Ever thought of writing an autobiography? I thought about this only today. I’m sure one does not have to be a celebrity to write one. Who’s going to read that then, you might ask. I’d say, yourself and if you allow, a few more people. I’m almost convinced that all lives are equally very interesting and very random that they all qualify for nice autobiographies. Because it’s not just about what happened in your life but also what went through in your mind while these things were happening around you. But what’s the point in writing an autobiography? You think about your life, you talk about your life, then why not write? If not anything, it could be fun. It’s not a crazy idea. We all have stories to tell, why not write them? As I said, if you start writing the stuff you think and talk, you’d have a book.

Generally, what stays on top of the mind are only the strong memories that really invoke some very strong emotions. There could be so many other things that must have happened. Those things don’t come to the fore unless you make a conscious attempt to think, talk or write about it. We don’t often get to bring back these memories unless we have an opportunity like meeting an old friend, visiting your hometown, visiting your school etc. And what stays in our brain is mostly the recent memories. Recent memories always have a ‘high beta value’. Something good happens, we go overboard, something bad happens we get terribly upset. That’s not the case with old memories. Old memories invariably make us proud. Proud about how we achieved those best moments and proud about how we have come through the worst moments.

If I think of my primary school, I have about half a dozen events most of which is not worth mentioning. In my high school, dozens of stories but again most of them are of less relevance. In my college days, some very interesting events certainly worth recording. My CA days have to be half of the book. Just three years and there were clear directions in various facets – life, family and career. And then comes the office days leading up to the present days. Basically, I can talk about how I was brought up, what kind of kid I was, why some events and stuff that are still vivid and what impact they had on me, what moving around meant to me as a kid, my disappointments as a kid, my backstreet highs, what kind of school I got into, my new friends, my academics, my gully cricket and how sucked at it, my love for chess and how I had that discussion with my father that I’d be a professional chess player, how I cleared the 10th a bit uncharacteristically, how higher secondary sculpted my future career, how I topped the school in 12th and the chicken pox scare just before the exams, oh, I’d keep on going!

If you like writing and if you like to revisit your life, there is no better thing than to write an autobiography. Writing an autobiography is not the same as writing diaries or making a collection of it. A diary might record things as and when they happen. Events and views would be very current. An autobiography is a recollection. It is today’s view on yesterday’s events. I get a chance to evaluate and appreciate what I have done all along. Of course I do that as soon as things happen but more often than not, it would have the bias of the recent memory. Think of a decision that you took 10 years back. The way you evaluate and appreciate that decision now would surely be better than how you’d have done the day after the decision was made or a year after the decision was made. I’d imagine that now you’d have more maturity and better understanding of the problem or the decision than you had back then. It would be so fascinating to see how sometimes things were so right back then look so wrong now and vice versa.

Also, you cannot deny that there is this joy of re-living those memories. Nostalgia is a very common human feeling. Even if you’re having your best times, you can still feel nostalgic. The joy of or longing for re-living these old memories is what makes people to arrange for a re-union, sign up in orkut and facebook, make a trip to the home town, visit those places that you did when they were young and all such stuff. We like to recollect and re-live those moments. When I went for my daughter’s school for her admission, I went back about 15 years. Just like in the movies. Almost remembered the name of the guy who got me kneel down in the sun for couple of hours. Now what I’m pondering is if I can jot down these incidents, events, memories and later on edit, arrange and organise for a meaningful mass of text. And probably, call it part one of my autobiography!

Your autobiography could even be worth sharing. Someone could know more about you. You might end up knowing more about yourself, you never know! Truly, I think, if we set out to write an autobiography, we’d know how much we don’t know about ourselves. You might have to talk a lot about your childhood to your parents, family and friends. You might be searching for that old photograph that you’re never keen to show to others, that handwritten letter which could illegibly soiled, that trophy that you won for God knows what, that gift that you always managed to hide from everyone, that piece of memorabilia that you believe is still there somewhere. To use a cliche, you’ll walk down the memory lane. And trust me, you’ll enjoy that trip.

When I say autobiography, I don’t have a 500-page book in my mind. Just a story of my life so far, whatever number of pages it takes. What will I do with that book? I don’t know what I will do with that but I’d certainly enjoy writing it and that would be, for me, well worth the time. On second thoughts, well, I can gift it to my daughter 15 years later. Not bad, eh?

When I went abroad for the first time, I just could not sleep on the very first night. I was wondering why I couldn’t sleep. It was a very spacious room for one person. It had everything you’d ask for. It had air conditioners, state of the art television, dvd players, refrigerators etc. It had everything, but one. A fan. A ceiling fan. That’s when I realised that I can’t sleep without a ceiling fan. I’ve got used to the rhythmic sound of the ceiling fan so much that the silence in that hotel room was disturbing. The silence was even eerie.

It didn’t take me too much time to realise that I can’t sleep in utter silence. Some of us are not used to silence. I was not. I’ve grown up in noisy neighbourhoods. Even at home, you always hear a voice. Silence is not really experienced. Silence is like truth. Too much of it is really uncomfortable. I realised that I needed some noise around me to sleep peacefully. Quite an irony but that was the case. So, I switched on the television and left it on a music channel at reasonable volume for a midnight. I think I was then asleep in about 10 minutes.

Even at home, we’ve got air conditioners in every living space but the fans are a must in the nights. The fans are supposed to run all day and night while air conditioners will be on and off. I’m writing this today because something happened yesterday too. I was putting my daughter to sleep in the night. My wife was busy with some work in the kitchen. While my daughter was falling asleep, I was suddenly thinking ‘why am I feeling like I’m a hotel room?’. The air-conditioner was running and the fan was off. That was it. So it was not so much about the ceiling fan. It’s about the sound of it. The fact that the fan does not leave me alone. It gives my mind some company with its noise.

Going back to the point about utter silence, how often have we got to experience utter silence? There is always some noise or sound or music that always surrounds us wherever we are. Those to some extent keep the mind busy. It helps the mind not to think anything in depth. While we are thinking about what to do in office today, we also hear the blaring horns of the truck, the radio music from the tea shop, the noise that children make etc. As we hear and register them, subconsciously we they keep our mind busy. Think for a moment that there is absolute silence around you. Or you have the remote for this whole world and you hit the mute button. In silence, 24 hours will be like 48 hours. I can’t explain you but I’m sure you can feel it. In silence, you tend to think a lot and then stop thinking altogether. It is the stage where we think a lot that we would normally find it difficult to cross.

Silence can be of many types – silence of the external world, your own outer silence and your inner silence. Contrary to public perception, these are not really mutually exclusive. Some minds can achieve inner silence even while the whole world is being bombed. For the untrained minds, it has to be a gradual process. That’s why you’re told to find a calm place (silence of the external world), and then sit quietly in a posture (your outer silence), and let your mind wander and finally stop thinking (your inner silence).

Since the world does not have a remote control, the idea of muting the world is purely imaginary. Believe me, you can mute the world as well. Because it is your ear that hears all the noise. If you choose not to hear, you don’t hear anything and you’d have muted the world. Forget muting the world, the idea of muting yourself is certainly possible. In Hinduism we have this ‘mouna vratham’ which is a ritual of silence. The less we speak the more we understand the importance of silence and also that of words. We don’t have go looking for moments of silence. But when they present themselves, we don’t have to run away from them, like I did in those abroad nights or yesterday night.

Our problem may be very simple in life; we find that we must keep doing, thinking, going, listening, running, talking or else what shall we be? We love to be filled with noise, images, words, thoughts, memories, fantasies, sensations, people, pleasures and good feelings. When these things are not, we feel bored, alone, scared and quite possibly angry and confused. The brain needs input almost continuously.

Isn’t it the case? We need to keep the mind filled with nonsense. If we don’t, the mind will go looking for the truth. And we don’t want that, do we?

I was poor at science subjects. I still am. Be it physics, chemistry or biology. I was very poor. I never understood any of those theorems and formulae. Even some of the very basic things are still a problem for me. Only physics was slightly better because I found it a bit interesting and practical. Overall, science subjects were very alien to me. As far as I was concerned, “if it moves it’s biology, if it stinks it’s chemistry and if it doesn’t work, it’s physics”.

My disconnect with science subjects never was a major hindrance for me academically speaking. I was still scoring decent 70s and 80s which did not threaten me too much. As you figured out, I wasn’t a dumb student. I was a ‘tiger’ in Mathematics. I was one of the brightest kids but with an evident weakness in science subjects. Why did I not get along with science subjects then?

When I joined high school (public school), I happened to get a lousy science teacher. But then that was the time the school got serious with the curriculum, exams, competition and all that. Primary school was just time pass. High school gave me goosebumps. And this science teacher was a waste of space and time. That early in high school, my parents didn’t think I need to be put in private classes. There are some teachers who teach in school like they’ve not been paid their salaries for years and when it comes to their private classes they treat you like you’re their adopted sons.

This man in the frame wasn’t even that. He simply sucked. I think he would have sucked even at watching movies, walking the dog, reading newspapers, combing his hair, buying his clothes – he’d have sucked at everything. I don’t know how the rest of the students managed. I generally had to understand in order to appreciate anything. I can still pass your exams but I wouldn’t appreciate the concepts. The only positive I saw was that he is not going to be my science teacher next year too. Our school would keep rotating teachers every year.

I moved to the seventh standard. Bingo. You’re right. Same man. Same agony. I was screaming ‘I’m wasting my time with you’. You must know what he actually does in the class. He is a very calm and quiet man. He is a very nice man all right, it’s just that he was just incompetent or indifferent. He would walk in quietly. He would take his chair. He would call one of the students near him and ask him to read aloud say, chapter 4. The boy generally happens to be the typical teachers’ pet who is always the public enemy. So he reads it aloud while we all listen to him reading the paragraphs of text. Practically no value add at all. While the boy reads, the teacher would not explain anything. He’d be vigilantly watching us like we were the pakistani soldiers across the line of control.

There was one time when he crossed his limits and gave a memorable explanation. I remember that even after 15 years. One day this public enemy was reading a chapter from biology. As always, he was reading at million words per minute. Suddenly the teacher interrupted. “Stop. Single cell is one cell. Now continue.” We were flabbergasted. This was fucking outrageous. What was he thinking? Jumping in as if we did not know what “single cell” meant and as if that was only thing we did not understand in that diarrhoea of biological words. He was breaking his own records. Luckily, we were moving on to the eighth standard. I knew that no teacher has taught the same class for three years in a row.

Did I say he was breaking his own records? Third freaking year in succession! I thought somebody hired him just to screw my education. I was very good in all other subjects. Only science was going from bad to worse. In fact, I had lost hopes. I lost all my interest in understanding the concepts. I was just trying to avoid it as much as possible. I started ignoring science. The neglect even turned into hatred and aversion. I had also tried to understand stuff myself with the textbooks and invariably ended up playing cricket.

The guys from the other sections of my class had very good science teachers all along. So those guys were pretty good in science. They were there to remind me how much I sucked at concepts of science. In the ninth and tenth standards, our section got some decent teachers but by that the damage was done. With a terribly poor foundation, the decent teachers could only paper the cracks. The pity is that, for some reason, I always thought I could have done well in Science and related subjects, if I had got the right education. I think I had the aptitude for that.

In the tenth exams, I got a respectable 81% as the overall percentage with 71% in science. In our school terms, it was a very good score. I had to then decide which group I was going to take in higher secondary – science with biology (yuck), science with computer science (grrr), commerce with economics (yawn) and commerce with computer science (wow).

There was this interview with the principal where my group will be determined. Apparently, there was a mad rush for science groups. There was a class system in groups too. The general perception was, if you scored low or if you’re dumb or both, you’d be assigned commerce group. Add to that, in higher secondary, the science group classes were moved to the brand new building in the school campus. So, commerce groups in the rotten old place. Science groups in the brand new building. They referred themselves as the ‘first group’ and that they are in the ‘new building’. Annoying.

D-day. My father accompanied me to the interview with the principal. We were waiting outside. The speed in which the queue moved said there is no discussion happening inside. You’re being stamped ’science’ or ‘commerce’ based on your marks, potential and conduct. I had told my father that I’m opting for commerce with computer science. He had said ‘you decide’.

Our turn. We went in. After meet and greet, the prinicpal looked at the mark sheet and asked my father ‘with biology or computer science’. Knowing that my fate was in my hands, I swiftly reacted, “commerce with computer science”. He looked a bit pizzled. “You’ve got very good marks, you can get into the science groups easily”. I said, “No sir, I want commerce with computer science only”, with a strong tone of determination and insistence. He didn’t try to persuade further. He obliged. I was granted what I wanted. In the snap of a finger, I was free from protons, neutrons, electrons, potassium chlorides, inorganic compounds, molecular models, plasma membranes and the other gangsters.

I’m a qualified chartered accountant today. Thanks goes to that single-celled teacher who managed to keep me out of the evils of science subjects. It’s always comes in a package, doesn’t it? Every good might have a bad and every bad does have a good too!

You might have thought about this many times. I have. I’m strong believer that life exists outside of Earth too. It may even be various forms of life and in various planets and stars. We know ‘nothing to little’ to even state that no life exists outside earth. When I say ‘we’, I don’t refer to you and me alone, I refer to all the scientists as well. Well, this post is not to prove that there is life outside earth. I can’t do that as well with my knowledge of science and my lazy refusal to research for facts. This post is just about the fact that planet earth is a tiny dot in the space. That shows how much we don’t know. How much is still there to know.

This is our solar system. See how earth compares in size with other planets and Sun. Earth is a tiny dot already now. You can see how much unknown is there.

And now, this image compares Sun with the Canis Majoris, the largest known star. We just saw above that Earth is a just a pixel in comparison to Sun. In the below picture see how our Sun is reduced to dot when compared to Canis Majoris. When you see these pictures, don’t just look at the pictures. Just close your eyes and visualise and try to travel to space to see how they look. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

Check out this website. There are no texts to read. Just a slideshow of images. It starts with the comparison on Earth and moon and shows who’s the boss there. And then slowly it keeps adding planets to the same image so we can compare the sizes. Then slowly, we start adding stars from outside milkyway as well and finally end it with the comparison with the largest star known so far. Check it for yourselves.

Now tell me, do you think there would be life outside of earth? So this nicely leads us to the new feature in this blog

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A teenage slum boy is accused of murdering his father. The hearings in the court are over. The judge leaves the decision to a panel of 12 jurors. The decision is to conclude guilty or not guilty. A ‘guilty verdict’ would result in a death sentence for the murderer. Whatever the decision is, it must be a unanimous decision by all 12 jurors. All the 12 jurors gather in a room to discuss and conclude their verdict on the case. It looks very much like a formality. They expect that this meeting would not take much time as the case is very clear. All evidence and witnesses are pointing towards one conclusion. It appears that the boy is guilty.

As a matter of procedure, they begin the proceedings by a vote to just reconfirm that they all agree about the guilty verdict. When the voting happens, by voice and by raise of hands, all but one vote guilty. That’s 11 voting guilty and 1 voting not guilty. As the verdict has to be unanimous, they all try to achieve that by further discussion. The whole movie is about how the jury arrives at an unanimous verdict. If you think that the 11 jurors would try and convince that one dissenting juror to arrive at a unanimous decision, read on.

The beauty is, it is not the 1 man (juror #8) that changes his vote to guilty, it is the other 11 men who finally change their vote to not guilty. Fantastic isn’t it? You would imagine that it must be easy for the 11 men to convince the 1 man. And that’s how their discussion starts. The one man who votes not guilty is very clear about his unclarity. He says that he is not sure if the accused is guilty or not guilty. The eviences and witness do not convince him either ways. He thinks that the benefit of doubt should go to the accused. They all think that they can convince this one man and just have this whole discussion finished soon. What happens is, that one man’s logic and reasoning makes everyone to reconsider their rationale and subsequently their decisions.

First of all, it’s a great story for a play. This movie was based on a story which made a very successful play. There are only three shooting locations in the movie. One is, the court. Two is, the juror’s meeting room. Three is, the open stairs that lead up to the court. The court scenes are for a few minutes. And the camera shot from the open stairs is for a few seconds. About 95% of the movie happens in the juror’s meeting room. It is a dimly lit small room which cannot hold more than a dozen people. The movie is all about the conversations, discussions and arguments among the jury. That also means that the camera work has to be fantastic. All that the camera would be focusing more often is faces of various jurors and the sometimes the group discussion.

In a matter of few minutes into the movie, we just realise that all these 12 people are 12 entirely different characters. They have different personalities coming from different socio-economic-cultural backgrounds. Until this one juror starts speaking, the other jurors wouldn’t even have thought that there is a need to discuss this case. Each one has their own reasons to have come to the ‘guilty’ conclusion. As the movie goes you see that those reasons range from their own bias, beliefs, prejudices and even negligence. Juror#8 strongly believes that the evidences and witnesses are not good enough to convict this boy and punish him with an electric chair death. He has no problem in being unpopular. He knows that he is the only man out of the twelve who has a different opinion but bravely and honestly and politely he makes his points and refuses to be knocked down by anything other than sound logic and proof.

That one juror (juror#8) does not say that the boy is not guilty. All that he says is that he does not think there is enough evidence to call him guilty. The underlying principle of that juror’s argument is that even criminals can go unpunished but innocents should be punished. Yes, that’s a Gandhian principle as we know. He says that he does not have conclusive proof or arguments to convince himself to say that the boy is guilty. He goes to prove how the witnesses and evidences are not good enough to give someone a death sentence.

During the process of the discussion, the members of the jury, one by one, not only admit they were wrong but also realise why they had come to that hasty conclusion. It ranges from bias to gross negligence to utter disregard to the life of accused individual. Not many of the jurors actually care too much about the accused boy. Deep in their hearts they think that it’s okay even if they’re wrong about their verdict. So what if the world has one slum boy less? The same bunch of jurors would have handled this verdict lot differently if the accused was say, a senator. Whereas the juror #8 looks at this case objectively and goes by one of the important premises of the justice system that all are equal in the eyes of law. As the discussion goes on, voting is taken at various intervals to see where the jury stands. With every voting opportunity, we see that juror #8 has more and more people supporting him and starting vote no guilty. Some of them even openly admit they were wrong and more importantly, why they went wrong.

I was particularly impressed with the way the character of the juror #8 is depicted. It is very easy to show him as the hero, the saviour. But his character stays true all through the movie. He does feel proud that he convinces people. He does not even feel happy. He goes on and on until there is a unanimous not guilty verdict. He does not count his conquests because he does not think so. At the end of the discussion, he only feels no sense of satisfaction that justice is delivered. When that is achieved, they all leave the room and so does he. Juror #8 was just one of the juror who thinks that he must perform his duties and responsbilities as a juror with diligence and principles. He does not think he is a hero or something by convincing everyone around the table. He just thinks that it’s just the part of the process to achieve the group objective of unanimous verdict.

Juror#8 does not know the accused personally. But still that does not stop him from arguing for him passionately for the sake of justice. It is quite natural to think that whatever one does a result or a fruit is expected, sometimes we can’t be patient for the fruit. In this case, the whole discussion that happens inside the room is not known to anyone outside the room. The boy who finally gets released does not even know that it was only juror#8 stood between him and the electric chair death. After the jury’s verdict, they all go back to their own lives. The fantastic efforts of Juror#8 is undocumented and he gets no credit for that. The thing is he does not expect any credit for that because as far as he is concerned he has to do justice to his role as a juror, without caring about whether he gets the publicity for that or not. Juror#8 is one of the most inspiring characters I have even seen in movies. The reason why I keep calling him juror#8 is because the names of the jurors are not mentioned in the movie!

If we start analysing the case in the movie to conclude if the arguments are valid or if the boy is really guilty, we’d have lost whole point of the movie. It’s not about the case. The witnesses and evidences are for the jurors and not for us who are watching the movie. For us, what we need to appreciate is the courage of the one juror, the courage of the other jurors to change their original verdict, the courage of the other jurors to admit why they went wrong, the passion of the juror #8, the noble thought and efforts of the juror#8 which does not expect any personal gain. So, please don’t go analysing the case but just stick to how the discussion evolves and concludes.

This movie was released in 1957. This is a black and white movie that runs for 96 minutes. If you have not watched this movie yet, tonight is a good time. All I can say is, they don’t make movies like this anymore!

I stopped the car as we approached another signal. My friend was sitting next to me in the car. Traffic signals generally open a new topic. Don’t know why. When the car comes to a halt after flowing freely, I guess it happens to our thoughts as well. The system restart does happen. We forgot what we were talking until then. As the car stopped for the signal, my friend suddenly looked at me and asked . . .

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A long bike-travel is something no one appreciates except the ones who travel. Sometime during my college days, when my cousin and I decided to go to our friend’s place in Cuddalore (30km from Pondicherry), I don’t think anyone appreciated – the family, friends, girlfriends – no one. There were words of caution from everyone, which was useful but no one said ‘Go on. Enjoy. Have fun’. We were warned of the speeding heavy vehicles, crossing cattle, possible fatigue, checking brakes/petrol/air, having to call etc but hardly anyone said ‘you’ll love it’.

You drive a car and you ride a bike. To say that ‘I ride a bike or he rode a bike’ does not come naturally to me. So I might just use ride and drive interchangeably. So, wherever I say drive I mean taking control of the operation of the vehicle

I don’t even remember now what we had told our families about our biking to Cuddalore. Probably, I’d have told my parents that I’d only be a pillion rider and my cousin would have said something in those lines at his place. My parents very reluctantly okayed the idea purely because they know I’ll somehow find my way. It wasn’t actually an ‘okay’ as such. It was more of ‘I advise you not to go. It’s upto you’. Of course we had got dozens of advices about this trip and we ignored some of them, including that of my parents. The fact that we were a bit careless about the plans and preparations made the trip all the more interesting. Execution as per the plan could give us satisfaction but not excitement. If we were so well planned and executed the plan so well, we may not have quite enjoyed the trip.

Both of us had Hero Honda Splendors but we had tuned them to our styles and methods. Since my cousin is a veteran of many bikes, we thought we’ll use my bike for the trip. We also took just one helmet as we thought that must be just enough. We started at 9 in the morning. To start a 200km bike trip on a March morning was not such a great idea. We agreed to swap the duties every half hour. I say duties because the pillion rider too has responsibilities as much as the rider. As a pillion rider, one needs to help the tilt and balance of the vehicle, put some sense into the rider whenever required, keep an eye on the things a rider may not normally have and such stuff. Naturally, both of us loved bike riding which meant neither stuck to the half hour limit.

Onward journey was all fine except one minor incident. It had to be when I was driving because he drives far better than me. In the ECR, you normally see all these road signs like ‘accident zone’, ‘dangerous curve’ and all that. I had negotiated quite a number of ‘dangerous curves’ only to realise they weren’t so dangerous at all. Then came the next one. I under-estimated that one. Because, my estimate was based literally on the ‘track record’. I was driving at 90km/hour and my cousin too failed in his duties as a pillion rider. I just realised that I was going straight at 90km/hour while the road is curving sharply. Some terrific presence of mind with some lightning quick hand-eye co-ordination averted a big danger. The bike skid outside the road a bit and both of us had controlled the bike with a level head. Near miss.

We reached Cuddalore via Pondicherry. Spent a night at my friends place. The next day we started at 2pm so that we don’t have to do night driving. Anything after 6pm is night driving because of no or poor street lights. We thought we could be in Chennai by 5 pm. At about 4 pm, the bike started stuttering a bit. We stopped and checked the tyres, they were fine. I just casually looked at the petrol indicator. Shock horror. Almost zero petrol. We didn’t know if the stuttering was because of the petrol but that was an unbelievable shock. We had no idea how far the bike can go. There were no petrol pumps in sight. Upon checking we were told there is one 20km forward and 15km backward and such stuff. Nothing was nearby and we ran a risk of pushing the bike for an unknown distance. I’d have agreed for half hour shifts with the first shift starting with my cousin.

The light was fading fast. We were stranded. Signals to stop the cars did not work. Now I know why they didn’t work. I don’t stop the car when a stranger signals in a deserted place. We had to think fast. Time was running out. We thought of taking the risk of using up whatever little petrol left in search of more petrol. We found out that the nearest town is Kalpakkam which was a 15 kms away or something. We went on. We had our action points clear. No over use of the clutch or gears. Maintain consistent speed. And hope. Hope that the bike lasts until Kalpakkam or near any other signs of life.

We reached Kalpakkam finally. It was a beautifully built township. It reminded me of Neyveli. The township exists all because of the Kalpakkam atomic power plant. I could see that it was a modern town. It had nice roads cutting in right angles, no high rise buildings and plenty of green too. We started hunting for petrol in there. We were told that there is only one petrol pump that could be open that Sunday evening and even that one could be closing soon. It almost 6pm then, we had to rush. And ‘the’ petrol bunk was at the far end of the Kalpakkam town. Murphy’s law reminded. The bike started stuttering again. After tremendous efforts, we reached the far end of the town and the petrol pump was there. We did not want a sucker punch, we hoped they were open and they had petrol. Our oil exploration was successful.

By the time we returned to the ECR it was almost 7. We were a bit delayed because bugger had to smoke, we had to have some soft drinks. At 7 in the ECR, you’d see nothing. It almost pitch dark. No streetlights. All that guided us was our bike’s headlights and sometimes the reflectors on the road. Most of the distance, we didn’t know where the road ended. We had no clue if we were in the middle of our side of the road or at the cliff of the road. Because of this we had to drive at a slow speed, not more than 40 kms/hour. Every time a heavy vehicle whizzed past our tiny little bike we had to hold our hearts in our mouths. Every now and then, the high beamed headlights of the oncoming vehicles almost blinded us for a few seconds. We still had to change shifts. We took it as a serious responsibility and we truly had to trust each other, to be particular, he had to trust me which luckily he did.

We have always bitched about city traffic. At that point of time, the moment we entered the city, the city traffic was such a comfort. You felt like you’re in the mainstream. The air of security was back. Traffic jams, horns blaring everywhere, gestures and abuses – man, we’re back, we’re home! It’s a nice trip to recollect. Excitement bordering on a bit of danger. The key things were that we were prepared for the worst case scenario if we didn’t get the petrol and when we had drive in the dark, we were very determined of how to drive and how not to drive.

What am I trying to tell you with this post? Nothing. I just thought I’ll write about this today.