Tarmac

When you apply white shampoo to your hair and see black suds in the drain and still don’t care, you know that the reason for that gunk in your hair is something you love. There are only a few things that i love, rock and roll for instance, heavy metal, country music, The Simpsons, math, electric guitars and so on.

Today, i found another, no actually two more.

Today morning, i failed to keep my promise of waking up in time. In time to get ready to undertake a road trip to the nearest beach, which was supposed to be here. This road trip was to be by a seven seater, four wheeled car, but alas, the need to cleanse my large intestine in the morning hours got the better of me and this four wheeled contraption set off sans moi.

Sans moi and this other gentleman whom i shall call AJ. AJ and me both rose late to greet the day but after cleansing our intestines and filling our bellies, we set off to *you will know where if you click on the link above*. And we did not use a four wheeled contraption, we used one with half that number, half the number of wheels but twice as much fun. Yes, today morning, i finally came to terms with that one thing that any testosterone producing human will live, a chromed up motorbike. The bike in question was a Royal Enfield, a brand that is to India what the Harley is to the USA. Pure passion, nothing else. And along the way, i found that other thing that any petrol head craves, the long, lonely, open road.

We set off for Yanam not having the faintest idea about the road network of Andhra Pradesh and relying solely on the know-it-all Google, which surprisingly worked like a charm, getting us there via the shortest route possible. Once there, and having realised that though you can call Yanam Pondicherry and that all the vehicle license plates read PY, we pushed off, off to where, no one but God almighty and the people who built that road knew. Off we went, a clip below 80, and with the sea breeze in my already filthy hair, i found that one thing that will never desert me, tarmac.

Finally, another quick look at the GPS told us that we were half way to Kakinada, the port town in AP. But along the way, we chanced upon a complex so large and crucial to national security that even Google was forced to take its location down from the map. The map said that we’d be passing through national forest area, with the sea on one side. The sea was indeed on one side but between us and it, stood the receiving station of the output of the Krishna-Godavari D6 block, the gas terminal that supplies the trans-India pipeline with its most valuable commodity, natural gas. The Reliance Industries complex is indeed a sight to behold and the stretch of road leading up to it is one of the best that I’ve driven upon.

I have now resolved that i will own two motor vehicles before i die, one being a Volkswagen Beetle and the other now being a Harley  Davidson bike. There’s no purer rush than the open road, and no other better way to experience it that astride a motorbike, with the engine throbbing between your legs. Don’t get the wrong mental image there.

Drive Safe.