my favourite stories

there are some (true) stories that i love to tell everyone i know. some people are (un)lucky enough to even hear them multiple times :D

like once when we were kids. We were playing cricket in the building compound, and our aging neighbour walked by, forcing us to temporarily halt our game.

my friend said to him: "uncle you must die!"

after a long enough pause for everyone to be suitably shocked, he made an action of brushing his hair and continued: "your hair, your hair! you must dye your hair!"

luckily for us, he took it sportingly, smiled and walked on :)

relief

what a relief, to open your eyes, and to see the world exactly as you imagined it!

99 red kites

yesterday was makarsankranti, or as we would call it as kids, "kite flying day"

on my way home from work, near the railway station, i passed a young guy who was standing on the sidewalk and smiling broadly at passers-by on the busy street. he had a red string in his hand. the string let straight upwards, into a tree above him.

i asked him what he's holding.

"patang" (a paper kite), he replied.

i peered upwards and asked him where's the kite.

he peered upwards too.

after a moment of unsuccessfully trying to locate the kite in the foliage, he looked back at me, smiled, and wordlessly let go of the string.

the end of the string that he was holding went straight upwards, and disappeared.

as i walked on towards where i had parked my bike, he went back to smiling at the people on the road, but now empty handed.

it was a strange moment. i still have no idea what to make of it.

20000

my bike completed 20000 km on the odometer, and exactly a year since she rolled out of the showroom, on saturday.

it's been a crazy journey. countless long highway rides (the first time she left the roads of bombay was when she was 3 days old!), all the way from my usual weekend trips to overnight rides to goa (5 goa rides this year, a lifetime record of sorts!) and her longest overnight ride, which was a little over 700km - to bagalpur district in karnataka. most of my rides with her have been solo as well, unlike on my old pulsar.

since the story is too long to tell, a few pictures shall do the talking instead.

13th january: her first 100, little over a day old.

14th january: purushwadi. her first trip outside bombay.

15th january: my first pic with carly :)

22nd january: her first 1000, on our way back from kolad.

25th january: our first goa trip, 13 days old.

31st january: back from goa.

12th february: malshej ghat - exactly one month!

8th march: first overnight ride to goa.

12th march: first overnight ride back from goa - exactly two months!

18th march: dhena trip.

15th april: back from goa, my second overnight (and third, overall) long ride.

19th april: the first (and only, so far) puncture - riding to satara.

28th april: random pic in the colony, early one morning.

10th may: evening ride to and from vaitarna with tushar.

18th may: her first 10000 - riding back from khandala :)

26th may: 11111km somewhere on our way back from mahalingpur in karnataka - my longest overnight ride ever :)

10th june: our first rain ride, on the way to matheran :)

16th june: naneghat. a mad ride, with lots of off-roading on wet, muddy paths.

25th june: 12345km.

29th july: 13333km (riding back from vasai fort)

4th august: the day i sold my pulsar. back to having just one bike!

2nd october: my first accident - hit a horse that ran across the highway in front of me, riding back from goa. and then 420km with a smashed fairing, through pouring rain and eventually darkness, with practically no headlight.

26th october: bike still not fixed yet.

17th november: 16000km. still not completely fixed from the accident.

3rd december: 16666km. bike finally completely fixed from the accident, 2 months later!

16th december: ride to dahanu. first highway ride with both my loves ;)

27th december: my last ride to goa in 2012.

31st december: riding back from goa on the last day of 2012.

12th january: riding back from pune on carly's first birthday!