Riding the Bull to Dahanu...nah Daman
Watching my feet gently sink into chocolate colored sand on Devka beach and then shape themselves around timeless rocks shaped by a persistent Arabian Sea, I knew why I did what I did. The previous afternoon, I Bulleted through tireless monsoon rain, dogs, overturned trucks, broken windshields of highway rule-breakers and dead cows with exposed udders to get to Daman, one of India's seven union territories. Before this weekend I had not driven a motorcycle or in India for 12 years. And much has changed since. The roads are different; busier but more organized. My knee and neck joints keep demanding my attention. I therefore started with the obvious trepidations of going on this blind date with my Bullet; blind or not, I wanted to get to know my machine for sure.
Finishing up a hiring event at work pushed my start time to about 3.30PM on Saturday afternoon. I spent about 3 minutes packing that morning: a towel, slippers, swimming trunks, a t-shirt and forgot most of what I might require including money from an ATM. I also took the Bullet to the neighboring temple on 18th Road (Khar) and did my own version of the long overdue new-vehicle-worship. A 5 year old at one of the traffic lights sold me lime and chillies to ward off evil spirits (I noticed that the lime-chillies combo was doing brisk business because of the rain - who decides these markets?). Ahem. I drove through the pothole-riddled Western Express highway to finally get out of the Mumbai suburbs - out of Borivali, out of Mira Gaon, out of Virar...out. It was drizzling and my original plan was to get to Dahanu, a beachy point at the far end of Maharashtra state.
A pleasant surprise at the toll booths on NH8 is - they are free if you don't drive on 4 wheels. It said 'Heavy vehicles keep left' and to the left I kept. ;-) NH8, part of the golden quadrilateral connecting India's major metros, is a smooth highway that sometimes offers you half-foot potholes and sometimes flowered and well-maintained dividers. As I kept going into deeper country, the air became fresher and often I'd take those deep satisfying breaths that seem to give a jolt of O2 to the head. The colors were brighter and happier - the green was greener - like fresh paint squeezed from pastel tubes. Two hours into the drive, my bladder needed respite. I stopped at something called Vittal Kamat's restaurant near Manor (prounounced manor rhyming with door) and slurped a quick idli-wada. I think it was somewhere there I spotted a sign: Daman 100km - the name sounded good and I decided to drive to Daman instead of Dahanu. Driving on, the roads curved into the Western Ghats that grew taller and taller breaking into those mysterious grey clouds. If you glanced at them long enough you could actually spot vapor rising out of the mountains and joining the very pregnant monsoon clouds.
And then it started raining. A few minutes later it started pouring. For whatever reason I didn't really thinking of stopping. I was wet already with the intermittent showers. My head was sheltered with the helmet but my wet t-shirt lapped against my chest as and when it dried, half my jeans were a darker blue with the water - my body didn't seem to mind the environment and neither did the Bullet. What is spectacular about the Bullet is its Nature-like attitude - it does its thing with remarkable consistency without much regard to the rain, the potholes, the curves, the heights, the trucks and the animals. I wonder what's with the dogs on highways - especially close to towns. They just hang in there and lustily run after each other unencumbered by hurrying traffic. It wasn't surprising to spot a dead one - naked and raw with its innards vulgarly exposed. And there were cows - they were particularly comfortable along NH8 in Gujarat. I mean there's enough country and grass out there -- why the highways with speeding trucks? But no one minds all this and I shouldn't too. I kept driving.
Dusk had fallen, I was still a bit from Daman and heavy rain and night are never a good combination. Finally, I arrived at a gas station near Vapi, Gujarat and got help from a couple of riders. Figured out how to get to Daman, where to hang out and more importantly where I can find an ATM (Rs.200 wasn't going to get me a roof for the night). You need to take a left off Vapi to enter the union territory and that junction is the worst I've seen. Under the NH8 flyover at what seemed to be Vapi's main intersection, there are no street lights and with heavy rain you can't see a thing -- then out of nowhere I saw cars zooming from the opposite direction. It's crazy. Flickering my lights I kept driving a little to the left and wasn't surprised to find broken windshields on that road. I finally reached Daman and Devka beach - checked into a hotel called Dariya Darshan. Showered and walked across to Sun Rock Restaurant -- and relaxed with a Haywards 5000 (why don't we get this one in the city?) and some Hyderabadi Kabobs. The waiter Gopal told me his stories: how he got into trouble with a dance bar girl in Mumbai and ran away to Daman six years ago, his tribulations with his wife whom he hasn't seen in two years, how Orissa is a nice place, how his father on his deathbed revealed the quintessential truth of life: the mother will ask you "What's in your stomach?", the wife will ask you "What's in your pocket?", how he plans to start a restaurant, how the owner of Sun Rock smuggles alcohol worth millions every single day and how I must save Rs.15 by agreeing to pay him instead of the restaurant for the 2nd beer.
The next morning, I soaked in the expanse of Devka beach - the water, the land and the sky. It was fullmoon day and the water was at high tide. A little along the coast one would reach India's largest gulf - the gulf of Khambat and if you looked far enough or from top, there should be Diu (Daman's sibling) on the other side. A drunk man from Baroda kept shouting until I stepped back from the rocks where the waves broke their eagerness -- he kept saying, "It's high tide, it's high tide...anything can happen." I saw an overturned boat - a mass of iron, perhaps left unattended for many years. Shells with recoiling snails inside, rounded rocks all over, huts selling alcohol, fishermen with crisscrossed twines, maids dumping yesterday's vileness by the water, dogs idling and smelling after their potential mates (they're everywhere), ten year olds playing in the sand, off-season tourists - they all did their thing. And the water did its thing -- it kept lapping against the land again and again and again with determined rigor.
Waiting for my jeans to half-dry, I finally sat back on the Bull close to noon - thanks to the machine, the drive was simply enjoyable and far from the monotony that a return offers. The clouds ensured another wet t-shirt experience and I stopped at a dhaba full of truck drivers and their heavy trucks. My shoes squished as I stepped in; they welcomed me with their warm, knowing smiles and pointed me to a cot. I pulled out my towel dried myself and had egg bhurji, channa dal, roti and hot chai with lusty Bollywood numbers playing in the background. Stomach-happy, I got on my Bull again. I reached Mumbai with a sanitized head and an evanescent calm - smelling the city, hearing its sounds, feeling its heat even some 20 kms away.
Finishing up a hiring event at work pushed my start time to about 3.30PM on Saturday afternoon. I spent about 3 minutes packing that morning: a towel, slippers, swimming trunks, a t-shirt and forgot most of what I might require including money from an ATM. I also took the Bullet to the neighboring temple on 18th Road (Khar) and did my own version of the long overdue new-vehicle-worship. A 5 year old at one of the traffic lights sold me lime and chillies to ward off evil spirits (I noticed that the lime-chillies combo was doing brisk business because of the rain - who decides these markets?). Ahem. I drove through the pothole-riddled Western Express highway to finally get out of the Mumbai suburbs - out of Borivali, out of Mira Gaon, out of Virar...out. It was drizzling and my original plan was to get to Dahanu, a beachy point at the far end of Maharashtra state.
A pleasant surprise at the toll booths on NH8 is - they are free if you don't drive on 4 wheels. It said 'Heavy vehicles keep left' and to the left I kept. ;-) NH8, part of the golden quadrilateral connecting India's major metros, is a smooth highway that sometimes offers you half-foot potholes and sometimes flowered and well-maintained dividers. As I kept going into deeper country, the air became fresher and often I'd take those deep satisfying breaths that seem to give a jolt of O2 to the head. The colors were brighter and happier - the green was greener - like fresh paint squeezed from pastel tubes. Two hours into the drive, my bladder needed respite. I stopped at something called Vittal Kamat's restaurant near Manor (prounounced manor rhyming with door) and slurped a quick idli-wada. I think it was somewhere there I spotted a sign: Daman 100km - the name sounded good and I decided to drive to Daman instead of Dahanu. Driving on, the roads curved into the Western Ghats that grew taller and taller breaking into those mysterious grey clouds. If you glanced at them long enough you could actually spot vapor rising out of the mountains and joining the very pregnant monsoon clouds.
And then it started raining. A few minutes later it started pouring. For whatever reason I didn't really thinking of stopping. I was wet already with the intermittent showers. My head was sheltered with the helmet but my wet t-shirt lapped against my chest as and when it dried, half my jeans were a darker blue with the water - my body didn't seem to mind the environment and neither did the Bullet. What is spectacular about the Bullet is its Nature-like attitude - it does its thing with remarkable consistency without much regard to the rain, the potholes, the curves, the heights, the trucks and the animals. I wonder what's with the dogs on highways - especially close to towns. They just hang in there and lustily run after each other unencumbered by hurrying traffic. It wasn't surprising to spot a dead one - naked and raw with its innards vulgarly exposed. And there were cows - they were particularly comfortable along NH8 in Gujarat. I mean there's enough country and grass out there -- why the highways with speeding trucks? But no one minds all this and I shouldn't too. I kept driving.
Dusk had fallen, I was still a bit from Daman and heavy rain and night are never a good combination. Finally, I arrived at a gas station near Vapi, Gujarat and got help from a couple of riders. Figured out how to get to Daman, where to hang out and more importantly where I can find an ATM (Rs.200 wasn't going to get me a roof for the night). You need to take a left off Vapi to enter the union territory and that junction is the worst I've seen. Under the NH8 flyover at what seemed to be Vapi's main intersection, there are no street lights and with heavy rain you can't see a thing -- then out of nowhere I saw cars zooming from the opposite direction. It's crazy. Flickering my lights I kept driving a little to the left and wasn't surprised to find broken windshields on that road. I finally reached Daman and Devka beach - checked into a hotel called Dariya Darshan. Showered and walked across to Sun Rock Restaurant -- and relaxed with a Haywards 5000 (why don't we get this one in the city?) and some Hyderabadi Kabobs. The waiter Gopal told me his stories: how he got into trouble with a dance bar girl in Mumbai and ran away to Daman six years ago, his tribulations with his wife whom he hasn't seen in two years, how Orissa is a nice place, how his father on his deathbed revealed the quintessential truth of life: the mother will ask you "What's in your stomach?", the wife will ask you "What's in your pocket?", how he plans to start a restaurant, how the owner of Sun Rock smuggles alcohol worth millions every single day and how I must save Rs.15 by agreeing to pay him instead of the restaurant for the 2nd beer.
The next morning, I soaked in the expanse of Devka beach - the water, the land and the sky. It was fullmoon day and the water was at high tide. A little along the coast one would reach India's largest gulf - the gulf of Khambat and if you looked far enough or from top, there should be Diu (Daman's sibling) on the other side. A drunk man from Baroda kept shouting until I stepped back from the rocks where the waves broke their eagerness -- he kept saying, "It's high tide, it's high tide...anything can happen." I saw an overturned boat - a mass of iron, perhaps left unattended for many years. Shells with recoiling snails inside, rounded rocks all over, huts selling alcohol, fishermen with crisscrossed twines, maids dumping yesterday's vileness by the water, dogs idling and smelling after their potential mates (they're everywhere), ten year olds playing in the sand, off-season tourists - they all did their thing. And the water did its thing -- it kept lapping against the land again and again and again with determined rigor.
Waiting for my jeans to half-dry, I finally sat back on the Bull close to noon - thanks to the machine, the drive was simply enjoyable and far from the monotony that a return offers. The clouds ensured another wet t-shirt experience and I stopped at a dhaba full of truck drivers and their heavy trucks. My shoes squished as I stepped in; they welcomed me with their warm, knowing smiles and pointed me to a cot. I pulled out my towel dried myself and had egg bhurji, channa dal, roti and hot chai with lusty Bollywood numbers playing in the background. Stomach-happy, I got on my Bull again. I reached Mumbai with a sanitized head and an evanescent calm - smelling the city, hearing its sounds, feeling its heat even some 20 kms away.
posted by pravs at 2:21 AM
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