The Perfect Climax
What Do We Do Now ?
By Avinash Savant
“My riding jacket and jeans were full of brown dirt and my face was completely dark. And that was the reason for getting all those annoying looks from sophisticated people of this planet.”
Day 10, 31 December 2012
This was the most memorable and Roller Coaster day of our lives so far. You would come to know why, in the course of reading it.
This was the last day of our journey and we had to reach Bagdogra Airport on our rented motorcycle. The plan was to meet Gatty’s (Gautan Shreshtha) person and hand him over the motorcycle, papers and spares. After that we had a flight to Mumbai at 3 PM. Considering all this we got up early at 5 AM, packed up our stuff and tied everything on our motorcycle. It was 6 AM by then and I delivered the first kick of the day. No sound of engine start. 20 more kicks delivered and no sound of engine. After 20 minutes me and the hotel manager came to conclusion that due to extreme cold weather the battery must have drained out. I was panicking by every passing moment since we had our flight tickets booked. The manager gathered other two fellows from the town and we all pushed the bike on steep climb and then tried to start it by gearing it downhill, but no luck. We did this thrice and we all got tired. One of the fellows suggested us to try our luck at a barber’s shop, where they have a vehicle battery charging unit. Me and manager went there to find the shop closed at such early hour. Manager was not letting go, he knocked the door and requested the shop owner to charge my motorcycle battery. The owner agreed and he put on my battery for charging and requested us to be back after an hour. Manger asked me to relax for some time and offered us some tea and biscuits. We waited there for an hour. Maithili was calming me down by saying we will manage something out of all this. After an hour the battery was charged and so we installed the battery back and kicked. Dhud Dhud Dhud… The thumping I was longing to hear. Me and Maithili cheered and thanked all the people who helped us in this situation and started our journey towards Bagdogra airport my 8:30 AM. We had 107 kms to cross and a limited time in hand. We decided to skip all the food breaks at least for this journey. While on our way downwards from Lava, we stopped at the shop to say good bye to the lady who was kind to us a day earlier. We told her about our morning disaster and had a big laugh about it. After saying long goodbyes we started riding ahead with lots of memories with us.
After crossing Kalimpong at around 12:30 PM we got stuck in a traffic jam. Now this traffic jam was so huge that we could literally see the vehicles lined up in row till the far away tiny curve of the mountain road. Now it was again that time for me to panic. The traffic was moving very slowly and I was somehow managing to take out our motorcycle through some of the vehicles, sometimes by going close to the valley. We reached the end of jam by 1:30 PM to see a road block caused due to land slide. BRO guys were doing their job efficiently. After half an hour the road was clear to go and now my bike was not starting. This time we were lucky enough to get it started within 5-6 kicks. After that we did not stop at anything and kept moving faster whenever we got a soother and broader road.
We finally reached Bagdogra airport by 2:15 PM and I parked the bike in airport parking area. I called up Gatty’s manager who was supposed to be there to receive the bike. To my bad luck he was not picking up his phone. I tried calling him several times, but no luck. Time to panic again. Maithili asked me to go to airport counter and ask about the boarding status and also whether they could keep the bike keys and papers. I went running as fast as I could to the airport counter and asked the officer about the flight status. On that he said, “Sir you are supposed to be boarding the plane by now and you are late. Please be quick”. My panic attack got severe at this time. I requested him whether he could take my bike keys and papers and later Gatty’s manager could collect them from him. He strongly refused my request. This time I had no time to waste in pleading and so I ran back at parking area where Maithili had unloaded all our luggage from bike. This time I tried calling Gatty’s manager again and yes he picked up the call. He too was stuck in a traffic jam while coming down from Darjeeling and so he would have reached airport by 4 PM or so. I saw a few Army men standing at the parking gates and I ran towards them. I requested them to take my bike keys and papers to which they calmed me down and suggested me to leave everything with parking area’s in charge officer. I was much more relieved to hear a positive feedback after a long time. I along with Army officers went to parking incharge who was standing there looking at us with a smile. To my surprise he started speaking to me in Marathi and said he overheard me and Maithili talking in Marathi. He too was a Maharashtrian. He said, “Sir, please do not worry at all and leave all your stuff with me and give me Gatty’s managers number”. This was when we felt the presence of Universal energies working their way towards making our journey sound. We were speechless at Army officers and Parking in charge officers noble gestures. We gave them our motorcycle keys, papers and spare parts and thanked them from the bottom of our hearts. Me and Maithili took a last emotional look at our traveling companion, the Enfield motorcycle. We then kept all our luggage on the trolley and ran towards the airport entrance. It was already 2:40 PM. All the tourists in the parking area were looking at us and giving us annoyed looks, we did not know why. We entered the airport by showing our Ticket and Identity documents and even airport staff, officials and security guards were looking at us in surprise, we did not know why. We went to collect our boarding passes when one of their senior officer in his 60s approached us with smiling face. He asked us about our flight and then calmed us down and said, “Sir please slow down a bit and relax. We would not let the flight go without boarding you on it”. Such assuring positive words were much needed to us at that point of time. He then asked us to use washrooms and get freshen up. We sent our luggage for cargo and took my tank bag along with me. Now in all this, I had forgotten to keep my metallic GoPro accessories and screws in luggage bag and instead had them all in my tank bag. During the security check, the officials asked me to empty the entire tank bag and asked various questions about the metallic accessories and screws. Finally after much interrogation and me demonstrating them how these accessories work with camera, they let me keep everything in tank bag and allowed to go to passenger area and boarding gates. This was the time when both of us finally felt relaxed, and went in a washroom. I went to the wash basin and looked in the mirror and was in a complete disbelief that the person in mirror is me. My riding jacket and jeans was full of brown dirt and my face was completely dark with dirt and that was the reason for getting all those annoying looks from sophisticated people of this planet. I pleasantly washed my face and tapped my clothes using my hands to take out as much dirt as I could. I got myself cleaned and acceptable to the airport society and got out of the washroom. Since Maithili was a pillion, she did not have that much dirt on her and so it was a much easier task for her. We smiled at each other and quietly entered our flight through the gates of Bagdogra.
Happy Traveling
