Musings during a 200km journey in torrential monsoon rain in Kerala, my home state
Some may call me irrational for riding in the rain without any form of wet-weather gear. But the ride, though fun, was not planned and when it happened, I just enjoyed the drift in all its glory. I dedicate this piece to the stern critics of my exercise, most of whom are my dear family. So here goes my attempt at figuring out the Zen of riding in the rain!
Present Zense!
It was a sight to behold from the foothills of the Western Ghats, right beside a road sign which read ‘215km to Kochi’ and my home. And then I focused my eyes, nay, focused my heart rather, to the beauty which lay ahead of me, up the winding NH47, the road which will take me through Palakkad Pass, Walayar check-post, and to Kerala.
Ahead, on the horizon, I could see the clouds getting squeezed and crumpled at the peaks, forming funny faces and forms, as though trying to make me laugh. And laugh I did, not at the clouds, but at myself, for drinking too much water during breakfast an hour back!
Drinking fluids and that too loads of it is more-or-less a second nature for me now as, these days, most of the road trips I make is through Tamil Nadu, known for its energy-sapping Sun.
But now I was entering Kerala, God’s own country a.k.a monsoon’s own country and with the cold breeze filtering through the pass and the imposing dark clouds over the mounts, I realised I had made a mistake by taking in more fluids than my body needs. I stopped at the sign-post for nothing else but to take a leak you see!
Pit-stops for answering the nature’s call - that too as frequent as every 15 minutes at times - was the order of the day till I parked my bike on the drive-way of my house in Kochi some six hours or so later.
Yeah, six hours it took for me to travel the last 201km of my journey from Chennai to Kochi, which had a small detour to be among friends in Namakkal and a two-day stopover in Coimbatore to fulfill my professional obligations – writing on a national racing event.
Now it was time for a break and I wanted to get home as soon as possible so that I can get into holiday mode the very day I arrive, the first in the list being love, from amma, and more...
I revved up my engine soon after I snapped out of the cloud-gazing voyage and slowly started pushing her, my 350cc single cylinder Enfield. I warmed her up gently, doing 60 or so, before opening up the throttle. The light drizzle was making it all the more fun to push her down the pass till I got a reality check. But, lucky for me, it was like a light pinch, rather than a punch, to tell me: “Boy, caution, wet roads ahead.”
No signs warned me of the couple of speed-breakers a few miles before the Pass and when I reached the spot I had no choice but to brake hard and the bike skid as the tyres locked. I released and eased the brake and countered the bike’s free drift towards the right with my body, before applying it gently again to slow her further. Another skid, this time to the left side and I followed the same tried-and-tested easing routine which I had picked up during my days of riding in the rain with Uncle Roney guiding me from the pillion seat.
That was during high school and riding bikes were exhilarating then though it involved stiff hands and loads of concentration. Started off with a Yamaha RX100, steadied myself on a Vespa on the city roads, then a taste of RD 350, before settling down for a Bullet Machismo during college.
Now, riding bikes are still exhilarating, but it involves more relaxed shoulders and though learning is still there, the machine between my legs is more known now, its every beat telling a story.
I still remember clearly how my uncle and on occasions my dad used to tell me what to do and what not to do while riding, especially in the rain - a necessary skill if you are biking on the badly-maintained slippery roads of Kerala during monsoon.
Lesson No. 1 was, of course, not to brake hard. “Remember to ease into a stop,” they used to say. “Ride in sensible speeds and use your gears to slow down and then gently compliment it with the brakes, both front and back together.”
But near the Pass, I just used the rear drums and I sure had a little bit of a scare as a fall is not what I wanted. Not at this point, not at the start of my vacation. But I was excited the same time for some other reason.
Though rain is not ideal for my bike ride, the fact that a drizzle itself refreshed my memory and triggered a chain of thoughts, basically introspection, made me look forward to the downpour across the State border. And I was damn sure images from my school days up to the present day journalistic excesses will flash across during the ride.
School! Talking about school, the moment I skid, a couple of school kids who were standing next to the speed breakers with their thumbs extended out in the universal hitch-hikers signal, were surprised at the sudden burst of activity from this lone rider. A couple of “woahs” and “heys” I did hear from the younglings and I also saw them smile as I waved at them after steadying my wheels, telling myself – “Leslie, now that’s a sign. You just can’t afford to do the speeds that you were hitting on the good, dry Tamil Nadu highways.”
You will know the exact time you reach Kerala; cross the border and it suddenly becomes dense, both the trees on both sides of the road and the small houses, showing that it is Kerala, one of the most densely populated state in the country, and a place which has all the blessings of mother nature. Of course the other sure sign that you have reached my home state is the sad state of the roads.
Drops started appearing on my visor soon after, first as single dots and then as small lines as though my helmet was crying... But I didn’t have time to listen to the wails of my head-gear as I was already drowned in the thump of my engine and the invite from the lightning flashes yonder.
I did stop though, to tank up, and at the petrol bunk I asked the service personnel about the rains at that part of Kerala - Palakkad district to be exact. My question was to make sure it will rain throughout my journey and was not an attempt to find out whether there will be a let-off in the showers, a window during which I can bolt home.
The guy thought I was more concerned about being dry and so his answer had a tone of hopelessness. “It has been raining heavily in the night sir,” he said in his hilly Malayalam accent. “I don’t think you will relish the prospect of riding down to Kochi now, especially without any rain coat.”
I smiled, more to myself than to fuel station personnel. I was congratulating myself for making it to Kerala on the right day, a rainy day.
And so I began and as I headed deeper into God’s own territory, the downpour became heavier and I, unlike some time before in Coimbatore, made sure I would stay within the sensible rain-riding speeds.
The roads were bad – potholes, deep enough to break one’s back, were strategically placed it seemed - forcing a biker to go on a perpetual slalom ride, zig-zagging to avoid the bumps and the oncoming traffic, led by monster trucks and killer private buses which ply the route.
And as I negotiated a tricky chicane formed by two huge puddles of water, I heard a small rickety noise and it was not from my well-maintained baby. It was my teeth. Oh Boy I was cold and I touched my thick T-shirt and jeans and realised that it has more water molecules than cloth fibres and my shoes felt as though it was made of lead.
Time to save my electronics from further damage!
So, during one of my pit-stops, rather visits to a road-side tree to relieve myself, I put my mobile and all the other perishables into a plastic bag and kept it with my laptop. Replaced my shoes with slippers, folded up my jeans and I was ready, for more chill.
But as soon as I started, I decided to stop again, the reason being white steam coming out from a small wooden shack perched precariously on the edge of the highway adjacent to a paddy field. A Local tea shop, what else!
The shop owner was amused by my looks, all wet, and shivering, but he knew and I knew too that I was not going to stop there for long and so he was amused at my madness, while I was amused at the five ladies, fully covered in plastic sheets, working in the paddy fields.
The sheets were all of different colours and were custom made for the occasion. Naturally, they can’t afford rain coats and they can’t afford not to work too. So there they were, backs bent, gently pulling out the paddy shoots.
“So, where are you heading to sir?” The shopkeeper succumbed to his curiosity finally. “Kochi,” I answered, my pre-occupied mind keeping the answers in single syllables. “You would have been better off with a rain coat at least,” added the gentleman, who must be in his early fifties. “I am sure it must be urgent business you have to attend to in Kochi. Do drive safely.”
I smiled at the well-wisher, answering him by paying for his hospitality, garnished by a “thank you”. But I was talking to myself too as I stepped into the rain again.
“Leslie, look at those ladies. The tea vendor won’t ever think those workers are crazy. But he finds my small exercise of riding in the rain amusing. Now, they are working to feed themselves at the end of the day while my exercise has already started feeding my thoughts. A good bargain for them, a better bargain for me, any day! You’re a winner Leslie. Go on but ‘Caution! Wet roads ahead’,” my mind wandered; and it was not some rain-induced gibberish. It was an attempt at justifying my motives, not to the tea-shop owner, but to the non-believer in me.
Rains have always touched me, but not in the same way as it is doing now. From the caress on the skin, it is now tickling my very soul as the chill reached the bones. I removed my leather gloves and my palms were white, lifeless and scary. But I pinched and there it was - the unmistakable red sign of life.
I was very much alive, of course I will be. For rain is all about life. Be it for the developed, climate-controlled North Americans, or the Indians from the Amazon, rain provides joy and life for everyone, everywhere.
But this day, as I exposed myself to the rain, laced with the cold mountain wind, it was kind of a baring experience for me. I would like to compare it to shedding of skins by a snake. However, snakes get older after each layer is shed while in my case, I was getting younger and my thoughts simpler after each layer was removed.
First I shed the sophisticated outer skin of a journalist, used to the air-conditioning in the office cubicle. In fact, I’m used to climate control so much that I ring up the electrical department each time the AC gets switched off; even if it is for a minute.
And here I was, exposing myself to the elements, first in the form of sun and dust in the well-maintained roads of Tamil Nadu and now to water and nature's fury in the wet-lands of monsoon Kerala.
Then it was time to shed the ego layer of my self. A few splashes which almost took me off the road and the controlled ‘out-of-control’ nature of my ride and the inability of my so-called writing skills to express my experience in the rain is more than enough to show how insignificant I am in the bigger scheme of life.
Rain can do that to you, it can show that you literally have miles to go just to stand up face to face with this form of expression of mother nature. And when you finally stand face to face with rain, when you finally become strong enough to attain that status, you suddenly realise that you are just facing the first persona and many deeper forms are left and you just continue your journey.
Continue I did, further down the highway and further inward till I decided to slip-stream behind a bus as I felt the bigger vehicle might provide protection from the other monsters on the road. It was time for a hill-climb too, the final climb and descent which would lead me to the flat lands of Trichur and Ernakulam and then Kochi.
Bad Idea it was! The bus obviously splashed mud on me every now and then. But that was the least of it. While riding close, I just couldn’t see the road properly and the obstacles it was throwing at me. A gutter would suddenly appear in front of me from under the bus and there you go, my 30-year-old back could take a bit of tossing around but this was too much.
A lesson for life too perhaps! Never follow a big fish. You may never be able to handle the fringe benefits as well as the fine prints, the so called under-currents; be it in office, be it in life.
Down hill was fun even with a cautious pace and now it was time to go flat out, literally. And my crazy mind found something to occupy itself. As cars and buses zoomed past me I could notice the temporary ruts they make on the wet road. It was like a vapour trail from a jet. And it was time to shed one more skin, that of age and of maturity.
The kid in me woke up and he desperately wanted to make vapour trails and that too, not in straight lines but in circles.
I cut the lane and swerved to the right and looked in my mirror before smiling at the work of art, a perfect semicircular trail on the road behind me. And as the line slowly disappeared, I made a sharp turn to the left. Fun, fun..."You're one hell-of-a trailblazer," I was talking to myself again!
Paaannnnnnnngggggggggg!
The powerful air horn of a national permit truck followed by an uncensored greeting snapped me out of my activity. It was time for the home stretch and the skies were getting brighter, though still overcast.
About twenty-odd kilometres out of Kochi, the drizzles frizzled out and I stopped; no, not for a loo break. This time it was to take out my mobile from its cocoon inside my bag and make a few phone calls.
First, to confirm a scheduled stop for some warmth on a road which used to be the bypass for Kochi, but not happens to be its heart. Oh, how this city has grown, to ugly proportions I would add.
More warm hugs followed at my driveway in Fort Kochi, this time it was amma and appa... And then the inevitable question from my dad.
I can’t sum up the answer in a word. Or can I?
It was fun, I dare say, literally, figuratively and philosophically...
