“Leaving panvel. C u @ RK”

Cats

It was 7:34 AM of Aug 8th when the tinkle from my phone distracted me from an article in the newspaper. But I continued to read the article. After some 10 mins later I checked my phone. It read:

1 New Message:

“Leaving panvel. C u @ RK” Praveen Sathaye.

I was like sathaye, he is never on time. So I called him up, I could hear the wind in the background, he must have been talking while on the move. Since I wasn’t sure he was on time I asked him if he was seriously coming and he said “Yes, reaching lonavala in 20 mins” (lonavala is an hill station some 75KM from Pune, next to khandala). Initially, I didn’t react to it, I mean its Sathaye after all, 20 minutes could actually mean 1 hour 20 minutes. But what if this time he is on time. So I washed my face, wore my Dainese biking jacket, my gloves, DMS boots and got on my R15. It was a nice cloudy day,  it was going to rain and I was in a mood to get all wet. I rode at a slow 60-80 KMPH not expecting Sathaye to actually reach on time and when I reached RK (RamaKrishna) I saw a silver Pulsar with BN sticker. “Oops! He is on time for a change.”

Sathaye was sitting with a dosa plate in front of him, he greeted me and introduced me to a fellow biker Kartik, a black R15 rider. After a small chit chat, we went up to tiger point. On the way up I stopped to wait for Sathaye, he was a bit behind, he came soon appeared from the clouds and stopped. There were 4 chaps standing where I was when one of them asked “upar tak lift de do” (give us a ride to the hill top) when the forth guy replied “abe inke piche mat baitho, yeh biker hain” (don’t sit behind these guys, they are bikers) I had a smile and then I sped my way up the hill.  It was cloudy up there as usual. Visibility was down 10 meters or so. We were riding slowly, after a few turns there was a straight, though visibility was very low I decided to speed but something inside said slow down and I did and then I saw road turning, it kept turning and turning.. ooooo! Thank god I slowed down else , as Navjot Singh Sidhu, the cricketer would have said  – slipped like a cold butter on a hot pan.  We continued to Amby Valley, a private small town. People as usual in Maharashtra were driving

On my puma

with hazard lights on. They drive like this here. They won’t turn on the light but the hazard/parking lights. And you would not know which vehicle is on the move and which is not.  We later stopped to shoot some pics.  Then Kartik’s phone rang, a call from office. “There is a problem with a global variable…. yeah I have fixed it and have put it on UAT…” Another IT guy. Most of the bikers in this part of the country are IT (Information Technology) professional.

Sathaye had some other plans too, he was in a mood to climb one fort there, next to Amby valley. He made a biker climb; all these years with bikers, one of things I have learn is “we go wherever the bike goes and no further” and here I found myself climbing the stairs. I am an IT guy, my job is to sit and type. Physical exertion is a sin for me   Well it was a good break from the lethargic job we IT people have. On top the view was no different as from the ground. I couldn’t see much. And sathaye was saying.. there — there is a runway there and a restaurant there … all I could see was white clouds, more white clouds and still more white clouds.  But patience paid off, for brief period we could see down from the hill.

Karthik and praveen

On the way down we met a biker and as usually it happens we got talking and talking and talking till his gal friend got bored and we decided to leave her in peace with her boy friend

Back from the fort it was time to hit the gas, rev up the engine and climb down the hill. And from Lonavala to Toni da dhaba it was full throttle.  A nice weekend ride with a fellow biker Praveen Sathaye. There are people you go on to a ride with and then there are people you love to go on a ride with. That was the difference here.

~ by nalinbakshi on August 10, 2009.