My Bike's First Anniversary

Yes. It is the first anniversary for my bike today. I traveled around 5000 Kilometers in this one year's duration and the ride was smooth. There are no complaints and I am completely satisfied with its performance. But ofcourse there were few minor damages to my bike such as

• I lost the original set of keys in the month of April.
• I had to replace the right mirror of my bike when an autowallah banged that in the month of May
  

I am wishing happy birthday to my bike on this eve :)

A ride with "Drunken Auto Walla"

I happened to visit Tirchy recently on an official work. After the work was done, I went to srirangam kovil and had a good darshan. I hired an Auto to go to busstand from srirangam. The auto guy asked me 150 rs and I bargained him for 100 rs and with out any arguments he accepted. I felt proud of my self :) for that deal. The auto driver appeared as a middle age man . After getting inside, I told him to go to the destination as soon as possible. It was fine until then.

After few minutes, I noticed the auto was going in zig-zag fashion. But I didn't pay much attention to that as I was in conversation with one my friends on phone. Suddenly the zig-zag pattern became too much annoying as the driver started trying to bang the vehicles coming in the opposite direction. I asked him to drive carefully and for that he replied "Don worry Sir, I am super man". I was shocked as I didn't expect that kind of English resposne from him. He used the same wordings as such and that is when i realized that he was drunken. I asked him to stop the auto . He didn't care that and continued his blabbering. He said, "you said go fast. we going fast. no worry". I had no other option other than listening to his stupid blabbering. Below are few excerpts from his blabbering

• "We are going to bus stand safely. I drive like this always. Boost is the secret of my energy"
• "You know, 35 years back I am a player. Don think cricket player. i am a football player. I am an umpire and kick the players"
• "Why u fear? No fear"... etc etc

He used the exact English as above. After some time, by gods grace he some how took me to the destination and luckily he stopped me there with out any dilemma. I got down and gave him the money. He refused to take the money and asked me to wait there and listen to his football story. This is what I call as the heights of nuisance created by a drunken person. I kept the money on the back seat and escaped from that place. Thank God, the traffic was really low that time. Otherwise, I couldn't imagine the after effects of his zig-zag driving...

IPL 2009

Its IPL saga every where. The war is on again. 8 Teams and unlimited amount of T20 fun. for a period of two months. Also there is lot of anxiety to see the concept of Kolkata Knight Riders multiple captains in action. If I am asked to pick the favourites of the tournament I would say it is Chennai Super Kings. They were really excellent in the last edition itself. It is just that the luck did n't favour them. With Flintoff being in the team, CSK looks stronger.




Another team to watch is Bangalore Royal challengers. Kevin Petersien being the captain, BRC looks really challenging. Delhi Dare Devils appear to live up to their name with Sehwag and Gambhir being in great from. But except these two, there are no stronger batsmen in their team. Deccan chargers still looks strong on the paper. But we have to see how they are going to perform this season. On the other hand, Rajasthan Royals being the defending champions may continue their success just like the last season. The Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab might give some unexpected surprises.

I am more eager to watch out the performances of following players who made their mark in the last season.

Yusuf Pathan [Rajasthan royals]
Ravindra Jadeja [Rajasthan royals]
Asnodkar [Rajasthan royals]
D Ravi Teja [Deccan Chargers]
Venugopal Rao [Deccan Chargers]
Rohit Sharma [Deccan Chargers]
Robin Uthappa[BRC]
Virat Kohli [BRC]

On the whole, it is going to be a great summer... :)

A Painful journey

I went to home during last week's long weekend. I some how managed to get a ticket in a super luxury bus though I decided my travel at a very last minute and fortunately I reached majestic bus stand much earlier though it is a Friday. The bus also started just as scheduled. Till then it is very fine and I slowly went into sleep.

After two hours, the person sitting next to me woke me up and asked for my good old 1100 mobile. I wondered why does he need my mobile in the middle of the night. Then I realized that the bus was stopped due to some problem and the conductor was asking for a torch light. Alas, my mobile has finally got the recognition as a torch light. With out actually realizing the problem, I gave my mobile to that person and I went into the sleep again. After some time, the announcement from conductor has come that the passengers who are in hurry can leave the bus and take another bus of same depot which was standing near by. He said that it will some time to get the repair done.

I was highly reluctant to move from the bus as

• I was in the middle of my deep sleep
• I have no hurry as I dont have any great work to do at home in the next morning
• The conductor assured that the repair will take some time to get corrected
  

I got my mobile from the conductor. Due to the said reasons, I myself felt comfortable about the situation and started sleeping again. That is the first mistake I made during the journey.

After some time, another announcement came for the conductor. This one is horrible. he said that the bus can not be moved until next afternoon and requested all other remaining passengers to take the other bus standing outside.

As I left with no other option, I made a move towards the other bus. This one is an ordinary APSRTC red bus which can not exceed 40 KMPH in its life time. By the time I reached there, the bus was fully crowded and foot board was the only option left for me. But due to some good help from the responsible passengers inside, I was able to move inside and occupied some place. It was so congested The conductor said that once the bus reaches Anantapur, half of the bus becomes empty and he assured me a seat after that. When asked for the duration it takes to reach that place he said it as one and half hours.

It was around 1 AM and the red bus finally started with more than 80 people in it. You can now imagine how congested it was. Two things which will give a good company in situations like these are

• A friend
• An Ipod/MP3 player
  

Unfortunately, I don't have both at that time. Though the surroundings were in such a bad state, my sleep never let me down. I started sleeping again. In the middle I noticed some thing shiny under my feet. But due to the sleep factor I didn't spend time to investigate it. Thats the second mistake I did. After some half an hour or so, the person standing next to me woke me up and warned me to watch my step. That is when I realized that I was standing on a glass slab all that time and due to my weight it broke into pieces. Fortunately nothing went inside. After that I was not able to sleep. The time was 2:45 AM by then. According to conductor the bus was supposed to reach Anantapur by 2:30 itself. But it was no where near to that. the time passed very slowly. 3, 3:30, 4, 4:30, 4:45 and 5 finally it reached Ananatapur and I managed to grab a seat. The good old red bus took almost four hours to reach the place as it was heavily crowded. I finally reached home at around 8 AM [four hours late from the actual departure time]. When I reached home, I saw my mother eagerly waiting for me. It seems my parents were trying to reach me over phone since 5 AM. But my good old 1100 was switched off due to low battery. I forgot to charge my mobile the previous night. That is the third mistake i did.

In the end, these three mistakes made my journey even more horrible.

Fortunately, nothing happened like this during my return travel from Adoni to Bangalore