My journey continues....

(Wed 15:43 hrs)

Adi: (on the phone) “hello…hey jeet, sup man? How u doing?

Jeet: doing good dude….long time. How u doing? Actually was not doing too well since a month. Was on bed due to my knee operation… getting really frustrated with this.

Adi: oh…that’s bad…how does it feel now?

Jeet: Feels much better now. Hey, do you remember we were planning to drive down to Bangalore?

Adi: “YA” Y?

Jeet: shall we do it today?

Adi: What?? Bangalore?? TODAY????!!!! Hmmm….lesse….@#%^%*%#% FINE, lets do it!!!

This small dialogue led to one of the most exciting and adventurous trips I have been to.

You call it a moment of madness, craziness personified, two jobless pricks trying to keep themselves busy…..etc etc….

I prefer to call it “Passion to Drive Cars”

(Wed 20:43 hrs)

We start out on our journey, filled up fuel, got the pollution check done, checked the air pressure in all the tyres. We planned for a frugal trip, took just the essential stuff like bottles of water, deo (just struck me how imp a deo is :P) snacks to eat and a load of CDs and the Road map book of Bangalore. I was carrying around 1.5k and so was Jeet.

(Wed 21:00 hrs)

Set out on the highway, long unwinding road.

We planned our journey in such a way that we reach Bangalore by dawn, have breakfast, chill for a while(sleep in this case), check out a few things in the city, meet a few old friends, start on our journey back , reach hyderabad by the dawn again.

Cruising at speeds of 120kmph, we were covering good distances every hour. Racing against the trucks (which were a nomatch honestly), Volvo buses which I would confess was a little difficult and also constituted most of the adrenaline pumping moments.

We reached Kurnool (a mid point of sorts) by mid night. It was now that we realized our calculation about the fuel required was a little off track. We estimated that we had to fill up again only at Bangalore. It dint seem to be anymore. We continued to hit the pedal, I wish I could give a more romantic description of the surroundings, but all we could hear or see was the enthralling sound of the car engine, smell of the red hot burning rubber, the speedo needle showing 115kmph, the RPM needle showing 2800.

We had reached Anantapur at 0200 hrs Thursday, another checkpoint. This is where we decided that the money we allotted for buying a few stuff had to be put in on the fuel itself as the fuel needle showed almost empty with more than 1/3^rd of the distance remaining to Bangalore. The road got really horrible, a blessing in disguise of sorts as it never allowed us to feel sleepy or doze off. Not sure if it was because of the road or the speeds at which we were going in spite of it, the car was literally gulping in fuel. The fuel needle was now freakingly close to the E. We had our fingers crossed, the ganesha idol on the dash board suddenly went loose which made matters worse. Maybe superstition is just another way of expressing helplessness. Suddenly as a flash of light we could see a fuelling station(F.S) at a distance. We stopped by only to find that it was closed. Continuing on, constantly changing view from the fuel needle and the empty roads, stopped at a place where we saw a few trucks parked. Got down the car to negotiate with the drivers for a few bottles of diesel in exchange for a few bucks. To our much needed relief they informed us that there was a F.S. at a distance of 5km. We were at peace as we knew the fuel in the tank is sufficient to go the distance. 5kms passed, 10kms passed, no sign of the F.S. 20kms have passed, and we could feel the engine pulling back due to the lack of fuel. We dropped the speed to 60kmph in hope of improving the fuel efficiency. At 25km we finally found what had become the wish of our life in the last 15 mins. Filled the tank, started cruising again at speeds in excess of 110kmph. It was 0430 hrs with less than 150km for Bangalore; spot on in terms of the timeline. Feeling a sense of accomplishment and contented with ourselves that we actually pursued our passion, we decided to further elongate our journey to Mysore(150km further down) instead of Bangalore. Meeting our old friends was just an excuse to convince ourselves that there was enough reason to make the trip. Bangalore was fast approaching as we could see the narrow pot holes filled road turn into an awesome 6 lane highway. The speedo needle now read almost 150 kmph. We lowered down the windows to feel the cool wind in our faces. Everything else went numb, the car was in harmony with the road, the surroundings were a mere dark blue shade. Suddenly as if the string of an instrument is broken, or an orchestra missing a note rather disturbing to the ear, we had a deadly jerk. The car was suspended in the air for a second. It took us a while to understand of what happened; we hit a speed breaker (proved to be a little more than just a speed breaker) at a speed of 120kmph. Slowed down to a side and inspected the car. To our pleasant surprise, the car took the shock really well. Kudos to the Indian engineers who designed it. There was a slight bend in the front left wheel. We continued on, on our journey of life. Found our way in and out of a seemingly polluted Bangalore. The Bangalore – Mysore highway was a misplace in India, we felt. The amazing 8 lane highway on which speeds like 100 kmph looked like a mere stroll in the park. At a stunning average speed of 115kmph we covered the remaining distance in less than 90mins. Finally we reached Mysore at 0843 hrs.

A sense of jubilation, a sense achievement of the unknown embraced us. But we knew the journey was only half complete. Infact the tougher part was the return journey as we need to fight fatigue and sleep to finish what we set out to.

The return journey in the next post……too much to write in just one post.