Day trip to Sariska

Sharp winds cutting across my helmet, I rode on. Across the winding mountains roads. Crossing valleys and passes along the way. The destination didn’t seem far. I was dying to reach Leh as soon as possible. As I was taking a sharp hairpin my brakes gave way. I desperately tried to control the bike out of the take off point towards the valley below. I was too late and we started to feel the gravity of gravity.

Feeling the sudden gush of wind across my face I opened my eyes and was suddenly woken up from my dream. Don’t remember when I was transported into my dream but I was happy to be out of it. The dream was a mixture of my plans to go to Leh and my recent accident.

I was standing on top of an old dilapidated Haveli. It was situated on top of a small hill. The view from the rooftop was awesome. The pristine beauty of this part of Rajasthan lay bare like a virgin.
The green land surrounded by hills on all sides made me feel that we are in a valley. Looking at the horizon between the hills, it looked like this land never ends. I was wondering what was I doing here when I heard some voices from below. Then as if I was bought back form a coma I remembered.

Two days ago, as I was starting to heal up after my accident I wanted to attend get together of our biker group which used to be held somewhere in delhi every Sunday. I visited the xbhp site and came to know that this time the g2g is going to happen in Sariska(Rajasthan). The plan was to go early in the morning on Sunday 31st July, 2005 at 5:00 am and be back by around 5:00 pm in the evening. The distance to Sariska was around 200 kms one way. I had some trouble sitting on the bike as I had bandages on both the knees but since it had been a long time I had been to a g2g I decided to go.

Sunday morning I was at the rendezvous point on NH8 at 4:40 am. When I saw no one coming for around 15 minutes, I thought I was standing at the wrong point. I saw a biker with a bag going ahead on NH8 and I started to follow him thinking that the meeting point might be a little ahead. Gurgaon in sight, I couldn’t find anyone still so I decided to return back. I was back at the same place where now 4 bikers were already there. A brief introduction followed. I knew Tiger and Salil already, met Shamik and Ace. Few minutes later Abby came on his bullet. Finally Manik and Sunil arrived and we were on oru way to Sariska by 5:30 am.

We rode together in formation for quite some distance. The speedo cover of my bike came off ater sometime. I stopped kept it in the bag and joined the pack again. The zipped across sporadic traffic at descent speeds. After a while Salil and Dhairya felt the need for speed and they went into the “on the tank” position and blasted off. Behind them me and abby accelerated too. It would had been just a minute and couple of dances between large trucks, I heard a horn from behind. It was Shamik. I slowed looking at Abby get away. Shamik inquired about Tiger and I was pretty sure there was no one else ahead of me except for the three speed demons. We looked back and there were no bikes behind us. We stopped by the roadside and waited for others to catch up.

No sign of anyone for 10 minutes, we got a little worried. Tried calling up Tiger and could only hear the song from the movie “Zeher”. We decided to backtrack. The other side of the road was slightly de-elivated so we rode on the wrong side back towards delhi looking for our comrades. After around 5 minutes we found Tiger. Even Salil had backtracked. Tiger’s bike chain gave way. Luckily he didn’t have any chain cover as it snapped at around a speed of 100 kmph. In addition to this as if it were a take one and get one free offer, Ace’s bike had been vomitting fuel from the fuel tap below the tank. The mechanic was playing such loud music with the speaker that are generally put up in big gatherings that we just wanted to move away from the place. Got some patch up work done and we were on the way.
Tiger and Ace rode slowly, I followed them till we reached a small dhaba. This was our first natural break. We had tea and went over the first issue of “Bike” magazine. Salil and I began clicking our beauties. As it always happens people there were amazed by a group of 9 bikers. They wanted to be in the pics. We took some pics of them too. There was nothing good to eat there so we moved ahead. Tiger had other plans. He wanted to head back so as not to slow us down. Salil suggested we get it fixed some where ahead and asked Tiger to come along.

We rode slowly till the next stop for breakfast. The royal breakfast consisted of parathas and discussion of the trip to Leh. Some more discussions on the sad state of bikes in India and some stories we were ready to hit the road. Salil and Tiger found a mechanic and then Tiger’s bike was repaired. Some test riding of Shamik’s Unicorn, Dhairya’s V2 Pulsar and Salil’s burnout in sand, we created enough audience there.

On the road again, we ripped. Its an amazing feeling moving in a biker group. We had to take a left turn somewhere so we kept asking for directions. When we were around 190 kms from where we started we thought we had missed the turn. Jaipur was mere 70 kms from there. We also had an option to go to Jaipur now but Sariska called louder. We found the turn finally for Sariska. The road was a little rough and thin but the landcape was aesthetically sound.





After riding a while we found a nice spot for a photo shoot break.

Goat To-Gether

Salil went for offroading on the hill in front of us. Dhairya followed him.
Rarest Devil

Who is more daunting ?


Rolling again on the road we started getting beautifully bended curves, where Salil followed by me follwed by Dhairya started to corner our bikes. It was beautiful synchronized cornering. I tried taking some videos while on the bike. Not very successful though. Got a glimpse of a deer on the way and we stopped to click. Finally we reached Sariska. No intention of visting the sanctaury went ahead and stopped at a “T” junction. After cooling off it was time for offroading. We came to know about a small village Kushaalgarh there which had an old haveli on top of a small hill. We rode our bikes up the hill on to the haveli.

The Stable

The Ashoka Piller

Cross Sniping

The events of the day flashbacked in my mind and I could make out the noises of the people below and could see Sunil on the other end of the roof. We had been there for a long time. It was time to move forward.
We drove our bikes down from the Haveli and proceeded towards Siliserh lake. Some more series of bends and us cornering them.





We halted at a dhaba before the lake for lunch.
Not able to get anything better we ordered omelette for everyone. Salil again went on his exploration. The group started to discuss the Leh trip again.









We ate, drank got up and moved towards the lake.
By this time my knees were aching due to the movement of the knees. My bandages had slipped and were rubbing on my wounds. I fixed them back when we reached the lake. The lake was a flop show. Too much crowd. We stayed there for a while and then decided to return back.

The latest Xbhp member

While returning we stopped at Alwar for some re-fuelling. After that Salil, Dhairya and me just cruised. I was not aware of the speed as my speedo was damaged but it was anything near to 110 kmph. Alternatively it was sometimes Salil, sometimes Dhairya and sometimes me in the lead but this was no competition between my Pulsar 180 classic, Salil’s Pulsar 180 v1 Dtsi and Dhairya’s Pulsar 180 v2 Dtsi. It was more of a symphony. We ripped, cornered zipped, zigzagged together. It was like the Pulsar 180 family moving on the road. I totally forgot about the pain in my knees and was enjoying the ride. This has been my best ride.

After a while we relaxed a bit. Soon Shamik and Abby caught up on their Unicorn and bullet respectively. We came out on the NH8 and stopped for others. Everyone regrouped, a quick smoke break for those who smoke we headed towards Manesar McDonald’s where the next stop was scheduled except Ace and me who were headed directly towards Delhi to fulfil some of our other commitments.

This was a quick ride. We reached Manesar soon. Dhairya, Ace and me carried on while rest of them went to the McD outlet. I lost Ace somewhere in the traffic near the airport. Reached home at about 7:45 pm. All my bandages loosened and wounds paining. I immediately went to the doctor and got them redressed. I had driven around 450 kms that day which was my maximum in a day.

The wounds had healed.

...And miles to go before I sleep.

The cloth of my T-shirt rustled by my side on the wound as the wind grew stronger with the speed of my ride. The pain reminded me of the day before when all four of my limbs responsible for my movement were damaged. I was down but not out. It taught me never to give up.

It was my Bhabhi’s birthday the next day. I was to reach Sarita Vihar while picking up some eatables on the way. I left the office at around 8:20 pm. I had just left the Noida-Greater Noida red light and was just thinking about the difference in men of ability and men of politics when suddenly out of the dark a figure appeared in front of me as if it had just been made visible. Thoughts at the rate of millions per second were processed in my mind. One of them made me apply both the brakes immediately. I was not sure what was going to happen. Actually I was just thinking how to avoid a contact with the guy on the bicycle who had just crossed the divider and was trying to cross the road without any need to look back at the traffic. In a desperate attempt to evade the collision I made a maneuver which is forbidden in the book of bike riding, turning the front wheel while applying the disc brakes.

Immediately, as if I was rewarded for my actions, the front tyre got locked. The next 10 seconds went by at 100 frames per second. I hit the bicycle from the left, fell on my right and rolled of on the road banging my head on the road on the way. At the climax of it I halted just like an athlete ready to start a race. The savior of the day was the Ninja (helmet).

I could feel the sting on my knees and elbows. I got up although with a lot more difficulty as I was expecting just a few seconds before. Glanced at the man on the bicycle lying by the side of the road, and then picked up my wounded bike lying in the middle of the road. It was onerous picking up the bike with the lacerations. I managed to get it by the side of the road then inspected the bicycle guy who looked fine but was lying down. One of the guys from the crowd told me that the other guy was fine probably drunk and he suggested me to move on.

The leg guards bent, speedometer cover broken, gear shifter twisted and a broken watch, I started the bike and it started the third time I pushed the start button. It is amazing to see that the Pulsar is very rarely damaged on the body. No scratches, no broken indicators, all the impact taken by the leg guards. My odyssey was far from over. There was more to come. Unknown to this, I rode on.

Unsure about the damages taken by my body I decided not to continue to fulfill my errand of getting the food for the party I was going to. I headed directly towards Sarita Vihar hoping to find a doctor on the way. Not able to find a doctor and faced with the dilemma of completing my errand and finding a doctor, I turned and navigated towards Zakir Nagar where I would be able to complete my errand and would also find a doctor although it would take some time to reach there.

The pain started to grow and my alertness on the road started diminishing. Recollecting my riding spirits I toiled ahead. I was behind a car, I think it was a Maruti Zen but I don’t really remember it. The car driver saw a huge ditch on the road and he braked. As I was hurt both on the right knee and elbow it resulted in my inefficiency to stop promptly.

A sense of amusement flashed across my mind as I knew for sure that I was going to hit the car and fall down. I was hurt again on my right knee as I fell on the right side this time bending the other leg guard. My bag was laid open on the road. I was exhausted, all the energy drawn out from my body. I took a longer time to get up. I collected the contents of my bag from the road slowly. I was not in a position to pick up my bike this time. Some one among the people collected was kind enough to pick up my bike and park it on the side of the road. Once again I was asked the question “Are you hurt?” I didn’t feel like responding to the question but the truth was that I didn’t have the energy to respond.

With the Jeans sticking to the knees I sat on the bike. Once again revved it up and ambled hoping to find a doctor soon. Each inch of road covered was like a 100 m sprint in hell. I rode keeping a lot of distance from all vehicles ahead of me as I was not in a position to make any sudden moves.

Discharged of all the energy with the pain piercing all parts of my body, I finally reached a doctor. A doctor is thought of being the angel in flesh. As I went in I could feel the angelic presence. I was bandaged on both the knees, elbows and the small finger on the right hand. Some other wounds on the legs were just applied with an ointment. I came out feeling like “Rana Sanga”, the famous Indian hero who was notorious for getting wounded a lot in the battles.

Feeling some energy returning I finished my errand of picking up some food items and moved towards Sarita Vihar once again. It was tough to bend the knees with the wound and the bandage to be able to ride. I conquered the 10 km distance and reached Sarita Vihar.

After the party it was time to go home at Vasant Kunj which was a good 20 km from Sarita Vihar. I wanted to ride it home as I knew if I stopped moving, my limbs will get jammed due to the wounds. But I was not allowed by my brother and other well wishers. So it was decided that my brother will take it till Malviya Nagar where my bike will be parked and we will move in my brother’s car from there, which of course his friend will take till Malviya Nagar. At Malviya Nagar I decided that I could ride hence took my bike home.

I prepared to sleep. As I changed clothes more of the little wounds were uncovered all over the body. One of them was on the left side of my stomach. It hurt badly while sleeping. I was aware that my knees and elbows might be jammed by the morning but I wanted to go to the office next day. More so I didn’t want to get immobile. I wanted to be able to ride. I kept moving my joints throughout the night. In the morning I was ready to go to the office on my bike.

The T-shirt still rustled, the jean brushed but the pain was gone.

To be or not be in Barcelona

Had a tough time getting my VISA done but I was finally ready to embark on my first abroad journey to Barcelona. The day came June 26, 2005 and as luck would have it I was alone to travel that day as somehow the other three people from my project had there plans cancelled due to some reasons.

Anyway, I was too excited to think about it and got ready to go. I reached the airport full three hours earlier for a smooth immigrations check. After having my boarding pass I then proceeded to the immigration's check and "Bam" ... i was offloaded. I couldn't fly that day - Reason : the immigration officer had a doubt on the signature of the visa official on my passport and my passport was seized to be verified from the embassy.

The next two weeks were torture for me. I was at the immigration office everyday to collect my passport but with no luck. As I was travelling to attend a training in Barcelona my work was suffereing.

I was ready again to go on July 11, 2005 and this time my colleagues Jyoti and Benjamin were also accompanying me. I was a little anxiuos this time at the immigration but this time things went ahead smoothly. Before we could feel like conquerors Benjamin was stopped at customs for a random check. Finally everything got in place and we boarded our flight at 12:00 in the night. It was scheduled to take off at 12:20 in the morning but due to bad weather was delayed by around half an hour.

We were flying over Paris in the morning and I was expected a nice view of the city once we were a little lower in altitude. We started descending and I was excited about seeing Paris. We went into the clouds, I just couldn't wait for the plane to cross the clouds. After a long wait the clouds thinned out and suddenly I could see the airstrip of Charles de Gaul airport. I knew I had missed a glimpse of the Eiffel tower from the air.

Time was running short. We had a connecting flight to Barcelona in one hour and forty minutes. We rushed towards the immigration where this time it was Jyoti's turn to be stalled up a little but we were out of it quickly. We had another nice one hour and forty five minutes flight to Barcelona. The plane took a detour over the sea to enter Barcelona. It was an amazing view. I was trying to look for the F1 race track in Barcelona but was not able to locate it.


Stepped on foreign soil for the first time. It felt different. It was easier crossing the airport in this part of the world than in our our own land. Got into taxi and went straight to the hotel which was in Sant Cugat. Barcelona is like a lot of small clusters put together to form a city. Sant Cugat was one of them although a little far from the main city center, it is supposed to be one of the costliest areas in Barcelona. It was 11 in the morning when we reached the hotel. All through the route I was just oogling at cars, bikes, roads and the landscape. I was relieved to have made it this time out of the country.



As planned, we stacked up our luggage in our rooms, got fresh and assembled in the snack bar for a quick brunch. Then it was time for work. Went to GiGames office. We were introduced to the people there. We started on our training that very afternoon. After finishing the training for the day it was time to visit the casino.
Benjamin came to pick us up and all three of us went to the casino at Port Olympic. It was 7:30 pm when we reached the casino and it was still daylight. The sunset in Barcelona this time of the year is around 9:30 pm.


We went into the casino which was of an average size with two floors packed with slot machines, roulette tables etc. We started playing the slot machines which seemed like five year old machines. The games there were pretty bad which was reflected with us losing for quite a while. Finally we got to some better machine where Benjamin made for some of our losses. After playing for around two hours we went to the casino restaurant for dinner.

The next day our pickup was ready for us at 9:30 and after our breakfast we went straight to GiGames office for our training. That afternoon one of our teacher's Juan along with his friend Miguel took us to a nearby place for lunch. It was hard as the menu was in Spanish and they had to interpret it for us.
That evening Benjamin had to leave and we went together back to the hotel fom where he went to the airport. We went for a little stroll nearby before coming back for dinner in the hotel.

The third day after the the first half of the training we went along with Juan, Miguel and Neus to a very nice place for lunch. Neus and Miguel are from the art team in GiGames. I had a nice conversation with Miguel on gaming this time. In the evening it was time to visit the city. Miguel promised to meet us in the city center. We went with Juan for a detour to the olympic stadium.
It is an amazing city engulfed between two mountains. Later in the evening we met with Miguel and his girlfriend at the La Rambla. It is a famous street in Barcelona with a lot of tourist activity.
With the darkness approaching we went for some shelter in a pub. There I witnessed one of the best live performances in my life. A girl danced suspended to a cloth through a ring on the ceiling and she was balancing its both ends while moving with the music.


The bullfighting stadium under renovation


The communications tower


Enjoying history


Olympic Stadium


The world beyond Barcelona



The last day we finished our training, said "adios" to our friends in GiGames and came back to the hotel. I slept while Jyoti went for a swim in the hotel swimming pool. At 8:30 pm we decided to go to Port Olympic again to the beach. The beach was amazing. We kept strolling there till late in the night and then came back as we had to leave early the next morning to catch our return flight. While coming back the taxi driver lost his way. We finally made it to the hotel after around 20 minutes. I didnt sleep that night, kept watching movies and woke up Jyoti in the morning.


Port Olympic


The Beach




We went to the airport in the morning, took our boarding passes, went for security check and then got loaded on to the flight. We had a shorter window this time in Paris to change the flight. The flight got delayed a little bit. We reached Paris at 9:20 am which was the latest for checking in for the net flight. We ran for the emmigration check. After crossing it we ran for the bus to take us to the terminal for our flight. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:20 and it was 10:00 when we boarded the bus. We reached the terminal at 10:20. I thought we missed it but then an Air Fance executive directed us to the flight. Someone on the flight was not in his seat and was mistaken to be missing which delayed the flight and enabled us to make it to the flight.

We had successfully fulfilled the purpose of our visit along with enjoying our first trip abroad. I had a nice time. Suddenly all the pain I had to take for getting the VISA and then my seized passport was subsided.

Hard Rain ... driving in delhi on the night of 6th june, 2005

Dont know how many of the delhi guys drove in the rains yesterday night, but it was a second time experience for me(the first being in chennai when i was stuck in the tropical rains but continued on my bike to reach home).

I had just left my office in Noida and reached Sarita Vihar when the first showers started to pour in. I reached under the flyover quickly where all the 2 wheelers had stopped as the rain suddenly became very violent well supported by a storm. I put my mobile and wallet in a polybag and then decided to move on as I was amazed by the power of the storm and somewhere in my conscience wanted to test my bike.

I got drentched the moment I came out of the flyover. The winds became stronger after I crossed Apollo hospital and the bike kept swaying between the four wheelers and it was pretty hard to control in the tight traffic. Only few 2 wheelers were visible on the rode by now. I sped up in order to control the bike keeping in mind that it can slip due to rains. After I climbed up the Modi mill flyover things got extremely worse as it was hardly visible through the helmet visor and I could not open the visor due to the piercing rains.

By now almost all 2 wheelers were parked by the road side and many 4 wheelers had joined them too, some of them in the middle of the road itself. After cutting through them and going up the next flyover my p180 classic died. I was worried that I had made a mistake coming out in the rain. I was standing there exposed to the harsh storm and rain with my bike not responding. I thought that was it but one flick at the self start and the bike revved again ...

I climbed down the flyover and then stopped at the Nehru place petrol pump to check if the water had seeped into my bag as I was carrying some important documents. Many vehicles were parked there with there owner standing there waiting for the monster rain to die down. All was well in the bag and it was time to move on. Although now the engine was groaning but it carried on without dying. I just wanted to reached my destination, Hauz Khas.

Now there was no sign of any 2 wheeler on the road except me zig zagging between parked and extremely slow moving 4 wheelers. There was a big jam at CR park road so I decided to take a detour from the inside roads and then out again before the Savitri flyover where I noticed the jam was becoz the police had stopped the traffic. I moved on at a faster pace due to empty roads only to find myself in a pool of knee high water. Now i realized why the traffic was stopped. Anyway it was too late so I just cut through the water praying and was out of it with flying colors.

No more of water pools ahead and the bike went on groaning but it went on. Had to face some of the hardest rain although the face was saved due to the helmet but the rest of the body was tortured. Added to that couldnt see a thing in front except for a few tail lights.

Finally I reached my destination an was welcomed just before that by a big four wheeler splashing a big wave of water on me.

In the morning, the horns were not working, the self start was not working but everything else looked fine. I think it was not one of the wisest decisions I made to move on in such rains but I surely had a sense of achievement in doing so although a little sad about the state of my bike's electricals.

shivpuri - bike trip

The original plan was me on my P180 and another friend of mine on his karizma + some more friends in 2 Indicas. Unfortunately my friend on the Karizma couldnt go with us. We started at 5:15 am in the morning of sat 28th may from Noida. It was tough to slow down to the pace of the Indicas .. and then on the way to Meerut I found another guy on pulsar and a blank stretch of road and both of us stretched our bikes ... then I had to slow down for some miles for the Indicas to catch up with me. We stopped at Cheetal for breakfast at 7:15 am. We started from there at 8:35 am. I found some amusing jeeps with loads of people on them in the way and finally after crossing Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, and Haridwar I decided to give my bike a breather. I parked it in shade and just lied down on it and fell asleep on top of the bike ..


a sign board at cheetala sign board at cheetal


talk about seating capacity


the road ahead


After around half an hour when my friends reached me they woke me up and we started our ascent on the mountains at 11:15 am. We had to face a lot of traffic till Rishikesh.
Only after Rishikesh did the road opened up and it was amazing to drive on the mountain curves bending the bike on open corners.

Finally we reached our camp at 12:20 pm. A total distance of 291 kms from my house in Vasant Kunj. We straight away went for rafting after which we had a camp fire in the night.


liquid cooled

The next morning we started back at 11:00 am. I took 2 - mins stops before stopping at Cheetal for lunch at 2:00 pm. We had lunch at Cheetal and then went non stop till Delhi starting at 3:00 pm and reaching by 5:00pm. It was too hot to drive during the day and I had a tough time sitting on the bike .... but as a whole it was a nice trip and I had a warm up before venturing deeper into the Himalayas.