" I dont know why I love her like I do
All the changes you put me through
Take my money, my cigarettes
I havent seen the worst of it yet
I wanna know that youll tell me
I love to stay" *
Kickstart lungs is the name of the condition you develop when a single hunk of two stroke machinery wont start. Life comes telescoping down the funnel spigot of fate's drain and you are more than overwhelmed by the end. Buried, snowed under the absence of further possibilities. If it happens to you in a delhi summer, you get wet with sweat and your breath imitates a pair of leaky cloth bellows. Malviya nagar girls, mostly fair - the ones with heels on their chappals are distinctly uncool while the ones in flat chappals are mod. Things you can't notice then but remember later.
Beer cans in my bag, the girl at the end of the road waiting. Market boys offer to push while making suggestions that i slug a beer there itself to replenish loss of body fluids - dosent get too far. Call the Coyote who tells me to tilt and kick. This after an hours attempts have run me argound like a beached whale. Thinking things like, 'ah, milady will take care of the shambles the bike has made me, I get on and ride the thing (Stranger, they call it!)finally; hoping the breeze will dry my shirt out.
"I dont know why you treat me so bad
Think of all the things we could have had
Love is an ocean that I cant forget
My sweet sixteen I would never regret" *
Get from station to station like, to find milady engrossed in a movie. For some (obvious to yez-riders!!!) reason i don't bother to ask which one it was. Hang around and face the cold wave moving from her face glued to the monitor towards me. I take it into the kitchen and get the beers and act like the leftover vegetables from yesterday's weekly market.
"I dont know why I love you like I do
All the troubles you put me through
Sixteen candles there on my wall
And here am I the biggest fool of them all" *
After setting the poor girl up, can any man affect a cool and suave attitude when on the way the yezdi took an hour to start? I give up and offer this lil bit of advise:
Avoid dates when yr bike wouldn't start along the way.
Maybe it's the hand of fate, maybe it's your clutch plates, in any case its a loosing fight that all of us who know what it feels like smile at the memories of the pain and understand that to own a y-bike is to take on a personal cross that you bear much to the cynosure of all around but the vital connection with the bike. I swear, its a rare yezdi owner who will leave the bike behind and continue.
"I wanna know that youll tell me
I love to stay
Take me to the river and drop me in the water
Dip me in the river, drop me in the water
Washing me down, washing me down." *
After the long fight trying to start the bike, you get like Hemmingway's Old Man and the Sea [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway] and you no longer want to leave behind what nearly killed you because even this has become part of you and your lifestory and regardless of the ugly bits of the experience, what ever it is- it is yours. It's like a connection or a bond with something - anything, which takes you to the limits of yourself or depths and stays with you through it all. Can't explain it too much, it all sounds 'fishy.' In case of Yezdis, I just call it the Union Mechanica. A mystical union between man and (muddahfuggin!!) machine.
Peace and twin-pipe rule,
- arunesh
* Take me to the River (song lyrics) - Talking Heads (which i am fixiated by because adrian bellew plays this excrutiating solo in the studio version which reminds me of the sound made by a running seizure the yezdi happens)
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Thump Anthem : An ode to the butt-kickin Roadking
It is undoubtedly so, that time is of essence,
Purportedly I know,
Anything else makes me tense,
I'm sold on my convictions even if the world bellows,
That my Yezdi don't make sense.
Not to plastic 100 cc voyagers,
Not to the fibre cruiser punk,
Not to it archetypal 4-stroke half-breeds,
Ornate squishy glintsome variants, (Yuk!)
No no no!! My Yezdi's got some spunk.
Not to the fibre cruiser punk,
Not to it archetypal 4-stroke half-breeds,
Ornate squishy glintsome variants, (Yuk!)
No no no!! My Yezdi's got some spunk.
Its not called the Roadking for nothing,
I've seen lily blush, cutie pink and demon teen,
Delinquent voyeur and the ilk, mutation supreme,
The Roadking is something else,
More spoken of and less seen.
I've seen lily blush, cutie pink and demon teen,
Delinquent voyeur and the ilk, mutation supreme,
The Roadking is something else,
More spoken of and less seen.
Confidence never felt so inspiring,
Shape out of fashion, past with time,
No straight lines, curve to fancy round,
To no super-technology or rocket science bound,
The joy of a Yezdi, sweet and profound.
I'm not casteist, but detest prudence and trash,
I'm no perfectionist, innate flaws i shall pass,
I'm no idealist, some come some go, thats the rule,
I'm not a chest-thumping-fundamentalist wannabe,
I schooled,graduated and then went to Yezdi school.
I learnt that it's allright to die sometimes,
Gathered that it's normal to feel sublime,
Figured that there are choices in life that one must make,
Reasoned that where there's a Yezdi Roadking,
That's my will. That's the way.
May the tribe grow.
May the roads fear.
May the people feel the power in second person.
May the stars shine of us and show us the way.
There's not more to be said.
Only travelled towards... and reached...
And start all over again...
Amen.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Uttar Pradesh Roadking Fatfatti Sammelan
It began as a simple may weekend, with the first signs of the oncoming influx evident from the strident mails and sms’s from Chetan outlining when, where and why.
Chetan's mail
See for yourself from the mail Chetan sent out:
"Address : R-119, Sector 21, Jal Vayu, Noida
Dax : Early Sunday Morning - 12 o'clock is Noon time and this is NOT the Barat Clock(sorry, Net at home would not let me upload those pix) DO NOT DRINK Saturday
Wily : Hydrabadi Biryani? Get Anil along ...
Manish : Make sure you're there / Make sure you're there on time
Ameya RK(Pune): Sorry, Net at home would not let me upload those pix
Jenson : Old timer RK Rider meeting us the first time.
Gurjeet : Your RK please ...
Wily - If you could meet Gurjeet and Jenson at NZD Bridge Turn to Noida and ride together to Dax's
Manish and Ameya to meet me at Ring Road "AIIMS Crossing" and further to DND
Not sure about Kamal CLII(Niti Bagh), Nirbhay JAWA(GGN) and Ravi D250(JNU) - will call 'em up
Rahul
am watching link
shampoo ad and the female in Kamloops :)
quit CVG; job-hunting now
Vijayanth - Check with Lalit and Amit Pal and lemme know
Ashutosh?
All of us together atleast One-Time!?!
We could visit Arun Naik and keep the tradition alive...
-LAST PUSH-
- Chetan
Rahul replied:
By the way, Bob the britisher who had left his diesel bullet with me, had come by and taken it for another trip. He then called me from Nepal saying he had sold it and had instead bought a thunderbird, and wanted to know if he could come back and leave the thunderbird with me, till he came back next from England. I said, yes please, especially cos its a thunderbird.
I have not had a chance to take it out for a ride yet, just gotten back from a holiday, hope to do so this weekend.
About the meet, might not be able to make it sunday morning, atleast definetly not on the Yezdi, all the petrol has dried up with months of no use. Will let you guys know if plans change. take care.
Chetan, send me your CV, will pass it on in AmEx.
- Rahul
Then the Coyote unisioned:
"Hey Rahul,Good job with the TB. Hasnt it struck you you come to the meet on the TB? :)btw, I too am on the job market can I send you my cv as well? Not to send to AmEx but in case you come across something likely?"
- Wily
With the plans congealing for the weekend, we waited with sober and bated breath. Spent the night before neatening out the bikeyard and my balcony w/s. Woke at six and hung around, neat and sober till about 11:30 when Shukla turned up. He lives right next door and we stripped and re-assembled his roadking last winter. Shukla happens to be an authority on the RD350. Once while working for LML, he scoured the countryside in the course of his job buying entire lots of RD350 parts from spares shops he came across in small towns. He just sold his bike for a lakh (the sixth machine in India – Made in Japan on the gearbox and all). In a little while we heard the old familiar twin-port roar approaching and Chetan rolled in with Lalit and Ameya. Lalit brought his red Jawa, Ameya was on the same bike he rode in from Pune to Delhi (cost of fuel = Rs 3,500, he said). Soon we were alternating between parking the bike and swapping rides around the block on each other’s machines.
Ameya's Undie...er...Story!
Ameya’s story: “Delhi is full of theives. I used to keep a cloth behind my headlamp for wiping the bike clean and it was swiped every day. This carried on till I started to keep a pristine, new and clean pair of undies on my bike."
Dear All,Met up a Noida with a buncha guys,The bunch was different, with super toys,250 cc, twin silencer, kinky key and all,We rode, spoke, guzzled and gorged,In short, we had a ball.Thank you chetan for making it happen,Thank you arunesh for hospitality sweet,Thank you ankit for being errand runner,Thank you everyone, again shall we meet.Cheers!Ameya(P.S - Guys, do check out my photoblog at www.flickr.com/photos/ameyag)
Hi buddies….
Some of the photographs taken from my phone….
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/gurrjit/DelhiYezdiMeet
Gurjeet.
Intruder alert!
Wily rolled in next with his Ustaad Anil, Vijayanth and Gurjeet. We ogled some more at each other’s machines. Gurjeet’s RK was pristine with the red in the tank logo plates still intact – y’know the red inside the font on the logo...). Vijayanth’s bike was the silver Deluxe and since he was last and his bike was so clean, it was suggested he park in the mud : ). More joy rides ensued. Ankit, my pal rolled in with beer and we were all set until Chetan took a spin on Lalit’s Jawa and came back with the Mulworth’s on their Suzuki Intruder Volusia 800cc cruiser. The couple hung around and chatted with us about bikes, bike touring and suchlike. Ameya and I hung around the bike. Ameya had just got off my RK and we both were feeling like hanging around the bikes a bit. We clicked the Intruder and Jenson appeared on his RK round the corner. Ameya and I went back and we all started to feel a bit like the party had hit its stride. In fact, we all drifted out again and hung around the Suzuki. When the offer came up for a ride on the monster, I immediately jumped at the chance. Despite safer suggestions that he ride pillion behind me, Abhay let me take a spin. It was a little odd because I, being only 5’6”, had to slide a couple of inches lower on the seat to make my feet touch the pegs. T’was no trouble at all, the only difference was the need for slight counter-steering pressure from both hands on turns. The engine burbled sweetly and the v-twin shaft drive forgave my newness. I rolled back and most were relieved.Chetan can be quite an aunt at times.
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