The Stats
Ride Duration : 4 days 22nd December 2007-25th December 2007
Riders and Bikes :
Sunil Dhummi- P150
Me- P150
Professor Nanjundappa- Unicorn
Praveen T- Unicorn
Venkatesh, Chalapati(pillion)- Discover
Total Kms covered : 1020kms
Route Taken:
Day 1:Bangalore-->Mysore-->Bylakuppe-->Madikeri
Day 2:Madikere-->Virajpet-->Irutti-->Kannur
Day 3:Kannur-->Calicut
Day 4:Calicut-->Kalpetta-->Mysore-->Bangalore
Well the ride started out with some of the guys coming late and catching up late. I thought ok as this is a big group these things are bound to happen.
We started off at around 6:45am form the Rajarajeshwari Arch towards Mysore. Gurinder Ratra a bull rider joined us later.
As we were approaching the turn to the bypass on Hunsur road i spotted excessive smoke coming out of Gurinder's bull. This is where the troubles started!
As i had been to Bylakuppe I accompanied Gurinder to Mysore to his bike fixed, the others continued towards the chosen destination. With some difficulty we found the mechanic and got the bike fixed meanwhile i got to see some bad attitude doled out by Gurinder. I thought it to be a passing phase.
Then me and Gurinder caught up with the rest of the group at Bylakuppe visited some of the monasteries and had lunch.
The next leg was towards Madikere and this was done eventlessly, thank God.
At Madikere we were again in for some surprise as we did not get the desired homestay in a coffee estate and only a small house on a hill top. Anyways we made do with it and had some booze sessions and took the much needed rest.
The next day everything started on a normal note and we made out way to Virajpete and had breakfast there. From Virajpete to Irutti was when we took the most beating as the road was unpaved and had huge boulders sticking out on a gradient. This really pissed us all! Anyways after we crossed this stretch we reached Irutti and were very frustrated and started ripping once we got good Kerala roads.
This is where the major tragedy happened! One of our fellow riders Professor Nanjundappa Nisarga was left behind in this ripping and met with an accident [A head on collision with a Maruti 800 driven by drunken drivers!].
This changed the whole course of our ride and me and my friends [Venkatesh and Chalapathi] learnt a very valuable lesson in life, more of which i will narrate later!
After this happened the guilty guys managed to take the professor to a Hospital where he was checked and X-Ray taken which showed no broken bones. In the meantime apprehending that this will become a police case i called up my PL in Bangalore who hailed from Kannur. Thanks to him we found his friend an auto driver who turned out to be of great help! He met us at the hospital and we discussed that we would agree for a settlement and not book a case. This guy who barely knew us negotiated a settlement for us, but the bike had somehow landed up at the police station. So we had to go there and talk to the police who refused to speak in any other language than Malayalam! They were trying to put the whole blame on us and asking us to pay the compensation for the car damage as well. At this moment the auto driver "Sanjaya" showed his true strength, he called up the local DYSP who was his acquaintance and upon his arrival the whole scenario changed and the police started threatening the cagers and they agreed for a written agreement to pay for all the repairs and spares for Professor's bike.
This accomplished we being apprehensive about professor suffering any internal injuries got him to another hospital and got him checked up thoroughly. Thank God the doctors there spoke Kannada and were very helpful. That day we rejoiced for our professor was saved from any kind of fatal injuries and was safe [ We had this party in a 3-star hotel!].
The next day the same guy Sanjaya came with us to the Honda service center and got the culprit cagers to agree for the estimate that the service center guys had given and then we headed towards Calicut and then to Bangalore via Kalpetta.
We made sure that the pillion rider Chalapati accompanied Professor on a night bus from Calicut to Bangalore.
The next day the remaining riders headed back to Bangalore from Calicut.
Thus the terrible ride ended.
Now to let out the cats from the bag.
Lessons we learnt
1) Some riders are indifferent to the trouble the group is going through and enjoy their time in their own way! I am sure if they read this they'll be ashamed of themselves.
2) Taking responsibility for a fallen rider is the upmost priority, but do not expect any kind of gratitude from the fallen rider.
2 comments:
Wow, finally you let the steam out!
But iam surprised man, it's been a year since you went on that ride? was it in march 2007? It seems it happened quiet recently.
Nice rebuttal for thankless professor man, i sure hope that he reads this!
Hey am sorry corrected the mistake it was in December. Well I am going to send a mil to him with the link to this blog ans lets see if he has any self respect.
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