Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Death Ride - Part I



I was returning home from a really long stint in the Middle East - The prodigal son. It wasn't easy coming back to face the questions that were left answered especially from what had conspired. I had left a lot of people unhappy with my decisions that I took last time around. But the best thing about home is that they will accept you for what you are no matter what you do. But this story isn’t about what "was and then". This story is about how I die.

The holidays are something that you always look forward to having a nice time and especially when you have been away from home for a long time. You look forward to enjoy spending time with your family and friends. There was a lot of catching up to do since this was the longest I have ever been away from home. And I owe it to my friends that I spend some time with them this time around. And the way we decided to do it is, go on the longest biking trip ever. That’s how we connect. That’s how it is supposed to be. But like everything, when you are not expecting it, a series of unfortunate incidents happen which change the course of everything you ever planned for.

So bags packed - four bikes, four riders, and four days of pure adrenaline rush. Devraj, Amit, Rylan and me. If there was ever an adventure we have probably done it all together. These are the guys who have made me get through my sorry growing up years. Hell, I still remember when we used to race our bicycles from the incline slope down up to the unconstructed road ahead when we were small. It was the smoothest transition to bikes when we all started earning. We were "The passionate bikers". We even had our own symbol engraved on our Motorbikes.

For our road trip we had decided on a series of stopovers. The first was supposed to be at Mahabaleshwar on the famous "Table-Top" plains. We chose this location because it offers mind-boggling, monkey shitting, amazing Parasailing options. We zoomed ahead up to the location and first to go up in the air was Amit. He has done this before and we thought we’d just watch and learn, since I am not the kind of dude who is a big fan of heights. When I see a dead drop, my heart feels like it’s going to pop out of my chest, it just goes all hay wire.

So Amit took off screaming with his instructor behind... 


(To be continued..)