where people will go after death?

If someday someone dead comes back (this never happened and don’t think it will happen in future either) and tells this whole world, what exactly happens after death? Where exactly people will go after death? What happens to soul when it leaves this body?

Then that will be the end of human civilization. If humans realize that life after death is good and that is better than life in earth, then everyone will start committing suicide to make sure that they go to the other world soon. But if we have so called hell on other side then everyone will be ready to kill each other to make sure that they don’t die. So for us to survive on this earth, its better not to know the answer for that question.

I live today because I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die because I don’t know what happens after death. If I know what is death then I might think the other way.

Religion and spiritualism came into existence to fill the gap left by science. After All Science can’t explain everything.

There are so many religions came into existence all these years from the time of ancient civilizations. There are so many religions with so many gods.. Each religion tried to define death in their own way based on there description of God. In majority of religion they have a concept of heaven and hell. So now at least we know that we have two options after death. Either we go to a good place or a bad place.

I believe that if there is a God then there is only one god and he is unique. There can’t be two kings in a kingdom. But each religion on earth preaches that there is only one god and he belongs to corresponding religion. So all these gods from religions are gods created by human beings. We believe that god created human beings. But I think the other way is true. Human beings created god. So no religion can show me the real god.

Even after seeing deaths of our loved ones we live as though we are never going to die. This attitude among humans has made our civilization to progress so much. Today what we have so called civilization is something which is evolved from thousands of years of experimentation and discovery from people who lived before us.

People live as though there is no death; People die as though they never lived.

There was a so called buddhijeevi( I don’t know the right word in English ) in Karnataka. All his life he called himself a secular and never made a mistake of visiting any place of worship. He used to give long speeches to denounce god and become secular. At his time of death he prayed God. “Oh My God, if there is a God, save my soul, if there is soul”.

That’s what death can do to people. All our principles and policies holds good when we know that we will live for at least one more day. But in front of death we are nothing but one more creature that is going to enter a door from where no one returns.

Never there was a time in past when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kinsmen. Never in future we cease to be – Lord Krishna

Nitin

Decisions

I think toughest thing in life is to take decisions. Decisions which are going to change the course of life. When there is a diversion Its tough to choose a path, since we never know what is the destination. But we always show some courage and choose a path and pretend that we have done a right thing, After walking half the path we always think about, What would have happened if we had choosen the other path. Life gets even worse , when there will be situation where we have to take decision for others , wrong decision is going to change life of your loved ones terrribly. Still we are left with no options , we have to choose some path and think whole life about the other path.

Stop your vehical, Its time to Pay..

We all know the state of bangalore traffic. What makes driving in bangalore worse is the bagalore traffic police. You will agree with me if you drive in bangalore regularly specially in non peak hours. In peak hours these people will be invisible standing on sides of road or under a flyover. Once the peak hour is over and traffic reduces, these people will jump on to the middle of road and start stopping people. They are so well versed in this art by just looking at the vehical only they can identify their prey. Did i Say that they like soft targets. If you are going with your Girl Friend then there is a high probability that they will stop you. Then they will show you a list of penalties that we have to pay for not carrying RC, DL, Insurance and Emission Report.They know that penalty is so high that comman man can never afford to pay. If you dont carry any documents then you have to pay around 2,000/-. If your emission has got expired then you have to pay just 300/-. As they know that you will never pay that huge amount because 300 is average daily wage of a middle class guy. they know that you will make some offer. Then they will do some negotiation and the deal will be over in five minutes. This is Same secnario which happens not only in bangalore but in whole india.

1. Who Gained from this ?
a. Definitely we gained from this because instead of paying 300 for having a expired emission certificate I finished whole issue by just 100 bucks.
b. Police personal who made 100 bucks in just five minutes without much work.

2. Who lost from this?
a. Our Traffice department lost 300 bucks because of the failure of system they creadted.

3. How Can we stop this?
a. There should be a panel which should review the pay scale of traffic personal. This committee should make sure that our police are getting paid enough to be financially stable and support their families well.
b. Penalties are there to remind people of their mistakes and not to make them suffer. So reduce penalties to level which middle class can offord to pay. If the penalty was 50 instead of 300, then department would have made 50 bucks instead of police making 100.
c. Take strict action against personal who are found taking money without receipts.

4. Will these measures Stop corruption?
Definetly No, But it will help us to stop. There is already a corrupt mindset developed in public. People think that only way of getting your work done is by corrupting govt. personal. This mentality should vanish first.

I know this traffic police incident is very small compared to the amount of corruption that is happening in other govt. departments. But something should be started somewhere to eradicate this.

I wrote this incident to ACP, Bangalore traffic police and to my surprise I got a very positive response from them. They took some information from me and promised me that they will take some action against this. Looks like there are some people on top who want to repair this sick system.