Jan 06, 2005
I opened eyes on Jan 6 to a Rann that had mellowed its threatening face overnight. I was still suffering a hangover of the previous day. The concern for co-riders had settled like a stillness in my bones. Unknowingly, I walked towards the parked bikes and broke into a grin seeing Gaurav's red Loner. It's quite amazing when a machine becomes a sign of the existence of a man. How the identities of the two get so enmeshed with each other... It's like recognising the thump of a friend's bike and knowing it's him before he's turned the corner to come in sight.

Right on cue, the gang started waking up. I have a feeling that everybody got up with similar overnight baggage and the same sense of stillness as me because all of them were awake to action in an instant. Gaurav and Praveen started towards the village to get an alternate vehicle and fix Praveen's several punctured tubes. Amol led a reconaissance mission to the breakdown site. The remaining stayed back at the temple site.

I was an extra again :) Looking around, a thought occurred to me. We were all going to take a bit of Rann with us but did we really want to leave so much of us behind? Nah! So I started cleaning up the litter (4 polythene bags of garbage).

Meeta, bless her soul, meanwhile had taken charge of the makeshift kitchen and breakfast was bread and MTR readymade vegetable curry. It tasted heavenly and I still relish the taste.

Food finished and house clean :) The other extras like me were in for a long and boring wait, it seemed. Speaking for myself, I was just looking forward to ride the Rann again and waiting for Praveen and Gaurav to be back. Others found ways to kill time - few went off to explore the Rann on their bikes and Laurence, was tipsy missing her Dipsy(we all know who), so she set out on foot alone.

Someone mentioned a lake near by and I took out my camera and set out with two others towards the water body. Found a lake surrounded by meagre vegetation -s some thorny trees and a pair of cranes flying from one end to the other. That made for a good photo op. More so because those were the only two birds I saw in the whole of Rann. That done, we were back to the pavilion to join the others.

Anchored next to the temple wall, Nikhil started his jokes. Saurabh and GR joined in and we had a good laugh session going. Manjunath sketched Freya's Musafir with a charcoal piece. Others mused about the location of "Laurence of Kutch", off exploring the Rann on foot :-). She came back just before panic buttons were pushed.

Just as all of us young virile males were getting frantic for action, the sound of thumping Bullets rent the air in the quiet, sunny Rann. Much to our relief, the reconnaissance team was back. Rocky's bike was up and running, followed by Dipsy and Ajay. Dhanno was running but just barely and Sanju's mood was still sullen as ever and Prem started working on Dhanno's clutch plates immediately.

I could see dust rising at some distance. Gaurav and Praveen were escorting a jeep. That was a welcome sight. Finally we were all together again. Just around that time Prem's never-say-die attitude paid off and Dhanno came thumping back to life and Sanju perked up a bit.

The nomads were ready to move once again.

The jeep was loaded with luggage dumped off from the back-up vehicle. We all loaded our respective belongings onto our bikes.

Widespread barren land lay ahead with no landmarks or any structures of any kind. So easy to get lost in the broad daylight. Shit... Riding blind in the night would make chicken out of most brave hearts. I looked at the backs of Gaurav, Amol, Aman and Nikhil with special admiration and respect. A slideshow of memories ran in sequence. Slides of Gaurav and Nikhil followed by Gaurav and Aman who did a to and fro trip in the dark on this particular stretch of Rann. And what froze in memory was Amol's solo trip to the break down site. Such ill used terms as "Cool" don't even come close to describing these fellas. And Wow for this land. How much havoc this spartan piece created on Jan 5. But then, there is such a thing as Man/Machine duo against nature!

The Ride out of Rann was eventless. 10 kms of it with legs in air balancing the bike. Soon we were out of the Rann and the sweeps Histu and Shreekanth made sure that no one was left behind. The first contact of Titli's tyres with a tar road near the Village periphery shook me. After a short ride on the village roads, we hit the highways.

It was a strange feeling. Really strange after two days of Spartan existence, to be back in the midst of humanity, to see the backside of ugly trucks and more trucks made me feel lonesome for the peace we'd left behind. But the Rann... it's like a difficult (but hot) concubine! One had to meet up with her once in a while even if one couldn't live with her day to day.(A punjabi friend later told me that Rann means a woman in local language of the nearby district of Jhang in Pakistan. It means "waste" in the local language of the Kutchis)

An unofficial re-group followed by the roadside. It was then that I noticed a middle aged couple smiling warmly at us as they drove by slowly. I had a feeling that they knew about us. Just as we started they overtook all of us on our way towards Gandhidham. After about 40 kms of riding we took a right and cruised on to the six lane highway to Gandhidham. Sanju and I stopped briefly to make some phone calls. And then slid carelessly on a road, as smooth as butter. So smooth that it reminded me of the Belgaum-Kolhapur stretch. What a shocking difference from the tiled Kutch!

With the throttle now locked, we rushed towards Gandhidham. On the wayside, we saw couple of wild asses on the road side grazing lazily ignoring us Bulls. I grinned. Shame, shame on you, you ass. We had some of your lazier country cousins in the Kutch running for their lives till the class monitor intervened. Just when I was thinking those asinine thoughts, the pack crossed a bridge just before entering the Gandhidham City limits and stopped for the final re-group before we entered the city.

The Rann adventure seemed to have ended. The pack was splitting up - Prem and his Predator had left for the railway station directly to board a train to Mumbai. Others waited with tea and light snacks from the roadside shack for the rest to arrive. All together, we followed the lead of the Sharma brothers towards Sharma Resorts.

Entering the gates of the resort, I had a home sweet home feeling. It was green everywhere as we thumped our way towards one of the bungalows and parked our bikes. The friendly couple who had looked familiar to me before, turned out to be Ajay and Anuj's parents and were here now to welcome their children and us back to humanity. Overnight they had already reached medical help for Shekharji at Gandhidham. After Shekarji's accident they were keen to see their kids which made them drive till the Rann pheriphery. Mrs Sharma had prepared lunch for us which we hogged on merrily at their lawns late in the evening. Shekharji with both wrists in casts along with Vijaya joined us and it was nice to see him in high spirits and out of shock.

I felt this dire need to dryclean my body. One of the reasons was that I was headed to Mumbai the next day morning. Another reason was that I was feeling like a stinking pig.

The class monitor had put out a strict warning against any bathing till the next day. I couldn't comply with that and crawled out of his sight, pried my luggage off Titli and moved to the adjoining bungalow which was alloted to us.

The soapy smell of the bathroom clashed so sharply with the piggy smut rising off me that I stripped and was under the shower in one second. A good scrub down later, I came out to find that Sanju had similar dry-cleaning plans.

He slipped into the loo without a word. I changed into a fresh set of clothes and walked liked a peacock back to the filthy gang, to be promptly booed at by all of them. In fact taking a bath was a big mistake as the rest had no such plans and I would have live with their smells all night. I tried to be a Parisian in Rome :-), and paid the price... Someone's discarded socks nearly asphyxiated the dirty Nikhil and he came out of the room coughing and choking. So you can imagine what was the extent of the Kutch affect (axe affect, huh) on poor clean me.

Once my nose had acclimatised to this extreme invasion, it was easier to sit with them. Gaurav's documentary on the Chang-pa nomads was where all of us found a common aim. Mesmerized with the beauty of Ladakh captured during our chief's stay with the Chang-pa over 15 days. The editing was still not completed but overall the documentary recorded by Gaurav alone camping near the Chang-pa habitat was still a masterpiece.

Outside night had fallen. This time in civilisation but some things still remained the same...
The pack was still together...
There still was booze...
Some things had changed...
The food was freshly cooked and not MTR...
And I wasn't missing music like 2 nights before...

We did what came to all of us best - we danced. Gaurav came up with some fantastic moves which were classified as "motorcycle dance"(don't ask me anymore - I was the only one who got one snap of it and no more) The others were inspired by his new ishtyle bump and grind routine and joined in as well. That remains for many one of the finest memories of the Kutch outing with 60kph. Not to be left behind, Manjunath tried cajoling Gaurav to dance again, jumping with excitement. This time it was the "handycam dance" :-) (don't ask me anymore than this, I don't know... I was only THERE!)

Nicky aptly summed up the Kutch experience in a speech which followed dinner thus drawing the official curtains on the anniversary ride. I was scheduled for a "hard ride" to Mumbai with Nikhil at 6 AM in the morning, so I bid adieu to the gang and left the lawns.

My spirit was anyways not there. I hit the sack and found it not with me either :-) it was roaming around in dusty Kutch.

Memorizing every event from Bangalore to Kutch and in between,
It's difficult to admit but it's a machine that changed my life...
It's difficult to admit that it wasn't a Club but actually one man - Adrian - who first proposed riding to me in IBM's parking lot in 2004...
It's difficult to admit but I haven't missed any rides since that day...
It's difficult to admit that when I was first starting Titli for the Kutch ride in my parking lot in Bangalore on Dec 30, I was filled with doubt...
It's difficult to believe that I'd reached this far...

Nonetheless, it's now clear to me...
That we reach where we're destined to, no matter how late we start or how many doubts we have...
That the best lessons in life need no teacher...
That life really is a journey and not a destination...
That real friends are made when you are not searching...
That when you are called, you should just go...

Kutch called n I came n how!

I recently read something that's quite apt to finish the Kutch saga with - "When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old"

Considering the memories I have, I feel really old, guys...
But...
Dreams of the next regroup point are fighting for their space :-)