Busy bee....

As much as i hate change in life, this one's being forced down my throat :(
Not that it was unexpected, but i was always procastinating on this particular change in life, I always thought that it would happen "sometime in future"
Well, the "future" turned out to be this month and it hit me quite hard when i had to face the facts. Iam talking about my professional life.

Finally, Iam quitting my job in my existing company, after close to 5 plus years! Time just flies indeed! I never thought that this day would come so soon (yeah 5 years is soon :P) I learnt a lot of things, met a lot of people and made many friends for life here in my existing company, but all good things come to an end in life and this chapter of my life is coming to an end unexpectedly :(

It's been an emotional roller coaster ride for me from past few weeks, ever since i had to make the hard decision to move on with my professional life seeking greener pastures. Haven't found time to blog in between, had to take many hard decisions and face up to realities of life. This feels like iam breaking up from a relationship!
I guess this is one of those turning points/defining moments of life, where the purpose of life is answered to me by the one above.

It will take sometime for me settle down in my new work place, Iam serving my last few painful days (emotionally) in my current company, end of one chapter in life is beginning of a new chapter in life they say, so in June, i will be beginning a new chapter of my professional life, till then, I will be a busybee, buzzing around here with formalities and stuff.

Will be back with a ride report soon though! This weekend, Bangalore BikeNomads chapter is going out on another one day ride/meet like last month's ride. Am looking forward for this weekend's ride to recharge my batteries.

Long time no see Ride

Been ages since i had gone for one of the Xbhp G2Gs. Saw a post in Xbhp about weekend ride to nowhere (literally!) so thought of joining in as it was supposed to be a chota breakfast ride to BigBanyan Tree. Santoosh too joined in and so did murugesh, 3 is a crowd indeed :P We three met up as usual and rode on to meeting point, The Nice road - Mysore road intersection by early morning 6.30. Soon we found company with two sbk riders, all decked up with riding gear (for a change!) We found a MV Augusta! Later came to know that they were from Red roosters SBK group.

The Xbhp troupe joined us, they had taken NICE road. I was in for a surprise! After close to 6 months, i saw Professor there! He had joined the ride through Xbhpian John's contact. I was overjoyed bumping in to him, we had loads of things to catch up since our Last ride together was the Gokarna Ride in October 2007! That was one heck of a ride to say the least! Newayz, Soon, we all rode to Bigbanyan Tree, in absolute formation, with me and professor as Tail and Santoosh as lead. With in no time, we were there, near the Huge banyan Tree.



Had a vella time there, before our hunger pans started. There were no hotels near by, John was talking of going back to mysore road, catching up breakfast and leaving for home. Me and professor felt that we needed more from this ride, so we all informed that it would be better if we could go to Manchanabele dam, which was very nearby. Most of them agreed, few of them turned back. Soon, with santoosh as lead, we all rode in formation towards the Dam, through villages. The roads were nonexistant! It was total offroading to the core! The roads were akin to the ones i had encountered during Kemmangundi ride After prolonged offroading, we hit nice tarmac with awesome twisties! Few more kms in to it, we saw the first view of dam, it was beautiful.



Took some pics and joined the gang, we ventured deep in to the interiors towards the dam, offroading began again! Then john found a path way which lead us in to the backwaters, it was just too steep. While most of the bravehearts ventured in to the deep steep with their steeds, me, professor and few others bailed out and parked our bikes in safer places, we walked our way down, only to find a biker civilization near the back waters :P



Fellas were enjoying in the water like small kids :P not to mention overjoyed John, who took his P220 in to water like a ship! Santoosh too ventured deep in to water and parked his bike. Loads of laughter and chit chat followed, not to mention the photo session and john did his role of tickling everyone's funny bones. Me and professor caught up with loads of things since our last ride together. Met new members of xbhp and made new friends :) After more than an hour there, everyone got hungry, john and co wanted to head back towards bangalore and catch up breakfast on the way. While we four (santooh, murugesh, professor and me) decided to check out interior roads and do a lazy ride. We bid byes to everyone and took the interior roads towards Savandurga.

The roads were bliss, excellent tarmac with greenery all around. We soon hit the intersection of savandurga and ramnagaram. We had excellent breakfast in one of the local hotels, awesome "thatte Idlis" and fresh Lemon rice, few cups of tea. Total bill? Close to Rs 30! It was worth the wait breakfast :P We decided to ditch savandurga, which was 4 kms from where we were, instead, we took the route towards Ramnagaram, which would join mysore road. The road was dream come true! Excellent twisties with well laid tarmac. Santoosh and me had swapped bikes and santoosh was literally scraping his shoes on my zma! I was enjoying his hooligan bike after few months and enjoyed riding the torquey beast.



We found a nice shady spot under a tree, which overlooked a curve and decided to take cornering pics. Murugesh popped few wheelies, i couldn't capture it in full glory :( Santoosh managed to capture it properly in his cam. Soon, we were taking good cornering pics, professor even took my zma for the cornering pic :P as expected, he was impressed with zma's flickability and handling (next bike saar? :P) We were relaxing after the tiring photosession under the shade, when we found ourselves an unexpected host. We found ourselves being questioned by a bangalore kid, he was amused by our bikes and riding gear :P He wanted to know if we would like tender coconuts! We took couple of pics of the overjoyed kid, posing on my zma :)



We then found out that the kid and his father owned a farm house, which was bang opposite to the spot from where we were standing! We got invited by his dad to their farm house, it was beautiful, acres of land with coconut trees and mango trees! Kid's father was very humble, despite being a big shot in bangalore, he was very friendly and treated us to N number of tender coconuts! plucked fresh from trees! I had never had such tasty tender coconuts! We all had rounds of it and soon got full!
Santoosh managed to get one "mileage" tender coconut, which was going on and on! Looked like the tree had dumped all the water in to his single tender coconut! :P



We relaxed under a coconut tree in their farmhouse chatting with the kid's father and not to mention, answering the innumerable questions by the kid :P His father also was kinda surprised at our ride for no reason :P He found it difficult to believe that professor at his age was riding a bike :) It was well spent time there, after more than 2 hours of chit chatting and consuming many tender coconuts, we had to move on, We bid byes to our hosts, who had treated us very well. The kid's father even gave his contact number to us and gave us an offer to use the farmhouse if we wanted in future! :P Advantages of being a biker i guess!



Everyone was happy at the turn of events. It was totally unplanned ride, which was throwing up pleasant surprises. We soon headed towards ramnagaram, enjoying the curvy road and we hit mysore road. We stopped near Kamat hotel for late lunch. Found it too crowded, so Professor suggested that we check out "jaanapadha loka" which was right next to it. We found a Canteen inside. To our surprise, we found out that it was Kamat Hotel's canteen and the rates blew us away! Rs 15 for full meals! while the same meal costed Rs 90 inside Kamat! We immediately grabbed our plates, we were given Ragi ball meals (Ragi muddey) Santoosh was trying ragi ball for the first time :P We had to give him instructions about eating it and even demonstrated couple of times :P He gave up on eating it after few bites :P

Enjoyed our meals, with ducks for company, found the ducks amusing coz they were literally poking us for dropping some food for them like domestic dogs! trained ducks i guess! We then spent few more minutes relaxing there and pondered over the way this ride had turned out. All of us felt that this was a perfect lazed out weekend ride. We decided to move and hit mysore road towards bangalore. I lead, with santoosh as tail. The highspeed ride came to an end just before we hit bangalore, bumper to bumper traffic welcomed us. Santoosh and murugesh parted ways. While me and professor decided to hit CCD in jayanagar to meet up with Sachin and his friend. After struggling through the traffic for close to an hour, we hit CCD.

Met up sachin and his friend for a loong chat session. Decided to do some rides together in near future. Professor bid adieu after sometime, while me and sachin stuck on in CCD for some more time. Finally, i left CCD and reached home by 9 pm. It was a wonderful weekend ride, the overall pleasant surprises made me smile at the end of the day, bumping in to professor after a loong time was one among them :)
The trip meter read "165 kms" it was 165 kms of pure joyful ride!

My Best Friend's Wedding

Not a review of the movie by same name :P
Literally, my best friend kicked the bucket (of bachelorhood!) last week. The victim in this case is Girish, my first "cramster pillion" :P or my "cop friend" as he's known to my biker friends :P

He got married last week in his native, Kunigal. I didn't go by Karizma for a change, got caged with friends. Hopped on to one of my friend's Ikon car and 4 of us had a whale of time all the while driving till kunigal, one advantage of car is that you can talk with your friends who are accompanying you while on the move, samething is not possibile in bike rides, atleast till Bike intercoms are made available here.

He got married on May 1st, since it was an off for me (labour day ki jai!) and for my friends, we all made it in time. We left bangy on April 30th for his reception (had taken off for one day :P) Got stuck in horrible traffic near dasarahalli circle in NH4, after scraping our way through bumper to bumper traffic, my friend kartik aka Rossi on 4 wheels :P made sure that we reached kunigal in hardly 1 hour.
Caught up with college gang, they had come in another car. After reception, we headed to nearest daaru point, grabbed our beers and hit an isolated part of highway and drowned our sorrowness through beer :P reached hotel and the fun started, fellas were meeting each other after many years, few were meeting eachother for the first time since they had left college!



Obviously lot of catching up was done, not to forget leg pulling and wise ass comments!:P I was left capturing all the moments on my cam, the chat session was hilarious and comical most of the times, time flew and it was 2.30 am when i hit the sack! Caught up with few winks of sleep and wokeup early morning to be there for muhurtham. Few kumbhakarans were still sleeping, left them in their lalaland and 5 of us who were ready, headed to choultry. Girish was all decked up like a goat who is decorated before being sacrificed :P he was going through rituals and traditional ceremonies, I went click happy with my cam and captured some good off beat shots :P



The best uninterrupted spot for me to take pics was right behind the marriage photographer who was taking pics, so i stood behind him all the while, used my height advantage :P and craned over and got good shots. With in 15 mins in to muhurtam time (7.30 Am onwards) girish tied one of the most important knot of his life and lost his bachelorhood, needless to say, i captured the moment :P later, My friends and ExHtmtians RaminderSingh and Ganapathy arrived, they were followed by my colleague Ravindra and his wife. After wishing the couple, i escorted them for breakfast downstairs. It was too crowded, somehow managed to get seats and chaps had breakfast, i had already had it early morning when it was less crowded :P



By 10 am, Ex Htmtians and my colleague bid byes and left, By 11 Am, we started to move, but girish wanted us to stay further, but we felt that we could cover Melukote on the way back to bangy, so we bid byes to him and moved out of choultry by 11.30 Am. I had taken the State highway during one of my earlier rides from srirangapatna on mysore road to Kunigal on NH 48. The 60 plus kms of it was pure bliss with serene countryside scenery, i wanted to show my friends in cage the same route, but ended up taking wrong deviation from kunigal! We took the first left pointing towards Maddur, we should have taken second left instead to hit that state highway. But this new route took us further through interior villages and country side and lots of offroading too! it was first time for me, offroading in a cage :P My friend kartik, who was driving, thoroughly enjoyed this route, others didn't complain either. The serene country side with village folks going about their daily life was a treat to see. We stopped on the way to take some pics, i was missing my bike already :(



The only reason i felt good was due to Cage comforts like AC and plushy seats, AC was giving us much needed relief from outside heat and hot weather.
We finally hit Nagamangala and from there melukote was just 6kms. Savoured jackfruit sold on the way and stopped to take pic of melukote temple seen on top of hill.



The narrow roads led us in to the temple complex and we set out to explore by 2pm. The temple was well maintained and painted too, found some similarities to other temples i have visited.



Took pic of the Rath which was parked in a giant enclosure and tried to have darshan, temple was closed for darshan, so off we went towards "shooting spot" as it's called. The task involved climbing a small hill, i was too lazy to venture out, so was kartik. The other two fellas went exploring and came back sunburnt and dehydrated :P We moved on and hit nagamangala, from there on we were on the correct route towards srirangapatna-mysore road, the road was ala US style, with road side markers running parallel to each other. It was difficult for fellas to believe that it was a statehighway!

We hit Mysore road-srirangapatna and proceeded to Maddur Tiffany's hotel for much needed lunch. Savoured local speciality maddur vada and couple of dosas. It was the same hotel, where we had breakfast during the BN bangalore meet few weeks back. After my friends had finished oogling at few pretty faces there :P we moved on to Cafe Coffee Day near channapatna, more known as maddur CCD or 24hrs CCD. It as again the same CCD which we had haunted during the BN bangalore meet. Got to witness PDA (public display of affection) by one couple whose hormones were working overtime i guess! :P much to the amusement of everyone present there, the couple stirred up lot of hushed whispers there and not to mention my friends drooling over the moderate babe :P

Found a cutie kid near our table and kartik snapped a pic of hers.



Kid's mom was overtly exposing types with complete backless kinda Party wear dress, she was looking like she was dressed to go to a disco party or something! we couldn't believe that she was mom of that kid, could have said kid's cousin by her looks :P Kartik's flirting instincts kicked in and he made a small talk with the mom of kid by showing her kid's pic, he even got her addy! (or so claimed by him, not verified :P) thankfully not the phone number :P All the while, her hubby was not around, so not to worry :P (sorry Mr Hubby!) After savouring mochas and some CCD crap, we decided to move on.

Kartik was belting his Ikon through out, this guy's got some awesome driving skills, he has all those thousands of kms of highway driving experience under his belt (or seat belt :P) i strapped on my seatbelt and watched the "Video game" through the windscreen. He as hitting 150/160 kmph few times, gave me goosebumps sometimes, but being in a cage alters your perception, only time i could feel the speed was when i tried to stick out my hand through the window or watch the speedo :P In no time we were in bangalore's bumper to bumper traffic. I reached home at 7.30PM and the rest of the guys carried on to their places.

Overall, it was a nice occassion for old friends to get together and bitch collectively :P will get another such occassion soon, another college friend of mine is tying the knot this month, so the gang will meet up soon, camaan the enjayment! :P