Chronicles of a Monsoon BIker

WARNING: Post peppered with profanity.

Clutch, flick, release and twist, the newest dance on the block, clutch, brake, tread and release, it’s the craze baby. Faster, clutch, flick, release, twist, release and brake, can you keep up? Hold on now it gets complicated, clutch, flick, release, twist, swerve, brake, release, twist, swerve and twist some more. See now you’re getting the rhythm, now the grand finale, all together, no point losing it all now. Clutch, flick, release, twist, brake, clutch, tread, release, twist, swerve, clutch, flick, release, swerve, avoid-a-cop, twist, jump-a –light, twist, release, swerve, cut-the-bastard-off, twist and crash.

Got all of that? Now, do it all over again, you want to improvise? Sure, sure that’s where the fun’s at. Just remember the basic steps of clutch-flick-release -twist and clutch-tread-release-twist and everything else is yours to decide. Add in a swerve or too if you are feeling sprightly, brake a lot if your day’s been off or just throw in a lot of scrapes and crashes if that’s how you get your kicks. No children, nothing’s taboo, what a man (or woman) and a bike do behind closed doors is nobody’s business.

Drink and drive, smoke-up and drive, hell , shoot your damn head off with a sawn-off shotgun and drive, do whatever just don’t get in my way.

Just spent Sunday driving, clocked up close to a hundred in this choked and congested shithole, Hyderabad and boy was it fun. Came home with an aching left wrist (my clutch hand, for those not in the know), sore ankles from all the braking and gear shifting and in a foul mood.

Driving in an Indian city on our obstacle-course roads is a challenge, cos if the pot-holes don’t get you, some psychotic motorist surely will. Sure I’m a bloody loony on the road, but if you can’t beat ‘em join the motherfuckers, cut like nobody’s business, rip, swerve, pop a wheelie just for the heck of it. Like Cat Stevens now Yusuf or whatever said, baby it’s a wild world, it’s hard to get by just upon a smile. That would just be dumb, sitting at the side of the road, flashing an inane smile at the insane motorists that pass you by.

Sorry, just feeling a bit anarchistic at the moment. I am a partly responsible motorist for sure, I stop at every red light, even if I feel like a total idiot stopped in the middle of the road while people whizz by, stopped at the risk of being rear-ended by some jackass who won’t believe that someone’s actually stopped. In Pune it was easy there were a fixed set of signals that every one jumped, so you could learn pretty easily and avoid any untoward incident by doing something unheard of and actually stopping at one of them. Here in Hyderabad I’ve figured after about a month and a half of driving that they have their own rules too. There are a set of lights that people don’t stop for, just that it’s a bloody universal set and contains every bloody light in the city. Nobody stops unless there’s a frigging cop standing swinging a baton and a book of traffic tickets on a string, whistling nonchalantly to himself, not a care in the world, taunting you, tempting you, daring you to try, try jump the light .

Jim Morrison told us to roll baby roll, obviously he’d never been caught in office traffic on a post-monsoon waterlogged road on the back of a bike ankle deep in brown gook, being sprayed by every passing car like a succession of dogs marking their territory. Honestly sometimes I feel like a wholesale lamp-post and not even a bloody enchanted CS Lewis Lampost (The Magicians Nephew and the Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe, if you’ve never read the books or watched the movie) just a regular, shitty, half rusted lamp-post, up to my knees in stirred shite, gnashing my teeth, growling under my breath and occasionally out loud.

Blah! There, I said it, that’s how I’m feeling. All the excitement of getting out of office, the day’s work left behind. A whole bloody evening left to look forward to, catch the elevator down, out into parking, swing a leg over my machine, thumb it to life, put it in gear and open up my throttle, only to have to slam on the brakes as I leave the gates and enter the traffic jam. The lake bordering the road out of office has flooded it’s banks from the recent rains, the construction site bordering the road has been flooded. Both are emptying water into each other and on to the road that runs in between. I roll up my pants, tread down a couple of gears and make my way warily through the water almost up to my engine. The car in front flashes his brake lights, I slow down to a dead stop, look around for a way out, none, reluctantly I put my feet down. Damn, the only thing I hate more than wet socks is wet underwear.

The moment my rear wheel emerges from the water, I throttle up, I fishtail as my soaked tyre struggles for grip on the slick silt and gravel. I’m spraying everyone, including myself, I couldn’t care less. All I want to do is get home now. The moods worsening now, out of sympathy, the clouds part slowly to reveal an impotent orange dying sun. Nothing save a drink, some Old Monk (black rum, my favourite drink after a cold beer on a hot day) maybe and some loud music can salvage my mood.

Back on the main road that runs through Madhapur, the arsehole of Hyderabad, now I’m in my own element, traffic is fast, but I’m faster. I know every pot-hole, every bump, every cop, where the bus will pull over, I know the best line through the turns, I know where the wanker with the death-wish will jump on to the road. Like a level in a video-game that I’ve played a million times, I brake, twist, clutch, release, twist, flick and tread without even thinking about it. It’s so predictable, my favourite turn, a long right, where everyone takes the inside, leaving me the outside all to myself, I know, just after the turn is where the slow moving traffic accumulates, in my lane. I flick my indicator, right, indicate with a slow flick of my hand, which could mean anything from screw you to watch out here I come, then hand back on throttle, I pull through the gap between the white sedan and the red SUV, found another gap, power up, as I chase down the next car. Out come the big guns, just like in a video game, I put away the Desert Eagle and pull out my Uzi, pepper the SUV I’m overtaking full of lead. Next the cab in front, he’s a tough bastard, all over the road. Fake to the left then hard to the right as he covers his blind spot, AK-47 in hand I scream past him, blood and guts, bing! One more kill, the points rack up, the engine quietens as the road slopes down, now I’m on a roll. They’re fleeing helter skelter, Ha! Meet your maker you sorry sons-of-bitches....aaargh I’m a god, a GOD I say, bow down before me you insignificant specks of turd, flecks of a wet fart on the sides of a toilet bowl.

On the home stretch now, smaller game, pedestrians, easy kills as I warm down, only the road is done, I’m on a stony slippery mud path now, still spraying the scenery, excavating the road as I pass. Tight turn, slip on a patch of damp, clutch, tread, tread, brake, tread, open the metal gate with my front wheel. Tread again, half a flick into neutral, engine-kill, kick out the stand, twist-key, push-in-key, twist handle to the right, twist-key, pull-key-out. I’m home. Press-release-button, tug-at-strap, pull-helmet-off. Level complete. Game over.