An old Travel Story - On an Enfield Bullet to Lansdowne

Under Water
It had now been close to three hours that we had been sitting, or rather, half lying in that mountain stream. Me and Sudip or Doma, as we called him. Nice idyllic afternoon, a small shallow stream flanked on both sides by hill ranges, with my 350 cc Royal Enfield Motorcycle parked in the grassy meadow by the side of the stream. A couple of buffaloes grazing there added to the effect. I remember with amusement, how the buffaloes ran helter-skelter when I descended my bike from the hilly road down to near the bank of the stream. Whether it was the majestic and somewhat demonic dubba…dubba…dubba of an Enfield or the sight of two heavy guys sitting on a heavier machine that led to the panic in the animals was undecided.

We didn’t discuss politics, for that is hardly a subject that interests young hungry MBAs. Doma and me had been very close since our IIM Ahmedabad days and we were doing a sort of character analysis of each other. Those were the moments of intense introspection, openness and sincere efforts to give and receive feedback.

All of a sudden my mind ran to the verbal thrashing that lay in store for us from Maggu. His parents named him Praveen but Providence destined him to be called Maggu. A very dear friend from my IIT days, we were introduced to each other some eight years back, and developed an instant mutual admiration. Today, though we have left those days of running from hostel to hostel and book to book to complete Electrical Machines’ assignments far behind, our admiration for each other has grown only stronger. He has done extremely well professionally and that hasn’t surprised me. I always knew he had this fierce streak of always being on top in whatever he does. He has this insatiable need to be the numero uno and it is not limited to just work. Even when it comes to his passion for his motorbike and his love for adventure, it’s not easy to beat him. He is the guy who went all alone to a bike trip to Badrinath when all the “sensible” people thought it was too risky or too bizarre for normal people to do.

At this moment, however, reading his paeans were the last thing on my mind. It had been close to five hours that we split and Maggu had asked us to wait at Kotdwar. We did wait for him there for close to one hour but had left when we could not contact him on his mobile. The reasoning was simple, and very logical. The mobile didn’t get signals once you were past Kotdwar, since the mountains started from there and there was no mobile connectivity in the mountains and because we were unable to contact Maggu for the last one hour on his mobile, it was clear that he had left Kotdwar much before we arrived there and was now up in the mountains. Thus, having convinced ourselves that the other part of the contingent, Maggu and Bharat had left Kotdwar, me and Doma started on our journey from Kotdwar to our final destination, Lansdowne. On the way, we saw a pleasant water stream flanked by a grassy meadow, decided that since Maggu and Bharat would anyways reach before us and book a room for us, it didn’t matter whether we were late by half an hour or a little more and took the first available path down from the hilly road to the stream. And here we had been for the last three hours.

Four Brave Men
It all started last night. We were having a party at my place. Me, Doma, Maggu and Bharat. As for Bharat, he is a cool calm charming kind of a person and we have known each other for the last four years. He is also the most sensible guy of the lot, the kind any girl would take to her mom. Sometime during the party, Maggu suggested why not lets undertake a bike trip to Lansdowne. It is a small hill station, not trampled by too many tourist feet and has been able to preserve the old world hilly charm. It was close to 250 kms away from Delhi and it promised to be a hell of a ride. Doma and me jumped at the suggestion while it took us some convincing to prod Bharat too, to join us. More so, because his bike was not in the best shape. Finally, it was three machines, my 350 cc Royal Enfield, Maggu’s Hero Honda CBZ and Doma’s Bajaj Pulsar and four daring men. We packed our bags hurriedly, tied them on to our bikes, and Bharat threw his on his shoulders. The contingent left my place at 3 am and the plan was to have some tea at the nearby stall, withdraw enough cash, fill our tanks and set out.

When the rubber met the road, it was all excitement and high spirits. Maggu zooming along on his super racer, which he believed was the fastest bike on Indian roads till then. Doma moving at an easy pace enjoying each and every moment and I along with Bharat on my mega machine of a bike thumping along. Though it was very early morning, close to 4 am and we had to drive with the headlights on, it was much safer than I had ever imagined. More so, because you are constantly fed on the tales of drunken truck drivers who never care about who or what comes in their way, but actually they are the most sober and sensible lot on a highway.

The highway was full of potholes till Modinagar, which is close to 25 kms from Delhi, and at times all I could do was to hold on to the handle of my bike tightly. When you see a 1.5 feet wide pothole approaching you at 80 km/hr at a distance of 2-3 feet, theres not much else that you can do. Bharat, sitting pillion with me was the one bearing most of the brunt of those jumps, more so because pillion seat is not all that comfortable and he was carrying a bag too.

The ride was to be completely straight till Meerut, which is about 60 kms from Delhi. Meerut had to be our first stop where we would gather and then start out together. Only Maggu knew the directions and though I had been through Meerut once before too, my pathetic direction sense made that experience completely useless.

Both Maggu and Doma were ahead of me when I approached a fork on the road, on the right was a curved road, which led to Meerut city, and the left was the bypass. I took the bypass route for I vaguely remembered that that was what Maggu had told. But the vagaries of the human mind, doubts swarmed my mind about the authenticity of my direction and I stopped at a highway restaurant. The mangled remains of a Maruti 800 passenger car, which had met an accident last night, greeted us. It was indeed a disturbing sight. Just then I received a call on my cell. It was Maggu who started with the choicest of the expletives. It seems he was waiting for us at the fork and even shouted at us but we didn’t notice him and had taken the wrong direction.

We had tea at the restaurant, a fresh dose of directions from Maggu and decided that all four would meet just outside Meerut city on the Meerut Bijnore highway. Maggu and Doma were together and the responsibility of the remaining half of the contingent was mine. I ventured through Meerut city, some 5-6 stoppages for directions and a full one-hour later, we managed to cross Meerut.

Birds, Trees, Muddy Roads and Songs
The day had dawned and Maggu was cribbing about how slow we had been driving. Bharat was quite tired of sitting pillion and his backside had literally given way. He almost pleaded to all of us to let him drive for sometime. A re-alignment of forces occurred and Doma offered to sit pillion with me and Bharat would drive his bike.

We were again on the road and as before, Maggu led the way. The feel of cool morning breeze on the face, hair blowing away in the wind and the road dust flying off the sides. It’s a feeling you can know only if you have done it. After a while, we realized Maggu had purposely taken us along the proverbial “road less traveled” for the vehicles. It passed through innumerable villages and was narrow, rough and muddy. But that only added to the charm. After a while I noticed that Doma and me were singing quite loudly. Now though I am no accomplished singer, I like it. A dozen songs later, we crossed that muddy stretch and came down to a junction where the mud met the concrete.

The road from here was proper Macadamized, concrete road, quite broad and though the morning traffic had sprung on the roads, it was not yet painful. Doma had had his fill of being a pillion rider and we traded places.

The ride up to Bijnore was quite peaceful and though we didn’t have the site of the other two bikes, Doma and me were having a great time. We traded places again once we reached Bijnore.

All four were supposed to get together in Bijnore, Maggu called me and asked me to meet him at the curve on the highway where the road led to Najibabad. I had to drive straight down till we reached a small bridge and then take a left to reach that curve.

Mild sun, cycles, rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles, bullock carts, fruit vendors all sharing the same road and Doma and me discussing some incident from our IIMA days. Some 10 kms would have passed this way and then we realized that we had missed the bridge from where we were supposed to take a left. I stopped and asked for directions and was directed to a path that would supposedly take us to Najibabad. I called up Maggu again, told him that we’d miss the curve where we were supposed to meet and would meet them at Najibabad.

Narrow lanes, Chickens and a Telephone Exchange
The drive to the outskirts of Najibabad was quite uneventful and when we got a call from Bharat saying they were waiting for us at the Telephone Exchange, we heaved a sigh of relief. It was important to move together from here because mobile connectivity was patchy here, to say the least and beyond Kotdwar, about 40 kms from Najibabad, even that patchy connectivity would vanish.

We entered Najibabad, stopped at a corner and asked which way was the Telephone Exchange. We were pointed in a direction. Some 10 minutes later we again asked, and were again told a direction. With each “stoppage for directions”, the road was getting narrower and narrower. Enfield, which is quite a heavy and unwieldy bike, is quite difficult to maneuver on narrow roads which offer no room and whatever little room existed, was being shared by small children running across, some chicken flying from this side to that, some cycle borne vegetable vendors and an occasional scooter. The fact that the guys on bike were Doma, an almost 6 footer weighing about 100 kgs and me, a 6 footer though with a much modest weight (about 70 kgs) didn’t help matters.

It was getting hotter, we were hungry, had been in that maze which refused to end for the past half an hour and that Telephone Exchange was nowhere to be found. I told Doma that I suspected these guys were playing some trick on us. One’s sense of humor is the first thing that forsakes him when he is sufficiently worked up. If this were the case, we decided we’d shout at them to our hearts fill. Sending someone on a heavy bike, with a heavy rider to a chessboard of narrow lanes, which don’t seem to lead anywhere is no means of having fun.

I asked Doma to call Maggu but the mobile network also seemed to be laughing at us. The voice broke so badly we could hardly talk. We kept wading through that mesh of crowded narrow lanes stopping for directions at every junction. The God however, exists. Doma finally managed to get to Maggu and asked him what this chaos was all about. He asked us to forget Telephone Exchange, move out of the city and meet on the highway. The Telephone Exchange bit was the result of some confusion that Bharat had. I was livid, his innocent confusion had led us into a huge and excruciating mish mash of roads, streets, lanes and all things animate and otherwise that can inhabit a small Indian town. But the smarter thing than whining would be to get out of it. So we concentrated on that.

Again junctions, stoppages, directions, narrow roads, potholes, scantily clad children, dogs and puppies, chicken and hen and full 40 minutes through them we managed to touch the road. Kotdwar was some 30 kms and I called Maggu to tell him to move towards Kotdwar and we’ll meet at the exact junction where mountains start. As both Maggu and I had been there, we knew the junction pretty well and there was scant chance of confusion.

Gateway to the Mountains
By the time we were in Kotdwar, it was already one in the afternoon. We were tired because of no sleep last night and also because of the rigors of the ride. Having located the junction where we had decided to meet, we looked around for the other half of our troupe which was nowhere in sight. That was quite strange because as per our calculations, they would have been ahead of us and would wait for us at this junction. We parked the bike and ordered for something to eat at the nearby stall. We tried calling them, but their mobiles were unreachable and that was strange, because that implied that they had moved ahead. I knew that no matter how angry Maggu was, he would definitely wait for us at this junction. We enquired with the nearby people and none of them confirmed that they had seen two young guys on two bikes pass by, and this only added to the confusion.

We decided to wait. After two or three rounds of tea and with our fervent attempts at trying to connect to them ending in “This number is unreachable…” messages, I began to get convinced that possibly I underestimated Maggu’s ire. He must have been livid at us for having driven so irresponsibly, having spoiled the coordination and would have proceeded from Kotdwar. The fact that his cell phone was unreachable confirmed that he was up in the mountains.

At around two we too decided to move on.

Under Water Revisited
Ride up Kotdwar was very scenic. Treacherous mountainous roads, sharp blind curves and thick vegetation all around. At times we met sharp inclines and I felt a strange sense of pride when my bike effortlessly went up despite two of us being quite heavy people. I was sort of relieved too that since Maggu has gone ahead, he’ll book a room for us and though he’d give us a piece of his mind, it won’t really matter. Maggu is such a darling.

It was then that we chanced upon that mountain stream, took the bike down the road, scared the buffaloes, located a rock in the middle of the stream and sat on it. The weather was pleasant, the sights divine and the stream was quite slow and shallow. I decided to venture inside the stream and rested my head on a rock, the rest of my body underwater.

Time seemed to have stopped. We discussed everything that came to our minds lazing in that stream. Each other’s personal life, professional life, love affairs and what one thought of the other guy – the topics kept popping up. Once in a while, the guy attending to the buffaloes would emerge from nowhere, utter some un-intelligible noises and then vanish away. The buffaloes would change their grazing spot once every half hour and apart from that, the only movement was the steady flow of water. At times you actually wonder whether a fatter pay package, a bigger car and a corner office is more important or just lying down in a stream, surrounded by mountains and thick vegetation with a friend and two buffaloes for company.

Mountain Fog Scare
At around five in the evening I realized we also had to join our contingent up in Lansdowne. I cajoled Doma into getting up and it indeed took some cajoling for he was enjoying the slow current of the stream and was quite reluctant to leave the place. It was important to leave because the darkness was falling, there was a hint of thick fog descending and also, we had been separated from the half of the team for over five hours now and it was high time we located each other.

In five minutes, bike was up on the hilly road but the visibility had been greatly compromised. The fog converted into mild rains and with that came a sharp coldness. We didn’t have any raincoats and jackets and the sense of adventure soon gave way to a slight taste of torture. Fog falling on your face, typical hilly terrain with blind curves, very limited visibility and a sense of guilt that we should have behaved more responsibly, that we shouldn’t have stopped in the middle of nowhere while the other part of the contingent was possibly waiting for us, all of a sudden overwhelmed us. I asked Doma to give me his sweatshirt which would protect me from the rain and since he was the pillion rider, he was anyway shielded from a large part of it.

At around six in the evening we reached Lansdowne. It’s a very small town with a central roundabout. Most of the shops and hotels are situated around it. Apart from that it has a nice resort somewhat down the road. I knew it for I had been there once and it was obvious that Maggu must have booked the room at either of the places. I took the bike straight to the central roundabout. I asked all the hotel people about two young guys on bikes who might have booked rooms there. They said they hadn’t seen any. That was strange but then Maggu has quite regal tastes so most probably he’d have booked the rooms in the other, bigger and better furnished resort. I asked Doma not to get worked up and we went to the other place, by the name Fairy Dale. I felt the first sense of shock when the people at Fairy Dale told me that they hadn’t seen any such guys.

Slowly, it started dawning onto us that possibly, all was not well. Even if we were wrong in assuming that they were ahead of us when we left Kotdwar, some four hours had passed since then. And they could have reached Lansdowne in four hours from practically anywhere. I tried to keep my mind clear, trying hard not to imagine any of the terrible things. We tried desperately to connect to their mobile phones but they were unreachable. We had talked to them when they were in Najibabad and that they had been unreachable for the last four hours implied that they had crossed Kotdwar some four hours back. And there was no way you would not reach Lansdowne from Kotdwar in four hours.

I cursed myself and Doma, himself. We should have stuck together, all four of us. Since these guys had not yet reached Lansdowne, it was clear that something was wrong somewhere. What if something terrible had actually happened? Even if nothing too bad had happened, it is always better to have four people to face a situation rather than just two. It was due to our irresponsible behavior that we had split. We had our own set of reasons though, it was our first bike trip, the enthusiasm was uncontrollable and Maggu being the expert biker that he is, can always be trusted to tackle any situation single handedly but if they were into some trouble, I’d have wanted to be with them whatever the reasons.

It was, however, no time for self-condemnation; the immediate task was to locate them. We tried hard to keep calm and think logically.

I called up a friend in Delhi, asked her to note down Maggu and Bharat’s cell numbers and SMS them that I and Doma had reached Lansdowne. A cell would receive an SMS the moment it came to a place where there was reasonably strong network signal.

The darkness was falling and we didn’t have too much time. Something needed to be done fast. I kept considering all the options, of which, we anyways didn’t have too many. The rain and fog added to the gloom and didn’t make things easier for us.

Another 15 minutes passed, the fog thickened. There was only one way that we go down Lansdowne, towards Kotdwar and look for them. Having thought over everything once again and being convinced that that was the best option, we got on the bike and left the roundabout.

Our hearts were heavy and anxiety ruled. The fog had almost covered everything in its cold, white veil, it was almost dark and it was amply clear that the ride is not going to be too easy now. We hadn’t left Lansdowne yet when at a roundabout I instinctively asked Doma how would we feel if all of a sudden these guys appeared. I knew how would Doma react, and I could almost predict his dry smirk. But, we were in for another shock. Just when we least expected it, these two guys emerged from behind the curve.

Reunion
I can’t describe the relief I felt. All the heaviness and all the anxiety evaporated in a second. But then came the curiosity. Where had these guys been for so long?

Before Maggu could say anything, I noticed the sullen look on Bharat’s face. I sensed something was wrong. The next moment I saw the bike he was on. The headlight was twisted and the speedometer was hanging with a wire. It gave an impression of Schwarznegger in Terminator with one of his eyes popping out.

Something was definitely wrong. I felt a strange surge of emotions. I hugged Maggu and Bharat and gave them the mild friendly rebuke of having scared the hell out of us. All of us started talking and asking each other what happened.

Two hours later, in the warm and cozy room in Fairy Dale the whole story became clear to us. Maggu told us how Bharat’s bike got punctured twice, they had to locate a puncture repair guy twice and then while on the way to Lansdowne from Kotdwar how Bharat’s bike slipped and he got bruises on his arm. While Doma and me were lazing in the mountain stream, Maggu and Bharat were running around looking for a puncture guy and then driving the “broken” bike at a very slow speed to Lansdowne.

It was my first major bike trip and it taught me the value of coordination when on such trips. One of the very important things the road teaches you is that don’t take any moment for granted and since you never know what you could meet at the next curve, the best option is to be prepared.