Happy B'day, Rocinante :)

My bike turns four today. It's been a helluva ride, almost 50k kilometers. I'm proud of the fact that she's done more kms on long trips than on the office commute. She's my life and love, my pride and joy, blood sweat and tears and all the other cliches possible. I love that bike.

We've been through a lot together. I've had 28 accidents, for starters. I've been airborne and underwater(and how!) on it, both true stories by the way. Skin was scraped, bones were broken, money was spent on expensive and hard-to-get spares, yet the biking spirit endures. I've been to chennai 9 times, pondicherry and goa 4 times each, shivanasamudram twice and once each to sakleshpur, coorg, bombay pune and ahmedabad. And a hundred other places remain on my list.

I hope to do ladakh some day soon, maybe even another country, though that is a distant dream. If i could, i'd go around the world, in a heartbeat. I've done enough miles to cover the equatorial circumference of the earth, and i hope we eventually cover the equivalent of the distance to the moon. I wanna go to the north east on a wild goose chase to find the elusive sonam kazi. I want to chill with the delhi folks after a ride through rajasthan. I want to see pushkar, jaisalmer and bikaner, probably even make an offering at the biker baba shrine thereabouts.

But above all, I want to say its been a helluva ride. I've seen parts of this country in a way few other people have. I've had the most amazing experiences, hurtling through dusty villages on hot afternoons, racing downhill on the ghats against the sunset, scrambled to escape the clutches of a rainstorm, tasting roadside chai in unlikely places, tearing up and down the highways in what can only be called a pursuit of happiness. temporary and fleeting happiness that disappears when i get to work on monday, yes, but a very important happiness nonetheless. A happiness that helped me keep my head amongst a life varying between the mundane and the insane. And for that, i'm grateful i have this bike, a sport tourer extraordinaire. I'm as much in love with my bike today as i was on the day i bought it.

Someone was dead-on right when they said, "Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul"

PS- I secretly christened my bike rocinante a few months after id started touring, in honor of Don Quixotes faithful steed. My pursuits are quixotic after all :)

Also, pratheek sends his wishes :)