Road to Kanchipuram

By the time I am writing these lines, I know my self a little better, a little deeper and that’s what riding does to us, or at least to me. We whroom on the highway and the wind gushing through hits the spectacles and sneaks in to open our eyes wide, not to the outer world, but to the inner spectrum of spiritual self. I love the quality of exploration and improvisation in riding. That’s what makes me stick to it. That’s what makes me pursue it off-and-on. Riding does it to you, it makes you see your spiritual self, it provokes you to pursue what you actually want. More than anything else, it makes you free.

Leaving the loving ones, there at Hyderabad, was pathetic. Felt ridiculous and hapless. Tears roll down, in loneliness, unintentionally, when you smell something, on the nook of that galli corner, that reminds your best cook, mother, and when I read a novel like Kite runner, and remind myself the warmth of my father’s hairy chest. It’s been terrible, yes indeed. But, ultimately it was my decision, weighing so many things and shouting at myself saying “You are 26 now, not a child with the running nose and loose pants, be a man.” But, it has been, indeed pathetic. The only rescue it seemed to get on to my Avvy, and take the ride. Throttle it to open myself to the outer world. But it was ironical.

I wanted to start of with a holy one. Trying to trace the roots of my spiritual ancestry, and I felt Kanchipuram would be the right destination. The moment I thought of it, Saturday came flying in and Ninja also said “I am in.” This guy Ninja a.k.a. Nelvin Joseph, spirited, live to ride – ride to live persona, met and opened me to what it calls the true love. Yes, we should see his avvy, his alter ego. And ask ourselves how much are we true in what we call our hobbies, our passions et al. The moment we thought of hitting the road, things started distant. My avvy break-rod gets damaged, lock stucks and owner locks the room and goes to a sudden party. We laughed all them off and hobbled on the Bangalore highway. The only thing that was riding our minds was to kick-off the road asap.

Kanchipuram is around 78 Km from Chennai. We started at 3-30 and by 4-30 we were at SriPerumbudur, birthplace of Ramanuja. We had a sneak peak to our forefathers and got the glimplse of Rajivgandhi Memorial, where our beloved PM was assassinated. We sighed in our hearts and in spiritual enlightenment, spurted to the temple town.

It was indeed a temple town. Then there is an amazing person called Gnanaparakasham. A street electrician, a rotten dimond. We were entering into the town, and we listened to the traditional drums playing . We turned our heads and to our amazement, we could see none but a motor running and hitting the drums in the rythemical tone. Not only the drums, it was ringing bells, in fine tune. We checked the engineering and felt the need to support the guys who are restricted to the dark alleys of their poor life, still jubilant of their knowledge.

We reached the hotel at around 8-30. We unpacked ourselves and had a tête-à-tête about ourselves. We both never met prior to the ride, we seldom know each other, we planned the ride together even not knowing how each of us look. Just for the ride, and just for the company. He is a christian, and me a hindu, but we were spiritual, but our religion was riding.

Sunday morning, I visited Lord shiva and was amused by the archtechural beauty of the temples. It stands as long as Shiva. Then Kanchi kamakoti pheetam, varadaraja temple, all within a hand's reach. While me having a look at the temples, Ninja enjoyed the movies. The roads were good, but the dust sucks. My new Rayban spects turned to brown from the black. Still, it was comfortable to race my avvy at a speed of 90-100.

Straight from the ride, we went to Basant nagar for our First Official South India Avenger Riders' Meet. Yes, Nelvin, form Kochin, Harry (the stupidd Me) from Hyderabad, Sandy, Arun, Arooran, Charan from Chennaim and Rahul from Bangaloru, it was stupendous. We had a good laugh at our"selves" and rushed back to our places.