Monthly Archives: February 2021

Musings

1st Adventure Ride – Bang-Cbe-Bang

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It has been 3 weeks since I had the bike. Over the weekends I will go for a ride to put kilometers on the bike. But it wasn’t enough. I will hardly add 50 odd kms over the weekend.

I had to do the first service within 45 days or 1000 Kms. I could only touch 250kms max. This was clearly not working. I would not be able to touch 1000kms. This bike is going to take me to Himalayas someday – and wanted it to be set right.

What if we do a trip to Coimbatore? I hesitatedly floated the idea to San and she gave thumbs up. She will drive the car with Amma, Prithvi, Charu, Coco and Sufi. Amma was excited – first trip after 1.5 years to Cbe. So she did not protest much on me coming by bike.

Jan 26 Chutti was coming up. It was a Tuesday. So a quick plan was made.We leave on Saturday. Work on Monday. Return Tuesday. But there was a twist. Prithvi had an online interview ( we were trying for Isha Home School ) on Saturday 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM.

I kept oscillating between, let us start on Friday afternoon, reach Coimbatore and P can take his exam. Or start early morning on Saturday and reach before 2PM.

But San was clear – let P take the online exam from the comfort of his home. So he can play his Piano if needed. One constraint was fixed – so my mind oscillations stopped.

We were to start after P finish’s his exam.

Friday Night – day before ride

People at home were talking about the serial Bharathi Kannamma. This reminded me of the movie Ninaithalae Innikum I saw when I was a school kid. There is a song by that very name. A lovely movie. I played it on youtube and got the urge to see the movie.

Being a Friday night – I started seeing it. All the songs are lovely. And I ended up watching the full movie. It runs for 2.5 hours or so.

Here is the movie if you want to enjoy this. Somewhere in the middle there is a full song with just the words : Ninaithaalae Innikum.

Saturday Morning

Watching the movie was a mistake. I find it hard to sleep after 6AM – thanks to Covid more or less I sleep off by 10 to 10:30 PM and wake up around 6 daily. I was very groggy. Also with the upcoming trip excitement couldn’t sleep properly.

Around 11 AM I went downstairs to fill petrol for both the bike and car. I was moving the bike suddenly remembered I had to fetch something, and I leaned the bike to put it on stand, and dropped it. I had not put the side stand down.

In all my YouTube watching of bikers – they had taught techniques to lift the bike up.

I tried lifting and could manage. Phoo. The same thing happened the day of the Bang-Mumbai-Bang trip. Felt it is a good omen.

Then the day went in running errands for the trip preparation. I had earlier got a riding boot and a pant. Wanted to do a test ride with them so I am comfortable – but did not find time to test it out. Will be doing the grand inauguration of these on the first ride.

Saturday 5 PM

Trip Begins

Finally the time arrived. San and the family and our cat and dog – all started in the car and pushed off. I quickly caught and overtook them stuck in the traffic.

This is the Whitefield to Attibele via Varthur. I have travelled on this multiple times – and I breezed through it and soon crossed the Attibele Toll.

Reached Adayar Ananda Bhavan just before Krishnagiri and waited for the car to come. There was a good amount of traffic and the car was quite behind.

Photo shoot at A2B near Krishnagiri

Saturday night 6:30 PM – Ride continues

Nowadays I sleep at 10:00 ish and not sure I can stay awake. The ETA is now around 12:30 AM Midnight. In another 2 – 3 hours will be in Salem. Near the A2B there is a small hotel we can crash for the night – so plan B was made that if either of us get sleepy we will stay at the hotel. And we resumed our journey.

I started enjoying the ride. The dimming sun light and the evening cool breeze was putting me in good spirits. The night ride was fantastic. Less variables to drink in – just the dark road ahead lit with the headlight and the vehicles tail lights.

I was afraid I will get a headache or my eyes will get tired. But nothing of that sort happened. The grogginess I had the entire day was gone entirely. Perhaps it was as the anticipation of the ride? I was fully alert throughout this trip.

I have travelled this road – Bangalore to CBE multiple times – so did not have the need to consult a map. In a way it was good – while getting used to the bike one variable if it is less – especially the map.

We crossed the micro Ghat section that comes after Sai Sangeet. I did not try cornering – even though I was tempted. A empty loaded lorry guy was driving like a maniac and was not being able to slow down and was cutting across lanes not wanting to slow down. I stayed behind him and did not overtake till I got out of the Ghat section.

The agreement was whoever crosses the toll – has to wait for the other. Also I had put Life360 app on both our phones – so we could track realtime where the other is.

We kept stopping at tolls – and in one of the tolls fed Sufi and took the dog out for her night walk.

The last section was very boring. Thankfully it was a three laner – between Perundurai and Coimbatore. I started following cars who were going at 100Kmph+.

Finally reached home around 12:30 AM.

Reached destination.

The next couple of days the bike was being tested by Achu. Had to tell him to keep within 50kms because my ride back will be another 350 kms and I will be close to touching 1000kms.

On Tuesday, Jan 26th – started back to Bangalore around morning 7AM. Till we crossed Erode it was quite misty.

Finally around 3 PM or so we reached home.

The entire trip took 2 full tanks – around 20Liters. Bike was giving an average of 34 kms+.

First Adventure ride done.

books, Musings

2020 Books Round Up

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My yearly tradition – the first blog post of every year start with a round up of books I read in 2020.

Here is the list from 2010, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 2019

Science Fiction

  1. Supernova Era by Cixin Liu

Cixin Liu is my favourite Sci-Fi Author. His Three Body Problem is a master piece. Even if you don’t like Sci-Fi you should read it. It is that good. They should make this a compulsory reading in school.

Supernova Era is another brilliant story on how a supernova explosion kicks off a Radiomagnetic wave which kills all humans above 13 years old. The entire word is now run by 13 year olds and lesser age.

How the world prepares to hand over, and how the kids handle it is the story. I finished listening to this and Corona 2019 happened. I used to joke to the kids at home – all the adults are going to die with Corona and now it is unto you kids to manage.

2. Fall or Dodge in Hell – Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson’s books are all a grind. 1000+ pages and once you start this book you get sucked into his world and stay there till you finish the book.

Story is about freezing a human brain. Then they figure out how to digitise it. The story happens in the computer verse and how they interact with the outside world.

Will fry one’s mind alright.

If you don’t know Neal Stephenson – pass this. This book is torture otherwise.

Fiction

3. The Unconsoled – by Kashi Ishiguru

Hmm. I won’t be reading any more of this author’s books. I dont think I have the intellectual development to read this. It was – how would I say – like living in a dream most of the time. Lot of weird stuff. But there were pieces which gave a glimpse into the complexity of human minds. I know of some families / friends – where the child had stopped speaking to their parent / sibling. It was kind of a mystery and here it happens. The porter and the daughter ( protagonists wife later it is revealed ) – do not speak to each other. Even at the very end. Weird but interesting.

Pass this.

4. Us against you by Fredrick Backman

This is the Swedish author I discovered. This is follow up to Beartown ( Highly recommend this ). The story continues after the Beartown climax. Did he stretch this story? It wasn’t as gripping as Beartown but if you loved Beartown you would have to read this.

5. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons

I discovered Dan Simmons with Hyperion and stumbled on this book. On audible it is 55+ hours or so. It is a very long story and has some good amount of violence. Loved this one.

6. Okei by Mitsugu Saotome

It is a Japanese novel. Story of a little girl who witnesses the fall of the Japanese empire and how she escapes to US – California. Neutral rating.

7. The Bat by Jo Nesbo

New discovery. This is the first novel by this Norwegian Author. It is about a detective – Harry Hole. Violence, Crime, Investigation – if you love those things – it is a must read. It is the first of a long series – Jo Nesbo is going to take some of my hard earned money.

8. Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Loved this one. The prince is affected by a virus – which literally makes him into a zombie like thing – and all these affected by the virus are dumped into this place called Elantris from which these dead people are not allowed to come out. It is full of strategy where the protoganists make moves against one another like a chess game. Quite interesting.

9. Theft of 2 Swords
10. Rise of Empire
11. Heir of Novoron by Michael J Sullivan

Loved this series. It has magic, sword fighting, romance, betrayal – all the masala to make it interesting.

Non Fiction

12. The Monk and the lady by Pico Iyer

You get a glimpse of the inner working of the Japanese culture. It was a nice enjoyable journey.

13. Do not talk to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell always takes something well established and turns it around 180 degrees. The audio book was good – it had actual interviews and the production was of high quality.

14. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

This book is in the list of High School reading of US Kids. Honestly I did not understand. Perhaps I should have researched more on this, or if an English Teacher had taught in class I would have appreciated more. It is a small book – very highly acclaimed – I didn’t make head or tails of it. I am not the biblio types I guess. Ahem – I am the one who abandoned Walden – to draw a parallel – I am more like the Masala movie watcher types, not into Art films.

Spirituality

15. Death by Sadhguru

On Sunday I picked this book from Crosswords. Started reading Sunday night. Monday morning I didn’t feel like working. Went to Starbucks and read the rest. Bliss. This was pre-covid.

I have referenced this book in the ReadThisFirst section of this blog. Again – should be a mandatory reading for everyone. Gives fresh perspective to life.

Philosophy

16. Mindset by Carol Dweck

Another must read. Wish I read this in my 20s. Along with Alchemist, I would gift this book to youngsters. In fact for the Secret Santa game we played end of 2020, I gifted this book.

I started Einstein – Walter Isacson – but lost interest. Started Ponniyan Selvan – 2. Not being able to cross the critical reading threshold after which I get hooked and sail with it to the end. Hope will complete these in 2021.

Thats it for 2020.