Friday, April 22, 2005

ROSSI in Bangalore!

Well though the title seems a bit dramatic and incongruous ,i am not lying,but i am not alluding to the actual Valentino Rossi of MotoGp fame but to a certain friend of mine who will give rossi a run for his money on any day.Unfortunately as fate would have had it he is holed up in bangalore with a bally friend like me instead of being in some GP with some glamorous babes .Well coming to the point,this dude has a bike and he rides like the devil himself. He has no pity whatsoever on the poor bike.He zips through bangalore traffic as if he is playing some MOTOGP or NFS game wherein u can turn like anything u want and still come out unscathed.

Infact i have had some scary expereinces with him on his bike as a pillon rider.The first time ,being the credulous unsuspecting rider, i climbed on his bike with a new nike cap just bought the previous day.I thought he was a decent driver,but I had summed up my opinions too soon.He revved the accelerator and the bike lunged forward like the horses which lunge in a derby race and in about 0-4 seconds had reached some 60 odd KM/hr(this comes from my being a F1 fan) and he went over a hump as if in a bike rally and the poor me was desperately clinging for its life.At that time i had completely forgotten about my new cap and was wondering something was amiss,then i suddenly realised that my cap was no longer on my head ,it had flown off . I desperately tried to tell him what went wrong but i couldn't take off my hands from my life support bars for fear of flying off myself.Somehow he got to realise something was amiss and wrong and he just applied the brakes.So back from 60-0 Km/Hr in about 1 sec.My nose slammed into his helmet.I said my cap had flown off ,rubbing my nose.By the time i reached my cap i saw that it had met it's demise even before it had opened its eyes to the world. It was ruthlessly run over by several vehicles.As i stood looking a big heavy BMTC bus went over it. I just couldn't help getting philosophical at that moment like u always do when u witness somebody's death. Well the experience wasn't over yet.After picking the remains of whatever was leftover of the cap and thinking of a proper burial for it later i climbed onto his bike thinking about my own life,i had this strange premonition that that day was going to be the last day and felt this ride would be my last. Well i clung myself desperately to the side bars while this devil or the phantom rider sped across the roads of bangalore.I had always thought the stretch from mekhri circle to the governor's raj bhavan was a long stretch,but he proved it otherwise.He covered it in a amazingly short span of time.Now comes the really scary part.His overtaking maneuver's.They were like the james bond chase sequences.If he felt there was enough room to squeeze his bike through thats it,he just squeezed it and to my horror he loathed using brakes, he wanted to do the maneuver without slowing down.I couldn't close my eyes with my hands for they were clinging to my only hope of life.My eyes were tearing due to the speed.My own tears hit me like bullets. He has a strange idea of taking a turn.Suppose he wants to take a left,he goes to the extreme right and takes a lunging sweeping turn to the left with the bike almost parallel to the road.The first time i thought he had forgotten the direction but later on i realised that was his esoteric passion.I really loathe that turning near raj bhavan and CAIR.As he approaches it he gets into this high of making the whole turn in one swooping curve at constant speed and at a dangerous angle, my jeans almost scrapped the road and my heart leaped into my mouth.(I had read such phrases only in story books,now i know what they mean and am including them as no mere exaggerations).Another strange passion of his is at the traffic lights ,he feels as if he is in a grand prix race and the moment the light turns green.Vrooom!!!After this scary ride and when we reached our destination i couldn't make my numb hands to release their grip on the side bars.I thanked god for getting me through this(i hardly remember god,but i remembered him that day) and felt like kneeling on the ground and kissing it(though i didn't do it).

But funnily enough he said he has never commited any accidents in his entire driving experience.I guess people who drive like that have the highest of concentrations while driving and are obvious to every movement around them.I have christened him "the phantom rider" cos i felt no human being could drive like him.He laughs at this and claims there are far more scarier drivers.Huh?Did i hear right?

So now his rides have been listed in my list of exciting and thrilling experiences to go and do. I always recommend our common friends to take the experience with him if they felt strong at heart.A definite caution to all those heart patients and weak hearted.But it is definitely worth going on a ride with him. So now u see why i named this article "Rossi in bangalore",so the next time u see a biker zooming past at incredibly high speeds,its in all probability my friend. God bless his soul,his guardian angels do indeed work full time 24/7.As a last signing off advice to our common friends dont ever go to any amusement park or go-karting on his bike because they seem bland after the ride.


P:S- I didnt have the patience to error check after writing this long blog,so please bear with me for any grammatical mistakes.

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