Sunday, August 03, 2008

Curious incident ... in the night time !


This has to go down as one of the most amazing 'Friendship day' ever for me. So much has already happened and the day has just begun!
Me and a friend, Vinay, decided to spend the 'Friendship day's eve' in a unique way. At 11PM we decided to take our bicycles and step into the 'sleepy town' that Allahabad is known to be. Me on my Mach1 and Vinay on some 'Y' Gen bike! The streets leading to the 'Shastri Bridge' (over the river Ganga) was in fact not dead at all, the 'Kavariyas' (devotees of Lord Shiva, who take the holy water from the Ganga and make a journey bare foot to 'Kashi') were swiftly covering the distance at night when the sun is not cracking down on them. But as we moved out of that area we could almost hear the crickets in the trees and bushes (the scenario for a city like Delhi, Bangalore is so different). It was around 11:30 at night and the streets were empty!
We thought of moving on to the 'new' bridge that has come up in the city in the last year, a true structural 'wonder' for the city of Allahabad. It has always looked beautiful at night, and it was exceptionally beautiful this time, Yamuna flowing below, a nice breeze, reflection of the street lights on the waves, it was amazing. Thats the kind of places where I would like to propose to my girl some day ;)
Sitting, talking, consuming the ambience it was 12:00, friendship day!
All this while when we were on our cycles or sitting on the bridge we found many curious eyes trying to figure out what we were up to, most of them police/security people. I must confess, it is not natural for any one to walk around so late in Allahabad. The curious eyes somehow didn't come to us and ask us anything (and remember that we were on cycles, the terror mechanism of the recent bombings in certain parts of the country).
Next we decided to venture into the 'heart of the city', Civil Lines. Again, all empty streets with an occasional passer by. People who pull rickshaws by the day, sleeping on the footpaths, police/traffic police dozing off in their patrol vehicles. Moving slowly across the sleepy town, sharing stories of ghosts and plans of the future, we were now feeling the effect of our expedition in our legs. We decided to head back home, a CD of 'The pursuit of happiness' waiting for us. When we finally returned and I did a rough calculation, I was amazed to find out that we had covered nearly 35 Km, returning back at 2PM. Legs were paining (now that the effect of the little beer we had before we set out had faded), the buttocks (I'm sure) had an impression of the cycle seats, we were tired. Some fresh apple juice made us ready for the movie. What a movie!
We had plans to go for a run in the morning (you would have guessed by now, that didn't happen). By the time we did get up at about 7:30 in the morning we were in for a big surprise. When we were watching the movie in the night someone had jumped inside the house boundary and taken his cycle along! Don't know what to say now!

1 comment:

Harsha said...

nw i see the reason y some1 didnt evn hav time to reply back good wishes.. bt thn pls note that jus like us the terrorists these days are using eco friendly tools like cycles, cng cars to bombard our cities..
neways.. happy frndship day!!