“One never forgets his/her first love/kiss/sex/bike ride/tattoo”…I made up this one to make my opening line eye-catching…having bought my Royal Enfield Electra on 15th March 2008 was so eager to get a taste of riding it on the National Highways of India…soon started searching on the net for places around Delhi off NH-8 and Bingo!!!...hit a golden jackpot (Google Zindabad!!!)…BHANGARH…Yes that was the place I wanted to go…a haunted town in the middle of nowhere…some 180 kms away from Gurgaon(that myth got shattered when we finally reached…more details later)…lets continue with the opening paragraph !!!OK I cut the crap and start with the real story now…
The Heroes of this trip were me, Nitin Negi and Pravin Kora…the two props were 2 Royal Enfields both embellished with Che Guevara stickers. Infact I call my Bike “The Mighty One” inspired from the Norton 500 which Che and Alberto Granado rode during their famous South American Motorcycle Diaries…Pravin was a pillion rider and I am sure he is never gonna repeat this mistake ever if he is sane (which I have my doubts about !!!)
We met at 6:45 AM on Friday the 21st March 2008 at the Iffco Chowk and started our trip…soon we hit the biggest fu@#$ Traffic Jam we had ever seen…almost 8-10 kms of Mess due to a fu@#$ huge trailer falling right in the middle of the Highway and blocking roads on the both sides…but our navigator Kora was perfect in his job finding a way out of the mess for me & Nitin and soon we hit an open patch and were roaring again…we stopped on Dhaba to satisfy our empty tummies and soon finished 5-6 stuffed paranthas in no time…had cigarettes and tea and obviously loads of BAK about our careers and some global shit and started again…
Then it was an amazing ride on the Toll Road on NH-8 which we enjoyed a lot overtaking some slow cars and giving way to the faster ones…it went on and on till we hit the Sariska Road and suddenly Negi decided to stop for Pravin (the official photographer of our ride) to take some pics and absorb in the yellow & dry natural beauty surrounding us…we took our bikes towards a hill and started taking snaps…clicking snaps in front of our beasts and taking turns to click (we wanted all 3 to be in focus!!!)…then we started again and then after some time we found a Theka on the road and then some silent looks towards each other and we stopped and enjoyed the not-so-chilled Kingfisher Beers in a makeshift shed cum bar (obviously free of cost !!!) and again the Bak session followed with Negi discussing his College Glory Days and Pravin with his global bull-shitting and me just feeding them with words…as I was getting soaked in the beer (mentally…don’t imagine me bathed in beer)…we started again after asking for the way towards Bhangarh and got to hear the same old 6 words line: “aage hi hai isi road pe”…
On the way Negi’s bike had a minor issue but the master engineer found a way out with a screw driver he got from a roadside shop…its another point that I could not understand a single fu@#$ word coming out of the Local mechanic’s mouth!!!Pravin was at it again…clicking some “Real-Life” pics of innocent Rajasthanis enjoying Hukka and Tea…I guess the “The Getting Clicked Obsession” is a Pan-Indian one and not just restricted to fair damsels…
We hit the road again and then Negi was at it again…he said lets have some more beer…lucky guys we were….found a Theka right in a middle of a sleepy village…picked up this time very chilled Kingfishers…hats off to Mr. Vijay Mallya’s distribution reach…Kudos to the Debonair Business-Man !!! there was this guy drinking Bonnie Scot whiskey at 3 pm on a hot afternoon quite merrily…maybe gulping down his parental or marital woes but was OK talking to 3 nerds who had come all the way from Delhi to visit a Haunted Fort…yes that’s the kind of looks and glares we got from people each time we asked for directions…I missed my good-old college days of Bonnie Scot and gulped some 3-4 shots right from the bottle…with Pravin also joining in…and Negi advising me to chill and don’t go overboard…and me always a good guy agreed and didn’t drink much…we wished the people there good bye and headed towards the last road towards the “Holy Grail” we were looking for…The Bhangarh Fort…some 280 kms from Gurgaon and not 180 as we had thought initially)…
We parked our bikes outside the main gate and entered with company of Langurs and Monkeys (they were so happy to find their 3 lost friends)…believe me people it’s a fu@#$ amazing place and the feeling is seriously pretty strange…Negi was at his best…imaging how the people lived there and all…the normal nostalgia which hits people when they see some old fort…Kora started clicking snaps again merrily and both of us were admiring the place…there are I guess 5-6 temples there…with beautiful carvings and stone murals…but without any statue…I guess some bugger stole them away to Sotheby’s or Christie’s to auction them off to some rich white a$$hole…we had picked 3 beers and went to the top of the fort and started sipping and once again “BAK” followed…and plans of staying overnight or not…where to have food…remember nothing to eat since 9 in the morning…just alcohol residing in our hapless tummies….and it was almost 6 PM…
Moved out of the Fort finally against our wishes as there is a strict warning board which says that nobody can stay inside the Fort after Sunset due to some superstition shit…we followed that Dictum and started to thump again…soon we were in a hustling-bustling Village market…not much hope of food there so thought of moving on and finding a decent dhaba to eat….then the first oh-so-near mishap of the trip…a small helpless goat came running toward my bike and I could not brake in time and I ran over it…fu@#$ all sorts of things started moving in my mind…people beating the hell out of me and me paying them to save my a$$…but that small yet fu@#$ strong goat just got up and ran away…as if saying “F@#$ this speckie guy”…I can take trucks in my stride…what’s this black bullet got to do with me !!! We heaved a sigh of relief and moved on…on an endless road which never seemed to end…on the way saw 4-5 Holika Dahan Fires and people dancing away to glory…kept riding…and then Negi’s masterpiece…this DCE engineer thought that in a Village Petrol Pump they would accept his Credit Card…I mean for them, Visa is an Airport thingy and not some plastic card…as a good Samaritan & a buddy helped him out and for him rolled out crisp Gandhis and got his beast filled…we kept moving on and on without any luck of hitting the highway…soon it became pitch dark and not surprisingly no village had any thing remotely like Electrical power…just some tiny flames flickering slowly…the roads were desolate and we were really feeling damn hungry…it was almost 8 PM.Finally Lady Luck smiled on us and we found “Fouji Da Dhaba”….which “Negi the Genius” renamed “The 10 kms from Highway Dhaba”…had the most amazing dinners of our lives…just not in terms of the flavour and the amount of red-chilly thrown in the food but also in terms of the love with which the guy served us, the speed of making rotis and the satisfaction levels it took us to…almost equal to Mt. Everest in terms of height…the bill amount was a huge surprise…just fu@#$ 84 bucks…I almost fell down laughing from the comforts of the Khaat or Chaar-Paai…we paid that guy a heavy amount of tip which he quickly slipped in his pocket to avoid his owner gorging a share out of it…rested there…had tea…had a Bak session with some villagers about Life in general…Negi enjoyed “Chillam” with them and the villagers were so proud of his smoking prowess wrt the chillam…Negi didn’t show off but I am sure he would have felt proud in his mind !!!
We left the Dhaba with our tummies filled…satisfaction and happiness levels sky-high and with a hope that the NH-8 is just 10 kms away…believe me that was a fu@#$ big kick…soon we saw the 8 lane highway…and off we zoomed…it was extremely chilly…never imagined in our wildest dreams about the cold winds which would hit us from left-right and centre…and we 3 in our half sleeves t-shirts and jeans…but we had to move on and face the menacing traffic on the highway with valor so forgot about the chill anyway…after around 80 kms of non-stop biking stopped on a dhaba again to take a break and have tea…there was this shitty Mithun movie playing and the volume was painfully loud and some people laughing as if they are watching Tom and Jerry cartoon but our Negi was not to be left far behind…he also started watching the movie…I was like what the f@#$…has this guy gone bonkers…but finally the very very loud Altaf Raja song finally moved our rock-music buff away from the scene…and we started again to reach our homes without stopping on the way and reaching our final destination…
It was almost 1 AM in the night when we reached Gurgaon…waited for Negi to show up but I guess he moved directly towards his home in Delhi…I dropped Kora and reached my home…the last stretch of around 80 kms was extremely tough for me…my hands were shivering…my reflexes had gone almost dead…my thighs were paining crazily but the man himself Che Guevara was egging me on from up above to move on like him…I was wearing his tee to get inspiration as well…(not that I need it…he is always in my mind anyways)…and poor old Kora’s a$$ was on fire anyway after a loooooong trip of 570 odd kms on the thick stone-like pillion seat of my bike…
But when I finally reached my home and saw my odo meter the feeling got over me…570 kms on the road…20 hours of non-stop crazy biking exhilaration…it was a feeling I won’t be able to forget in time to come…
The trip had a majority of ups and with the exception of that strong goat our ride was without any mishap…God is Great!!!
Thanks a lot to Negi and Kora for being a part of my first biking extravaganza and I am sure there are lots and lots of such rides to follow and I would be back with another Ride Story…till then Ciao…
Check out the pics of the ride at http://picasaweb.google.com/jha.nishant/TheHauntedSpookies?authkey=QKzFL4BmzMg
The Heroes of this trip were me, Nitin Negi and Pravin Kora…the two props were 2 Royal Enfields both embellished with Che Guevara stickers. Infact I call my Bike “The Mighty One” inspired from the Norton 500 which Che and Alberto Granado rode during their famous South American Motorcycle Diaries…Pravin was a pillion rider and I am sure he is never gonna repeat this mistake ever if he is sane (which I have my doubts about !!!)
We met at 6:45 AM on Friday the 21st March 2008 at the Iffco Chowk and started our trip…soon we hit the biggest fu@#$ Traffic Jam we had ever seen…almost 8-10 kms of Mess due to a fu@#$ huge trailer falling right in the middle of the Highway and blocking roads on the both sides…but our navigator Kora was perfect in his job finding a way out of the mess for me & Nitin and soon we hit an open patch and were roaring again…we stopped on Dhaba to satisfy our empty tummies and soon finished 5-6 stuffed paranthas in no time…had cigarettes and tea and obviously loads of BAK about our careers and some global shit and started again…
Then it was an amazing ride on the Toll Road on NH-8 which we enjoyed a lot overtaking some slow cars and giving way to the faster ones…it went on and on till we hit the Sariska Road and suddenly Negi decided to stop for Pravin (the official photographer of our ride) to take some pics and absorb in the yellow & dry natural beauty surrounding us…we took our bikes towards a hill and started taking snaps…clicking snaps in front of our beasts and taking turns to click (we wanted all 3 to be in focus!!!)…then we started again and then after some time we found a Theka on the road and then some silent looks towards each other and we stopped and enjoyed the not-so-chilled Kingfisher Beers in a makeshift shed cum bar (obviously free of cost !!!) and again the Bak session followed with Negi discussing his College Glory Days and Pravin with his global bull-shitting and me just feeding them with words…as I was getting soaked in the beer (mentally…don’t imagine me bathed in beer)…we started again after asking for the way towards Bhangarh and got to hear the same old 6 words line: “aage hi hai isi road pe”…
On the way Negi’s bike had a minor issue but the master engineer found a way out with a screw driver he got from a roadside shop…its another point that I could not understand a single fu@#$ word coming out of the Local mechanic’s mouth!!!Pravin was at it again…clicking some “Real-Life” pics of innocent Rajasthanis enjoying Hukka and Tea…I guess the “The Getting Clicked Obsession” is a Pan-Indian one and not just restricted to fair damsels…
We hit the road again and then Negi was at it again…he said lets have some more beer…lucky guys we were….found a Theka right in a middle of a sleepy village…picked up this time very chilled Kingfishers…hats off to Mr. Vijay Mallya’s distribution reach…Kudos to the Debonair Business-Man !!! there was this guy drinking Bonnie Scot whiskey at 3 pm on a hot afternoon quite merrily…maybe gulping down his parental or marital woes but was OK talking to 3 nerds who had come all the way from Delhi to visit a Haunted Fort…yes that’s the kind of looks and glares we got from people each time we asked for directions…I missed my good-old college days of Bonnie Scot and gulped some 3-4 shots right from the bottle…with Pravin also joining in…and Negi advising me to chill and don’t go overboard…and me always a good guy agreed and didn’t drink much…we wished the people there good bye and headed towards the last road towards the “Holy Grail” we were looking for…The Bhangarh Fort…some 280 kms from Gurgaon and not 180 as we had thought initially)…
We parked our bikes outside the main gate and entered with company of Langurs and Monkeys (they were so happy to find their 3 lost friends)…believe me people it’s a fu@#$ amazing place and the feeling is seriously pretty strange…Negi was at his best…imaging how the people lived there and all…the normal nostalgia which hits people when they see some old fort…Kora started clicking snaps again merrily and both of us were admiring the place…there are I guess 5-6 temples there…with beautiful carvings and stone murals…but without any statue…I guess some bugger stole them away to Sotheby’s or Christie’s to auction them off to some rich white a$$hole…we had picked 3 beers and went to the top of the fort and started sipping and once again “BAK” followed…and plans of staying overnight or not…where to have food…remember nothing to eat since 9 in the morning…just alcohol residing in our hapless tummies….and it was almost 6 PM…
Moved out of the Fort finally against our wishes as there is a strict warning board which says that nobody can stay inside the Fort after Sunset due to some superstition shit…we followed that Dictum and started to thump again…soon we were in a hustling-bustling Village market…not much hope of food there so thought of moving on and finding a decent dhaba to eat….then the first oh-so-near mishap of the trip…a small helpless goat came running toward my bike and I could not brake in time and I ran over it…fu@#$ all sorts of things started moving in my mind…people beating the hell out of me and me paying them to save my a$$…but that small yet fu@#$ strong goat just got up and ran away…as if saying “F@#$ this speckie guy”…I can take trucks in my stride…what’s this black bullet got to do with me !!! We heaved a sigh of relief and moved on…on an endless road which never seemed to end…on the way saw 4-5 Holika Dahan Fires and people dancing away to glory…kept riding…and then Negi’s masterpiece…this DCE engineer thought that in a Village Petrol Pump they would accept his Credit Card…I mean for them, Visa is an Airport thingy and not some plastic card…as a good Samaritan & a buddy helped him out and for him rolled out crisp Gandhis and got his beast filled…we kept moving on and on without any luck of hitting the highway…soon it became pitch dark and not surprisingly no village had any thing remotely like Electrical power…just some tiny flames flickering slowly…the roads were desolate and we were really feeling damn hungry…it was almost 8 PM.Finally Lady Luck smiled on us and we found “Fouji Da Dhaba”….which “Negi the Genius” renamed “The 10 kms from Highway Dhaba”…had the most amazing dinners of our lives…just not in terms of the flavour and the amount of red-chilly thrown in the food but also in terms of the love with which the guy served us, the speed of making rotis and the satisfaction levels it took us to…almost equal to Mt. Everest in terms of height…the bill amount was a huge surprise…just fu@#$ 84 bucks…I almost fell down laughing from the comforts of the Khaat or Chaar-Paai…we paid that guy a heavy amount of tip which he quickly slipped in his pocket to avoid his owner gorging a share out of it…rested there…had tea…had a Bak session with some villagers about Life in general…Negi enjoyed “Chillam” with them and the villagers were so proud of his smoking prowess wrt the chillam…Negi didn’t show off but I am sure he would have felt proud in his mind !!!
We left the Dhaba with our tummies filled…satisfaction and happiness levels sky-high and with a hope that the NH-8 is just 10 kms away…believe me that was a fu@#$ big kick…soon we saw the 8 lane highway…and off we zoomed…it was extremely chilly…never imagined in our wildest dreams about the cold winds which would hit us from left-right and centre…and we 3 in our half sleeves t-shirts and jeans…but we had to move on and face the menacing traffic on the highway with valor so forgot about the chill anyway…after around 80 kms of non-stop biking stopped on a dhaba again to take a break and have tea…there was this shitty Mithun movie playing and the volume was painfully loud and some people laughing as if they are watching Tom and Jerry cartoon but our Negi was not to be left far behind…he also started watching the movie…I was like what the f@#$…has this guy gone bonkers…but finally the very very loud Altaf Raja song finally moved our rock-music buff away from the scene…and we started again to reach our homes without stopping on the way and reaching our final destination…
It was almost 1 AM in the night when we reached Gurgaon…waited for Negi to show up but I guess he moved directly towards his home in Delhi…I dropped Kora and reached my home…the last stretch of around 80 kms was extremely tough for me…my hands were shivering…my reflexes had gone almost dead…my thighs were paining crazily but the man himself Che Guevara was egging me on from up above to move on like him…I was wearing his tee to get inspiration as well…(not that I need it…he is always in my mind anyways)…and poor old Kora’s a$$ was on fire anyway after a loooooong trip of 570 odd kms on the thick stone-like pillion seat of my bike…
But when I finally reached my home and saw my odo meter the feeling got over me…570 kms on the road…20 hours of non-stop crazy biking exhilaration…it was a feeling I won’t be able to forget in time to come…
The trip had a majority of ups and with the exception of that strong goat our ride was without any mishap…God is Great!!!
Thanks a lot to Negi and Kora for being a part of my first biking extravaganza and I am sure there are lots and lots of such rides to follow and I would be back with another Ride Story…till then Ciao…
Check out the pics of the ride at http://picasaweb.google.com/jha.nishant/TheHauntedSpookies?authkey=QKzFL4BmzMg
