Saturday, June 5, 2010

The BOP Tijara Titans

The relationship between a Motorcycle & a motorcyclist is an extremely special one and when the opportunity for a rendezvous after a separation becomes available the relationship grows even stronger...my relationship with Bullet & the roads became stronger when I travelled to India for a surprise 3-days trip and also got an opportunity to do a short ride!!! I was part of the destination planning in Kuwait but never ever thought in the wildest of my dreams that I would make it to the ride but God has his own ways of making things possible for me and this time it was no different!!!

I reached India on Thursday 27th May 2010 and didn’t tell any of my biking buddies about it, but the next day called up Dips & Vihans and told me, it was quite funny as they first thought that either of my parents were calling from my India and when they heard my voice were pleasantly surprised…then I sent a mail to the Tijara Mail Chain announcing my grand arrival and my confirmation for the ride…soon the 2 confirmed members swelled to 11 and the ride was becoming bigger & better!!! In spite of the fact that when I am around I am the one who speaks the most people still want to ride along with me and hear my loud voice blaring all the way!!! It’s nice to know this actually!!! It was also to be Sunny’s last ride with BOP before shifting to Chennai and when Zaheer also confirmed I was extremely happy…he has his own Bakchodi style and it’s real fun!!! My Pulsar 220 buddies – Dhruv & Adit also joined in and I had a feeling this ride would be special!!!



The destination was Tijara – some 80 odd kms from Gurgaon…it’s an abandoned fort near Alwar nestled in a sleepy village of Tijara and built on a hilltop…me & Dips had planned to conquer this fort since long and finally our plans came through this time…within an year this fort would be converted into a Heritage Hotel Property by the Neemrana Group of Hotels and would have some exorbitant entry fees so it was the best time to visit it before it becomes out of bound for us poor motorcyclists!!!

And this fort has a history of love & deceit…

The king of Alwar Bakhtawar Singh fell in love with a Muslim girl from a nearby village. Her mother allowed him to marry her under one condition that their son would become the next king. The King accepted the offer and married the woman even though he already had a son that was in line to be crowned. They resided together in Alwar, 50 kilometres away from this fort in Tijara. When the son became old enough to become king, they started building this fort in Tijara. The king was dishonest and still had plans for his eldest son to become the king. He told his half Muslim son that he must experience war before he could become King. He suited up to fight and was murdered by a couple of the King’s servants. Shortly after, his mother had died too and the construction of the fort was never completed. It also houses Rani Moosi ka Mehal, who was queen of the King and committed sati on his death.

This YouTube Video quite vividly describes this fort…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6pplr9B-Gs

The Tijara Titans were:

Sunny on his RE Standard
Zaheer on his “Udhaar ki” RE self-modified 535
Asok on his RE Electra 4S
Rishi on his RE Standard
Bantu on his RE Electra 5S
Vihans on his FZ-16
Rohan Kaushik on his Pulsar 180
Adit on his Pulsar 220
Dhruv on his Pulsar 220
Dips on his RE Electra 4S
Che Guevara on his old companion RE Machismo


The Early Start…

Surprisingly I, Vihans & Rohan reached well on time in spite of the fact that we slept at 1 AM all drunk & high and even with a long power cut we could manage some sleep!!! Bantu had already reached and he looked as if he never slept in the night!!! I called up Dhruv as he was the only one missing & he is not the one not to come after his confirmation, he missed his alarm but promised that he would “catch up” and with his age & P220 bike I was sure he would be with us very soon!!! We started the ride at 5:20 AM after some customary pics and our BOP style early-morning Bakchodi…



Traffic @ 6 AM…



NH-8 was as always full of traffic even this early and we even hit a bad traffic jam and I was on my Bhai’s bike which has a handle-bar with which I am not the most comfortable with, it was a pain wriggling my way out of the jam but somehow we all managed and were soon zipping away on the breezy NH-8. For a change I was not riding very quickly and was in the middle of the pack just soaking in the fun & thrill of being back on the roads after a 5-months long hiatus from a bike ride (my last long-distance ride was my 1000 kms long Amritsar Aakraamaks Ride in December 2009). We stopped at the Dharuhera cut to have some water & sutta and also to wait for Dips who was riding slowly due to the piston change on his bike; Ashok was providing him company…The weather was quite pleasant and there was still no signs of the dreary heat & sunshine…phew!!!

Recipe for Disaster…



Whenever Dips tries his hands at Map-Reading we know we are up for a disaster…this time also he was carrying a map and the moment he opened it and TRIED reading it we stopped him then & there as nobody was in a mood to follow the route told by him but still Dips tried his best to convince us that he knew the rout…a nice try but didn’t succeed!!!

Tea-Time…



We made our first pit-stop for a tea break filled with a longish BBB session with some fake soft drinks giving us company and the Bhujiya giving us the snaky feeling!!! Here a special mention goes to Vihans Paaji who mixed the namkeen into his tea…quite innovative I must say!!! We bid farewell to the Dhaba and started the final leg towards the Tijara Fort. And rode on some amazing village roads, this is one special part about Rajasthan that even the interior village roads are in some pristine conditions…



“Abe Beer kahan hai???”



Me & Sunny reached the fort first after riding through some thick vegetation and finding our way through a the broken sandy uphill road…the final climb was quite exciting and gave us a great off-roading opportunity…the moment we reached 2 caretakers of the property came and told us to go back as this place was out-of-bounds…I encountered him by asking for some papers and as expected he had none, he tried his best but we were in no mood to listen…soon all 11 motorcyclists were together and he lost any chance of convincing us…size does matter!!! And then the legendary dialogue of the ride was blurted out by Vihans - “Abe Beer kahan hai???” with this those 2 losers retreated hastily as they knew we would be here for a long time…

Discovery Time…



Dips was the first to start the fort-discovery trip armed with his titanium knee and wandered his way through to find the perfect spot for the BOP BBB Session and in no time we all followed him…the designated spot had some much needed shade and a nice view of the valley below…Rohan started building a bridge with small pebbles – quite industrious to say the least; me & Vihans identified a hill on the other side and bought it hastily so that nobody else could stake a claim over it, we even decided to build a small little home there and also the kind of vegetation which would be grown!!! Both to keep us intoxicated and to provide a business opportunity!!! What business acumen we have got!!! The beer bottles were opend and the Bakchodi was flowing in the air…History tells us that nothing can stop us when we are in a fort with beer in our hands…BOP has a strong affinity to forts and we keep conquering new ones quite frequently…



And the shirt I was wearing that day surely matched the mood of fun & frolic that day...it was a shocker to some as I rarely wear such shirts always sticking to my black Che tees but I was in a gala mood and the shirt just proved the point !!! check it out for yourself...the Jury is already out!!!



The back door entry



The beer soon finished and we were left high & dry so we decided to sneak our way into the fort which was completely abandoned, we jumped inside through the back door and were greeted by thousands of bats making irritating screeching sounds and shitting away to glory…it’s a nauseating feeling I must say…when we reached inside our imagination ran wild…Queens, Bathing & Massage sessions, night romps and what not was discussed…we went up through the stairs and witnessed some amazing views of the valley and our motorcycles below…



Pics, pics & some more pics…





Sunny Paaji was in a special mood that day and wanted himself to be clicked at every possible opportunity…no wonder he is looking frantically for girls and would send them pics of this fort conquest…atleast the girls would fall for his adventurous streak as there is nothing else to fall for!!! In fact this time surprisingly even Dips asked for some solo shots and shockingly looking straight at the camera…Dhruv clicked some amazing pics of the BOP Logo Tees as well…



Maurya’s moment of glory…

We always click one customary group pic using the Auto Click feature and my camera was to do the honours but as always Maurya Bhai tried to cash in but sadly his camera skills are as bad as his oratory skills and he miserably failed but his failure provided us with one of the best-ever BOP Group Shots I must say…so many teeth visible in one single pic are quite rare!!! Whatever said & done Maurya with his histrionics was the reason for this amazing shot…



The Descent…



Riding downhill is always tricky and I love this challenge & all of us rode downhill like true champions…Sunny & I also stopped for a bit and clicked some nice shots of the fort…we even stopped to enjoy some cold water from the hand pump which is always fun…old memories come running to my mind during this time…and as always we caught the fancy of the villagers shocked to see us in this sleepy village in the heat of the day!!!



Ganne ka Juice Time…



Ganne ka Juice or Sugarcane juice (for the uninitiated) is the best thirst-quencher on a hot & humid day and it was lapped-up by all of us plus it provides some much-needed glucose energy…

Ride back home…

I wanted to reach home early for 2 reasons…A – the heat was becoming unbearable and B – Wanted to spend the last few hours left in my trip with my family so I zipped back and reached home at 12 PM…mummy welcomed with her normal dialogue “ Kapde badal lo aur jaldi se naha lo, khaana tayyar hai”…She is most worried about my clothes more than me!!! I don’t know why though!!!

A special mention for Maurya & Dips…Rishi successfully completed his first ride after his horrific accident during The Ranthambore Rapiers Ride and for Dips as this was the 1st ride of his comeback-with-a-vengeance riding journey after his knee operation…

A special thanks to my Bhai who gave me his 1999 RE Bullet Machismo for this ride, I have special memories attached with this bike as this was the first Bullet I ever rode and went for some really memorable city rides during my college days…

Finally the 170 kms & 7 hours long ride ended…till date my shortest ride…made memorable by my Motorcycling Buddies…thanks to all of them who made it to the ride…could not have asked for more…even in a 3 days trip I could manage a ride!!! Unbelievable but true!!!

JAI BOP…

It’s so good to be back on my cheguevaraontheroad blog after 5 months and hope I can be back here in another 5 months time…Inshallah…

Che would be back on the road again…

Till then ride safe & have safe sex…

Hasta la Victoria Siempre…



Pics of the Ride:
My Camera: http://picasaweb.google.com/jha.nishant/TheBOPTijaraTitans?feat=directlink
Dhruv’s Camera: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/manurules07/BOPTijaraTitans
Maurya’s Camera: http://picasaweb.google.com/technowizzz/TijaraTitans02?authkey=Gv1sRgCKO1uon0v92_Fg#
Adit’s Camera: http://picasaweb.google.com/aditsharda/TijaraTitans#

3 comments:

sandeep s chadha said...

Nice blog and ride. Sad to hearthat sunny pha ji is relocating to chennai.

Prashant said...

all the stories we have heard were son killing father....

for the first time it is father killing son.... i dont think this can ever happen

Ken Slayer said...

It was a short and memorable ride. have never seen the membership count increase so fast and so high.