For a relatively less traveled guy like me, any prospect of going outside the well established routine of “work - home in Chennai – home in Bangalore” was a welcome one. Along with me were a few almost or probably more frustrated guys. Frustrated with quite a few things, mainly with being single since forever …and with being stuck in Chennai for almost two years (this is true for Ruchin and Naga at least). God knows how many real opportunities at meeting pretty girls we missed by not being in Bangalore / Noida or any other place ! Some of my friends may disagree with this, but it’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth (I swear!). And so with dreams of getting to go to a dance bar for the first time ever and trying out some new alcoholic drink (you see, I am a novice in this dept.); we decided Pondicherry would be the ideal place to go for the weekend.
This plan was mooted sometime last year when Naga had joined the other three in Chennai, after all of us landed here through job placements through college. Owing to our busy professional and personal lives, we kept postponing it until finally the time has come for us to go our own ways. Naga is moving to Bangalore for greener pastures (in other words, a better job) and in a short time, Ruchin and I will too. Armed with enough money and
two excellent bikes, a vintage Yamaha Rx 135 and a one year old Honda Unicorn, we made last minute plans on the previous day, i.e. a Friday.The plan was like this: We start at 11 am in the morning, have brunch and set off. The estimated time of travel was three hours for a distance of about 160 km from Chennai. Keeping in mind an earlier accident on my bike in the dark, I was keen on riding in the day alone. Besides that, we got the location of a good hotel and a DVD shop from one of my colleagues who is from Pondi.
Anyway plans made by us are rarely kept, especially when Vijesh is in the night shift 90% of the time. Moreover, with Ruchin and me going to sleep at 3 am we knew it would happen. Only Naga turned up at 11 am as informed earlier and woke us up from deep slumber. With empty stomachs and full tanks, we set off, 4 on 2 bikes. I was a reluctant rider with a fidgety pillion rider (Vijesh) who btw weighs a ton
. I believe his body density is very high!After an hour’s ride through the initial crowded portion of ECR (East Coast Road), we reached a highway eating place which we eventually discovered was way too overpriced and gave far too little quantity of anything edible. At the end of it, we were set back by around 550 rupees and an hour of riding. We took off with the determination to make it there before dark.
Ruchin on his Unicorn and without even a pair riding glasses was unstoppable, in spite of having a heavy load behind him (Vijesh who I swapped for a more stable Naga). After the initial lead which I had owing to the starting point, I did not see them except in breaks which we took three – four times in between. I knew I was going too slow … some where in the sixties and occasional seventies .This was because I was scared of falling of the edge of the road as I once did on NH 17 on the west coast …now that’s another story . And so I persisted with the slow riding with stubbornness. Moreover my bike starts vibrating with some resonant frequency or something just when I reach 70 kmph and then it becomes so shaky, it kind of makes me feel that it might fall apart! We carried on past through a pretty well laid road (even the road gets laid once in a while!)... I remember seeing the beach on the way in glimpses and some fields too which were pleasant to the eye.
As it became darker slowly … the distance Naga and I had covered was much lesser than those two and the thought of riding in the dark made me visibly shaky with the bike. At one point of time I started regretting coming by bike with nothing but the bags and the clothes on our back. It would be really awful to have an accident just because we were too confident with our riding or too poor with our planning. After a really slow and careful ride through some rough roads in the last 30 kms to Pondi we reached a dome where we met and decided to stick together, just in case. Next we reached the “Toll Gate” (I think you need to pay money if you are on more than two wheels and planning to enter the city) where we bikers were never stopped which was a relief after all that riding. Once in the city, we found an ICICI atm and took some money just in case the Pondi people were not credit card friendly.
Armed with the name of the Hotel (Ram International) and its location (somewhere near the bus stand), we went a couple of km out of the way to finally find it, when we retraced our steps. I guess your expectations never match what you finally get. It turned out to be a pretty good place on the inside though. At 675 rupees for a day in a double bedroom, with extra beds, it was quite reasonable. Besides there was a T.V without the STB (set top box) problem which Chennai is infamous for. After relaxing for a while on comfortable beds and relieving ourselves of burdens mental, physical and biological … we set off on our search for booze, food and the elusive dance bar! On the way down to reception, I intercepted one of the attendants and as I was asking him “Are there any dance bars you know of?” an old lady and her daughter came up the stairs. On his negative reply I just walked down without looking at anyone … but once down I was wondering why I did that, was so many years of being in conservative company finally affecting me? Anyway reminding myself to be a non conformist, I joined the others to spread the bad news. Ruchin didn’t lose hope and he asked a very decent looking auto driver for a dance bar. He told us that they would all be closed by 10 p.m. cursing our luck, we decided to settle for a Pub or bar and Restaurant to finish off what was left of the night.
The road which goes past the hotel is called “Anna Salai” like the one in Chennai, but with no resemblance at all. The driving on this road was even worse than any road I ve seen in Chennai or Bangalore for that matter! Guys were riding like each one of them owned the road and I was thankful that I was inside an auto for once, besides he wasn’t bleeding me like the Chennai auto guys do for a short trip to office. The destination was a place called “Hot and Cool”, supposedly a “yo” pub. When we did reach it, it was too late, unless you had some “jugaad” (some friends at the right places) to get in. After some thought we decided to get back to our starting point and find some place close to the hotel.
The auto guy dropped us off in front the hotel. It took some effort to suppress Vijesh’s irrational urge to go after DVD’s at that time of the night (around 9:30 pm). With that done, we entered a shop with half its shutters down and a lot of loud voices emanating from within. Inside were all men in various stages of inebriation. We (Ruchin and I) scanned the bottles behind the counter for something familiar. The expert in this department was Ruchin and I was ready to follow his bidding. We bought“Smirnoff Vodka – Citrus twist “for Rs.360. I had one of these at home (in Bangalore) unopened and thought that was the right time to see what it could do. We came out of the shop with the bottle wrapped up in a black polythene cover , I was still smiling at the way the shop guy had said “ Super sir “ and made an appreciative gesture with his thumb and index fingers .
There’s one thing which I learnt from more experienced drinkers (“drunkards” seems derogatory and also untrue), never drink and not eat anything. It seems your stomach will get FUBAR (fu***d up beyond all recognition) . Not willing to attempt any such stunt, we went around looking for food. This is something which we do on weekends in Chennai, foraging. After rejecting several places for not being non vegetarian, being the
Same old Chettinad stuff, and looking drab …we settled for a Chinese restaurant called “China Land”. After one more disappointing experience with pseudo – Chinese food, we headed back to the hotel room.
The way I was raving even before boozing, the guys were really scared what would happen with me in high spirits! Vijesh was the main focus of all our ribbing and leg pulling which he gets done with great enjoyment and the right amount of resistance. This really makes us come up with some real good jokes with him as the main role in them. We had got coke and 7 up to go with it and I took a cautious 100 ml with the 7 up. Naga did the same and Ruchin I guess took more being the more experienced among us. How can you describe the taste of vodka? Hmm, let me try. This was “smooth” as in u don’t feel it burning down your throat so fast or so much. Its not as bad tasting as beer. It made my upper lip feel like it was very soft and tender after some time. I kept complaining that I didn’t feel a thing coming on. And then in about 15 minutes - half an hour or so, I started feeling the slow and steady effects of the alcohol going to my head. If you are sitting down its not that evident. When you stand up and start walking, your balance is affected. Getting back the equilibrium takes time as the response time increases. And so I ended up chasing Vijesh around the room and falling all over the beds. It was fun and it seemed having a little more would be even better. I shifted to having it straight and settled down in a comfortable position on the bed. We talked a lot about things which are close to our hearts and normally would not come out, especially from a guy’s mouth. Old crushes, infatuations … dreams of the future, incidents in the past, all came freely and without hesitation. I felt liberated for some time. So this is what people mean when they say it “loosens the tongue” I thought. We had finished more than half the bottle, main contributions from Ruchin and moi. We were approaching the limits of drowsiness. We went to bed deciding to get up by 8 am, get ready, visit the DVD shop, visit a boat club nearby and if time permitted the Aurobind ashram.
The next day, I gained consciousness at 10 am. Everyone except Ruchin was just getting up. We got ready “aaram se “and decided to vacate the room. Whatever may the case, we had to leave for Chennai by 3 30 pm, not to repeat the night riding problem of the previous day. We had a dosa breakfast at the restaurant “Mayura” on the ground floor and took off on our bikes to “Tic Tac”, the most popular DVD shop in town. The pre noon heat was overwhelming. Only the motion of ou
r bikes made us survive that weather. We were faced with a surprise; “Tic Tac” was not one of those “seedy” places where you buy pirated DVD’s. It was a well established and maintained place where you can buy (pirated) movie DVD’s and related stuff. The shop lay on one of the cross roads of “Anna Salai”. Elbowing through the crowd, I got a place on the counter which stretched from the beginning to the end of the shop. We were amazed by how professionally this was done. It was like they were selling delicious dosas off the tava … but the difference was they were selling copies of original DVD’s at a price which is about 1/100th of the original DVD’s price. I learned later that they buy an original from places like Malaysia/ Singapore and then sell hundreds of copies within hours. Anyway, leaving the issue of piracy aside, it was heaven for my roommate Vijesh who was making a hugelist of movies on paper. After buying stuff worth nearly 2000 rupees, we headed off to destination boat club.
We got directions from auto drivers (they are really indispensable at this) and set off along the ordinary roads to cover an estimated distance of 7 km towards Cuddalore. We reached the place in a short time; it didn’t look anything like a boat club. But we entered anyway; we didn’t have any other better choice. We parked the bikes, paid for that …and again after a
few metres paid some more small change for entrance and camera. We were wondering how many more such counters we would encounter before we reached the boat. After a short walk we came to the actual boat counter where we paid 240 rupees ( 60 per head ) to take a motor boat ride to an island where we could stay for how much time we wanted and come back in a similar boat which would keep “polling” the island for people waiting to return. Armed with the tickets and snacks coupons, we entered the boat and settled down among mostly families who had come for a fun weekend. Not finding any pretty girls, I just looked around as the boat lurched forward into the open water. The motor was a “Yamaha” as I expected. Along one side of the water was the coast dense with coconut trees , which reminded me of pictures of Kerala . We could see the land we were approaching … it seemed quite close, but it took a lot more time than I expected to get to it. I guess motorboats cannot match their land counterparts that easily.We had something cool to drink and ventured forth onto the yellow sands. We saw a bitch in the water (I mean a female dog) near the land which was looking expectantly towards us. We concluded that it must have been Vijesh’s lover in its last life and now it was waiting for a tearful reunion in the salt water! After a futile attempt to force a reunion, we left it to its fate and went on to see what ours offered. There were some cottages here and there and also some small hut like structures on stilts but there were already too many people in all of them. We found a raised wooden platform which was still not taken and settled down on it. We took some snaps and after some more ribbing and general “Bakwaas” we decided to head back to town for something important … DVD’s of the other kind!
The return to the coast from the island was delayed because of a mini exodus. It seemed like everyone wanted to leave at the same time. Maybe because of the afternoon heat I thought. When we finally made it into the boat, it was better in one way, there was one pretty girl on it. Getting back to city, to make our trip “worth the effort” … we found some DVD shops soon enough. In almost a repeat of our “Tic Tac” experience, we went berserk buying DVD’s because they were cheap. Finally when the time came to leave, one of us, I don’t know who finally popped the question and received an affirmative reply. DVD’s of the other kind were available but at a little higher price and in more discreet packing. After some really funny haggling, we got a totally unverifiable set of DVDs which we bought because we were always hopeful of getting good stuff for less money. We ended up having lunch in some very small, drab place where the seats of the chairs were all torn. Afar a few “chapattis” and orange juices, we headed back home.
Ruchin had bought himself a pair of cooler/riding glasses and took off like a rocket. I was skeptical as to what would happen to my bike beyond 80 kmph until then. But I decided to let go and I did just that. We made good speed on good road once we got past the 30 kms from Pondi. Traveling consistently above 80 kmph, I was really learning what my bike could do. Despite this, the other bike was far ahead at that time. At the first break, I realized we were not that far apart. I thought I could keep the lead from there, but was wrong again, the pair of riding glasses was a deciding factor this time. At the next stop we filled a bottle with tender coconut water and also had a fruit which is very similar to a coconut, but the name of which I don’t recall. It’s like a coconut on the outside (deep purple color though) and has 3 -4 disc shaped kernels with gray stuff and some water inside. From there it was non stop, until we reached “Kabab Court” at 6 30pm. We reached about 10 minutes after Ruchin and Vijesh, which is not such a big difference. Proud and tired of riding so much, we decided to gorge ourselves on Kababs and nothing but Kababs. Priced at 400 rupees , we ordered a “seafood platter” followed by a “Non Veg Platter” . The place has excellent interiors and everything. Even the kababs were fine, except for the Kalmi kababs in the non veg platter. They were totally bland and hard to eat. We did get a replacement piece for that, but only because our appetites were already sated, I let it go at that. Filling up a feedback form with detailed
comments we left for home.
I was relieved to reach Chennai safe and sound. At the end of the trip, I got an idea of how it feels to ride for a three hour stretch, how much fun controlled drinking is, that Pondicherry is the place for DVD’s of any kind and how good it feels to visit new places. We planned to go back there by bus and visit some of the places we missed out , but for then , we rushed back home to check out the DVD’s on my comp.
