50000 kms in 3.3 years!

It had to happen :P I was on my way to office today on my Zma, nearing whitefield, my moment of joy flashed on the speedo console, the reading was 50000 kms in odo meter. It was time for Kodak moment :P so pulled over to the side and clicked the momento picture on my phone camera.



It’s been 3 years and 3 months since I became a tourer, Zma transformed me from a city commuter on a splendor to a tourer. I still remember the day when me and good friend of mine had gone to Prakash motors during lunch break on a week day straight from office to book and choose my zma from the lot :P there were 3 Silver Zmas, I didn’t start or even touch any of those, just saw the three of them and chose mine, I had this gut feeling that this bike is the one among the lot :P Haven’t regretted till date, won’t regret in future either.

Googling for Zma’s feed back introduced me to biking groups like Xbhp and touring group BikeNomads. I made many friends over all these years through these two groups and met interesting people. I opened a new chapter of touring after I bought zma, she has taken me through various places, places I had earlier seen on map or seen only through Tv :P She gave me freedom to fly on two wheels to any destination that earlier were “so far” :P I honed my riding skills on zma over a period of time and she was very forgiving whenever I erred, never ever let me down even in the worst of the scenarios.

Even when I crashed for the first time in Kemmangundi’s horrible roads, she took all the brunt and spared me the injuries. At the same time, she didn’t get crippled, after minor repairs at a local service center there for 1 hour, she was ready to be ridden back with a pillion and cramster saddle bags to boot! Sachin was belting her at 90 – 100 kmph on the way back from crash, still she didn’t make a fuss out of it. Gave her a complete make over after reaching Bangalore and now she’s as good as a new bike. Didn’t mind that getting her back to old self after the crash drained me financially, It was my way of saying thanks to the trusty old battle scarred war horse.



Each Km of the 50k kms have been bliss so far, she’s been an excellent commuter in city for my office – home commutes so far in my earlier office and a reliable tourer machine in all my rides out of town. I will be getting a Cab now on for my daily office commutes in new office, so she’s going to be spared of horrible city commutes, which she had to bear the brunt of all these years. Now on she’s gonna much kms only on highways majorly. Over a period I did pamper her with usual spares that get worn out, after the crash, I got a entire new set of “clothes” :P new set of tyres, 55/60w headlamp bulb and recently added a custom made crashguard to save her costly “clothes” :P from damage. Am planning to gift her twin horns soon and a HID later.

I can sum up by saying that Zma’s an excellent machine which is an excellent commuter and tourer if ridden and maintained properly. It does have it’s own share of flaws like flimsy plastic panels, astronomically priced spares, shortage of spares etc, but I guess all logic fails when I see the pics from all my rides and imagine the fun I had in each of those rides! Those moments are priceless!

Changing Gear after 5.5 years!

It was time to move on professional after a long long time, It was one of those changes that are turning points in one’s life. It was a hard decision for me to take personally, but I had to take the decision to move on for brighter prospects in future. I had seen lots of people send their goodbye mails while I was in Htmt and those were usual corporate lingo loaded crap messages, which wouldn’t have any life of meaning in those words, so I thought why not write a good bye mail in biker style :P after all, people in my office knew me as the crazy chap who always goes off to places on bike and wastes money on petrol :P So, here’s the goodbye mail that I came up with and sent to my office people:

Hola People!
This isn't a fwd mail about biking gyaan :P rather, it is my surprising goodbye mail :( After 5.5 Years in Htmt, it was time for me to switch off the ignition, hopefully to cruise in the powerband of my career, to gradually raise the speed and scale greater heights in my career's speedometer in future.

I realized that change is essence of life, no matter how hard we try to resist change, it invariably catches up with us, that being said, all changes in life aren't easy to to accept initially, it does take time for us to move. So with a heavy heart, iam parting my ways with you all, after sailing along this far. At the end of it, iam content that I was part of a small family, which grew
manifolds and today, has it's roots spread all across the world.

I would like to thank each of you and the organization for the support and
cooperation extended towards me during all these days.

Companies may change, but people remain the same. I shall always be known to
you all as the silent TSG guy around :P
Do keep in touch.
With loads of emotions and fulfillment,

Thanks!


PS: Was surprised by responses I received for this style of bidding goodbye! Am glad that people felt good reading a different themed good bye mail.

Few snaps with colleagues on my last working day:

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.

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

Dharmambudhi Kere - Revisted! :P

No, this was not another ride to an undiscovered lake like my earlier ride but it was a rather nostalgic visit to Majestic/KempeGowda Bus Stand! :P (The existing bus stand was built on Dharmambudhi lake in 80s) The Majestic Bus stand is hardly 1 km from my house, but ever since i have become mobile on 2 wheels, i had stopped bothering about our great BMTC public mass transport system or formerly known as BTS Bus service. I had visited the bus stand just last month, when i had given my Karizma for repairs last month, i had gone to Bus stand to catch a bus to Katriguppe, to go to Sai Motors. But it has almost been more than a decade since i had walked on the elevated walkway in Majestic Bus stand.

I happened to be there today as i had to go to KG Road for picking up some clothes from Raymonds showroom with my friend Girish, who's getting hitched this week. It was gonna be too much of a hassle to take my Karizma to crowded Majestic area, find a parking space and to park and not to worry about the bike! So we decided to go by bus instead! The Raymonds showroom is just below Santosh theatre on KG Road, so after getting down from bus in the Majestic bus stand in some platform, we took the elevated walkway to cross over to the other side. I distinctly remember that last time i had walked "over" the bus stand was when i was a kid, with my parents, i don't remember exactly when, but i just know that it's been more than a decade since i had seen the famed "semi circle" shape of the bus stand from top.

Took few pics from the "view" point" :P reclaimed part of my childhood, somethings never change in Bangalore, no matter how much the city progresses. The walkway had the trade mark paan masala spit marks, Cig stubs, dirt and dust and not to forget, hoards of hawkers selling all kinda wares! Even the Subway, which connects to KG road is full of hawkers and stinks like public toilet! the whole place has the infamous defamation of walls by Small posters, which range from "Astrologers" to "Sex doctors" :O to "Wanted urgently" type ads. After we were through with picking up Girish's Reception clothes, we took a loong stroll in Majestic area, specifically KG Road. Changes are that the famed "Burma Bazaar" is no more, the whole rickety building is being demolished to make way for one more Junk-mall building with glass and AC. The Infamous "Sangam" theatre, which used to screen only Adult movies :P in those pre Cable tv-internet days, has made way to a swanky "Sangam Mall"

Only occupant of Sangam seems to be KFC chicken eatery outlet, most of the mall is empty and yet to be occupied, commercialism of bangalore is trying hard to catch up with Majestic area, but the old city is refusing to loose it's charm that easily, get in to the bylanes of chikpet and surrounding areas, you can see and smell old Bangalore of 1980s and earlier, even today! After recharging my nostalgic batteries, boarded a rickety battered BMTC bus and came back home. Want to get back to real bangalore? make a quick dash to the crowded Majestic Bus stand and spend a day in the surrounding areas, amidst the organised chaos all around you, you won't believe that you are in the famed and hyped Silicon valley, the land of Forum mall-garuda mall-Eva mall and what nots! :P

Nostalgia Returns!

Iam a sucker for old Tv shows. The Tv shows which gave us the first taste of the land of mcdonald, during the early days of cable Tv revolution in india. Iam talking about post 1994 onwards, When StarTV gave us Star plus Channel, which was a true blue English channel unlike the crap it is today. I remember, as a kid, i used to eagerly look forward to few shows which were my favorites at that time. Shows, that had substance, which you could enjoy watching and you would actually be eager to watch the next episode, shows which will always hold a special place in the hearts of people of my generation. The trash these days that are being aired in star world are no match for these classics! Starplus has gone to dogs for sure when took the worst decision to become a half baked hindi channel and now are nothing but Ekta Kapoor and Shahrukh Khan's butt kissers for Trp Ratings. I always used to wonder, if at all the classic Tv Shows that i grew up with, will make a return? wasn't there a sensible soul in Star TV, who the brains to bring back these classics for a rerun?

Well, Some one in Zeetv had brains! Now, thankfully, we have reruns of the classics, classic serials that i grew up with and everytime i watch them, it's like travelling through time machine and going back to the era, when life was simple, the era when mobile phones were nonexistant or were in it's infancy. Ahh, i miss those days! :( But Watching ZeeCafe after i reach home early morning from work, brings me smile and few memories back from my childhood. They have this OldSkool series running everyday, where they air most of my favourite Tv shows of the 90s. Early mornings by the time i reach home, iam lucky enough to watch reruns of three of my favourite serials from 90s.

My Favourite Classic TV Shows:

Papapa Papapa papa paapapa .... Mind Your Language begins with this song :) I get my smile back whenever i get hear this show's jingle. Set in the Early 80s, this show is about an adult class full of migrants in London, who have come to learn english. The teacher is Brit and he is Mr Brown. What i like about the show is the comedy which is derived out of the english language itself! The way these migrants who are of various nationalities, speak english and phrase sentences, has me in splits. But this show is clean of any form of racial remarks or abuse. It pokes fun through multi culturalism and the way these people interact with each other. I always loved the 70s to early 90s period when life was simple and people were more humane, this show is so simple and drives home the point with out any unnecessary drama. It's more of spontaneous humour. Even though there are 2 indians and a pakistani as students, there are no swear words even when there are humourous verbal duels between these two, especially between indian sardarji Ranjeetsingh and the Pakistani Ali Nadim. I like our ranjeetsingh's trademark phrase "a thousand apologies" !:P Life was simple and liveable those days!


Doogie Howser, M.D Set in the early 90s, this show is seen through the eyes of Doogie, who's a normal teenager, but is also a doctor! The whole show revolves around doogie, being a normal teenager and a child prodigy, who becomes a doctor and works as surgeon in a hospital. It shows the lessons of life learnt through his interaction with his patients, his friends and classmates. He struggles as he copes up to be a normal teenager and doctor. His best friend is Vinnie, who always drops by doogie's room through the window :P never through the door! Also vinnie is light headed and a flirt, the way he blurts out things, gives doogie a perspective of a normal teenager's point of view. At the end of each episode, doogie writes his thoughts in his dairy, which by the way is on the computer of those days, in MSDOS (!!) the camera follows the blue screen background and white text he enters, he sums up the entire episode in two lines max, what he learnt from that day's experience, which has it's relevance to us too and holds true even today.

Full House
Set in early 80s in Sanfancisco, is a story of a windowed father who has to raise 3 girls with the help of his friends. This show really has the 80s theme written all over it! be it the locations or costumes, they really take me back to 80s. This show promotes family values. The show if full of cute kids, Michelle is the cutie, who out of her innocense, lands some adults in embarassing situations :P Also the twin boys, Alex and Nicky, they are oh soo cute :P The entire show is full of goody goody feeling and is set in an ideal world where all people are good and good things happen always, Family comes first, no matter what and each member of the family always backs up others. Show, that makes your drool and makes you wish that your childhood should have been on that lines.

Lastly, my Favourite Show of all time, The Wonder Years Well, what is there to tell about this show? it's a masterpiece and one of it's kind, no other show can ever replace it's place. Set in late 60s and early 70s, it is about the life of Kevin Arnold, Who is born in a typical american middle class family of those years and how he copes with his life, deals with his problems related to growing up! I used to watch this show every single day when it was being aired on TV in early 90s. I could relate to Kevin in so many ways, so could others, it was realistic, the lessons he learns through his Dad, Jack Arnold was fabulous. Kevin's best friend paul is a nerd and geeky. Kevin's brother wayne, is a bully and dumb when it comes to studies, Kevin's sister Karen, is a hippie and a confused teenager almost ruining her life, Kevin's mom Norma, is the most loveable mom in the world to him and who can forget Kevin's love interest, Winnie cooper! The way he describes or the way he tells us his thoughts running in his head is simply superb. Iam fortunate enough of get my hands on All seasons DVD set of this show through one of my contacts! I no longer have to endure commerical breaks in zee cafe to watch Kevin's life. Whenever i feel down and out, i pop in a DVD of this show and watch to my heart's content. This show always leaves me with a heavy heart and also with feel good factor. This show is a must watch for all!

Phew! that was one heck of a nostalgic ride! :P But i never get tired of it, these shows will always hold a special place in my heart, especially The Wonder Years because, they give a option to go back in time and seek comfort and solace in a world, which was simple, whenever i want to get off my mind from the rat race that iam in to and from my monotonous life, i watch one of these shows and always, i end up feeling better.

God bless the soul in Zee Cafe, who had the heart to bring back these classics. Am sure that person would have grown up watching these shows, only people who grew up watching these classics will understand their timeless importance.