the road to a mud bath!

Today me and my bike had to toil through the most messed up road in Kerala.(even more messed up and potholed than the NH-47) it all started when my mother heard the agriculture office in my town was giving away saplings of pepper plants. You read it right pepper plants! (The thing that attracted almost half of the European countries to try conquer India-black gold) So I drove my mom to the office, which by the way was somewhere in a very remote area, with only mud roads leading to the place. So ignoring the “always annoyingly right voice” in my head I drove on. And came to places on the road, where after a month’s relentless rains and lots of trucks passing by the road had resembled something really horrible, only photos can describe the absolute muddy mess the place was. So after I was about a kilometer in and well past the point of no return, I saw the agriculture office. I dropped my mom off at the entrance and started on the Herculanean task which was the toughest venture yet on my bike- to turn the bike around in the muddy ”road”.

see the smallest and the newest tyre track, without water in it .. thats me!

slippery slippery

                                               I knew right from the beginning, when I was sitting there on my bike, deciding whether to abandon my bike or to slit my wrist for falling for my mother’s trick and going there in the first place. A really wise guy walked by looked at the road and then looked at me with a smug smile on his face, ad said “boy you are going to have a great time here.” And he went off laughing to himself at my sorry situation. Just then as if that wasn’t a sticky enough situation, it started raining.(which it has been for the whole week, in-between intervals of 5 minutes. Am sick of rains now!) I had left the raincoat at home, because IT WAS NOT RAINING THEN. (Lesson learnt never go without an umbrella in kerala during the rainy season even if it looks like a really sunny day.) 

                                                                 

                                                     So I slowly started up the bike and turned, the bike moved slowly slipping in the loose mud now and then. First of all, there were two huge tire tracks of a truck (which amazingly fit through the congested road) and the front wheel of the bike fit perfectly in the first tire track and the back wheel even more perfectly in the second tire track. This effectively meant I was stuck. I tried shifting to the second gear and accelerated, all that happened was the back wheel spun splashing the muddy water all over a wall but the bike did not move an inch. Then the owner of the house whose wall was now covered in a fresh coat of mud came out and helped me, after more than 10 minutes of heaving and pushing and digging away at the tire track the bike was finally free. 

                                                

                                                I agreed to clean the Good Samaritan’s wall. It was more like, I was  emotionally blackmailed into doing it, but still I owed him that much. And at the agriculture office there were about 25 saplings and fertilizers which weighed about 15 kilos and my mom waiting to be transported back home. I told mom that If I took so much weight with me on the bike, we would get stuck somewhere in the sinkhole that was the “road” leading to the main road. So I drove out of the place and parked the bike in a safe place, hired an auto to do all the heavy carrying and the dirty work. And came back with a camera to take photos of the place, only this time I parked the bike far away and walked the rest of the way in.

now I have to wash my bike! believe it or not, for the third time today.

                                       ~~~~~~~~~ f.i.n~~~~~~~~~~

On a side and serious note, pray for all those who lost their lives in the Mumbai blast and even pray for the change of heart of the heartless cowardly murders that are worse then beasts.