City of Love N Back

Co-incidence! Is it! Every time when I am moving towards this City of Love I think about what all planning went behind the trip and I find myself looking at a blank canvas which is longing to be colored with the ink of planning, but it will have to wait and I hope that the wait never ends…….

Year – 1999, Date- 1st October, Place- Aligarh Muslim University. I was a fresher who had joined the university to pursue graduation in Mathematics. Intro session (lighter version of ragging) was going on in full swing and to save myself from those terror filled moment (looking back they look fun filled) I and my room partner (Call it co-incidence his name is also Tariq but with a “ue” i.e. Tarique) planned to spend the night outside the hostel roaming about and return back in the morning. We did exactly that and when in the morning we were near hostel gate we came to know about the special intro session that was going on for SMART guys like us who were found absconding last night. Our feet moved 1800 and minds went blank, palms sweaty and cold. In a flash Tarique said let’s go to Agra and we were on our way to Agra in sweaty t-shirt n jeans. That was the first step taken towards cherishing the empty canvas.


Year – 2000, Date – 6th November, Place- Aligarh Muslim University. In my second year of graduation the sessional exams (we had exams in between the sessions) had just got over and I along with Tarique had gone to watch some movie (I can’t recall the name), night show and we returned back late at around 12:45 am to hostel. We were discussing about the movie and suddenly while discussing some scene which had scenic beauty in it, I was like let’s go to Agra as last time we couldn’t enjoy much and so next morning at 7:00 am we were in a bus moving towards the city of love. This time round we hired a camera and clicked some photographs (36 to be accurate) which we really cherished at that moment and still watching them makes me remember those old responsibility free time when the canvas didn’t matter it was just the execution that had to be there and yes we did it with lot of perfection


Year – 2008, Date – 1st June, 2008, Place – Noida. It was around 3:00 pm and I was sitting in a car along with a friend of mine (Mohit) and we had gone to have a look at the site of one of the apartments being built on Meerut road. The weather was quite pleasing with clouds and cold breeze blowing. Mohit simply said that tomorrow he will be going to meet his younger brother and give him some stuff for home as his brother was going home. I was like, ok, go ahead and then maybe we will meet tomorrow evening then. At around 6:00 in the evening I thought what will I do on a Sunday all alone, let’s go along with Mohit and I asked him if I can accompany him. He didn’t object, it was time to throw my next card and I said let’s go on bike and again he didn’t object much to my happiness. We talked at around 11:00 pm and decided to leave the next morning at 6:00 else it would get hot if we delay starting.

I was up at 5:15 and got ready by around 5 minutes to 6:00. Mohit had called up at around 5:45 and to my dismay he had just go up, but he got ready quickly (maybe missed out on some activities….) and was there at my house at around 6:20. We left by 6:30 with Mohit all geared up with a long cloth covering his head and face from eyes downwards. He had his shades on, skins protected with sunscreen and to entertain him he had an i-pod (which I have bought recently) loaded with songs.

We kick started the small journey at 6:25am and rode at a decent speed. The weather was quite pleasing and the cold breeze blowing and hitting my face at 100 k’s was a good feeling to have. My bike had undergone heart transplant and I didn’t want to put too much pressure on it so I kept lowering the throttle to keep the engine from getting too hot. We reached Hodal at 7:30am, a place around 81km from Noida. We stopped to have breakfast of Bread, butter and two cup of tea at a roadside hotel (Dhaba would have been a better word to explain the place though). We started off at 8:00am from there but just after around 4 kms were caught in a long jam of trucks and busses near a place which looked like truck stand or something of that sort. I thought of taking my bike off the road and try to get ahead but last night rains and heavy load of truck had made it too muddy and deep pits filled with mud and water and it was impossible to ride through it unless u were ready to get mud wrapped, which I definitely was not in the mood to. After some maneuvering through between trucks, busses and cars I was able to leave the jam behind and once again was like a free bird flying towards it goal.

We reached outer Mathura around 72 kms from Hodal and stopped at Mc Donald’s to have something though we were not hungry but I wanted to give the throbbing heart of my beast some rest. We had French fries and burger and left for city and reached it at 10:30 am. Mohit had some work which he completed within an hour and I was ready for the ride back as I had some work back home (I had to wash my clothes).

We started at 11:40am. While overtaking at some places I could feel that something was wrong and my beast’s horn was not going to last too long and this was what happened after I drove over some small pit holes. The horn went silent and with no rear view mirror and moving at high speed it was a bit risky overtaking and I didn’t want to take high risk with a pillion rider. I was riding but now a bit more cautiously. We reached Hodal and planned to stop at a good restaurant to have lunch but to our dismay we were not carrying enough cash and they didn’t accept card, so we had our lunch at a small roadside dhaba which we see on highways.

But well there was something more in store for us. We had our tummies filled but what about the beast which was doing all the hard work it also needed something to keep it going apart from my love for it and it was petrol which had gone in reserve some time back and the needle was going even below the red mark now. We thought to get the tanks refilled at the next petrol station, but, it was no where in sight and with every milestone passing the tension mercury was rising. I was lost in my thoughts of pushing my P 150 to the next petrol pump in case the tank went dry and just then a Innova overtook me and at that speed the sound of it gave me a jolt and I was at once out of my thoughts. After around 15 kms we came across a petrol station and much to our delight (pun intended) they didn’t accept any card, Mohit had 50 bucks with himself and I got the petrol for that much and Delhi was still a good 30 kms away. The last part of journey was uneventful though quite hot and we reached home at 3:30 pm and I went to a nice sleep to wake up again to wash my clothes……

Conclusion:
Knowingly or Unknowingly the Canvas has been painted with atleast one plan which will always be etched on my mind and that is to carry cash whenever I am traveling. See, the canvas looks so happy with the green color of money on it.
We may think that what we are doing is unplanned or maybe just a coincidence but actually it is all planned and planned much in advance by the greatest planner of all, who has planned even the movements of an amoeba to the minutest detail and the execution, well, it has always been flawless. Another observation that I had from this small trip of mine is that though I took this trip accidentally but I could find something missing and the introspection told me it was nothing else but those rising heights, those massive block of rocks, those hanging trees, those blind curves, those deep trenches, those cliffs and if I put it in one word I missed the MOUNTAINS.