“...and with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Call me what you will” – Wherever I may roam, The Black Album ‘91, Metallica.
The Zero hour was at 04.15, Thursday the 22nd of November 2007, that is, by my timepiece. The watches and the motor distance-meters were synchronized a few minutes back even as we had resigned to the fact that the appointed hour had passed by, some blurred moments ago. And as we breezed through the dark lanes into the blacker night, I felt the tips of those deadly, wintry wind arrows attacking my windpipe. We realised later, at the gas station, where the tanks were duly filled and air in the wheels, dutifully checked, the cold seemed to instill some sense of wariness into the recent carnival of sky high spirits. The comforts of the hearth beckoned. Nien.
By the time we’d scythed across Gurgaon, every damned chink in my armour against the hazards of a winter night – had been penetrated ruthlessly and of course, relentlessly. The other seven Columns of hard-boiled or otherwise youthful vigour must have been feeling the same then.
NH8 was still slithering below in the wicked darkness. The lights of Dhabas & wine shops lined up by the flanks one after the other. It hadn’t occurred to us on the lead that the others had lagged back and it had been about 15 minutes or so since I last spotted the next two behind us. I apprised N, who’d been averaging kind of 100 k for quite a while, as a toll bridge loomed out ahead. The meter on the Karizma read 112 kms & I dialed L’s number – the one on the Thunderbird. The cause of the delay came as a surprise as it turned out to be not the apparent lure of the seductively lit wine holes on one/some of the more hapless comrades. The Pulsar who brought up the tail had a flat and at some 60 odd kms on the meter, for a good measure. The other two bikes had made about 97 kms, from where one set out in response to the S.O.S. And so we retraced our way to the halting point that had the ‘Lovely’ wine shop as a marker (the irony of it all). The merry men already got a fire going with a little help from the absolutely obliging proprietor. It felt good to rest the bones anyway. Two hours sped by as the ‘missing’ retuned and the motors revved again.
Daylight had peeped in, and the air raking my neck was getting warmer so much so that the heavy-duty leathers felt cumbersome. The eyes were starting to be strained by a swaggering sun. The bikes got a tiny breather at another 50 kms. This part of the highway is shady, with trees lining up the sides – how thoughtful indeed! Jaipur was voted as the next stop as it sounded the best bet for a breakfast and the servicing of our weary companions. Adrenalin flowed freely. Each machine seemed to be averaging 100 kms. We finally entered the most colourful stretch of the NH8; the trees on the divider platform, adorned with bursts of lunatic psychedelia. I remembered my first time – the pink city did not impress me so much as the way leading to it (with all due respect to the magnificent Sheesh Mahal of course). Disaster struck within 60 kms of Jaipur again. The Pulsar had a flat again.
The place where we came to a halt had a few establishments peddling all sorts of regular necessities (I believe), and as the problem fixed by the alacrity of the more agile, prudence prevailed on the elders to favour a preponed breakfast of whatever could be had then and there. After all it was to be less than an hour from Jaipur now.
But it was not meant to be. As we geared through the nest loop of 30 kms on the meter, the front discs of the Karizma dislocated and we had to make another unscheduled stop. A long hour had elapsed before we could resume the little quest of Jaipur. When we finally charged through the gates of the Pink City – nothing on the sweet highway prepares you for the great onslaught of the city vehicles – everybody seemed to be coming at us. It’s actually just like any other Indian city, bustling with incoherent frenzy. We homed in on a roadside eatery and came across the first of those non-believers. Till that culinary moment, we might not have told anyone else from the land of sanity, of our plans. Nobody had asked anyway. The schedule mentioned Jaisalmer by nightfall. The guy relayed that to another acquaintance that appeared equally thunderstruck. Delhi to Jaipur is 263 Kms on the NH8. Bikaner is at a distance of 321 kms from Jaipur on the NH11. Jaisalmer is a further 320 kms from there. Ouch. Amen.
