The Gods of South India

On a recent work trip to Chennai that spilled into a leisure backpack trip to Mamalapuram and Puducherry, I had my eureka moment (have it almost once everyday...er..i meant the eureka moment naughty minds!).

I realised why south indians are so devout and why south india has so many temples and religious places of worship!!

Well, if any of you have been blessed with an opportunity of travelling by the Tamil Nadu State Transport buses on the Chennai - Puducherry route, you'd know that the way the drivers of the state buses drive their buses..you better be on really good terms with the guys up there to reach your destination alive! Got the connection..?...anyways ..Hee

P.S: Er..Did I mention that the East Coast Road (ECR) that runs between Chennai and Puducherry is so breathtaking, it's reason enough to visit Puducherry once!

God hates Left Handers..

..Seems funny but its not just the middle ages when left handers had to go through the abomination of, well, being left handers...Okay, first things first, I am a left hander, a born, pure left hander who was never forced to become a right hander by his folks, whose left hand was never tied up to force the right one to start working, whose left had fingers were never dipped in mirchi to avoid him using them to er, have food ;)

Some weeks back, an incident took me back to the middle ages! It was a sultry sunday and a series of work related events led me to find myself seated in a huge bright, airy and very clean hall called Vrindavan, full of about 200 people, all seated cross legged having sumptuous albeit holy prasadam at the Iskcon temple in Mumbai. Nothing unusual about this. Every sunday the revered place of devotion attracts thousands of people from all over for a Darshan followed by 'prasadam', just that, as I was enjoying my oil dripping puri with delicious aloo chole ki subzi, suddenly a voice jolted me out of my happy oblivion.
" Is something wrong with your right hand?" asked the voice in monotone.
I looked around to find a human being of the male gender sitting next to me, one hand holding the banana leaf the other hand still trying to make a pile of rice and aloo cholay to gobble up as his next morsel!
Now, being in the divine and holy campus of a temple, my mind, irritated at being spoken to in the middle of me enjoying my food, reacted internally that he might be some 'gifted' man with divine qualities of being able to see the future and maybe he felt that my right hand is going to be 'not fine' in the near future, hence was trying to warn me of some probable accident that might happen in my life rendering my right hand useless!! As my mind raced through a plethora of likely accidents that might happen to me, I replied to him calmly, but with a certain trepidation,
"Er, no it's fine ( as yet) !"
"Then why are you using your LEFT hand?"
Silence
"Coz I have always used my left hand!!"
"Shay! Stop using your left hand from this moment! Dont you know it is the evil who use their left hand and the scriptures have also mentioned this, the left hand should be used only for cleaning up 'you know what' after the morning 'you know what' routine!
Silence
I muttered, " My left hand has served me dutifully all my life, I see no reason why god should hate me for using it, now if you dont mind, may I continue eating...with my left hand'!
The man had a disgusted look on his face, not that i cared to notice. He continued gobbling prasadam with his 'right hand'.

“The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left handed people are in their right mind.”Anonymous

Monsoon Bike Trip

I take off...on a trip, wherever the wind takes me..

The real biker never measures distances...he rides for the sheer pleasure of feeling the wind beneath his wings...
I had no idea where I was taking my Bullet..or was it the other way round...have spent a lot of time with the skies around lonavla, Khandala, Karjat, Neral etc...this time we thought of seeing a new sky...so off we rode into the beautiful and magically scenic skies towards Wada, Manor and then to Vikramgadh on the Mumbai Ahmedabad route.

The ride was beautiful and aimless like a true impromptu bike ride should be...just me and her and the long wet road for company. Riding is personal and uninhibited. You can stop and stare when you want, where you want. Things you can't or don't really do in a car.
I must say it wasn't the best time or way to go on a rough solo bike trip. The rains were hard, the route was dense, neither did I have a tool kit nor had a got my bike serviced. Must say, this isn't the best way to go for a bike trip!

Anyways, here are some snaps of the beautful time I had with the bike ..and nature.

Like I always say, when on the bike...the journey is the desination. Till next time.