Night Riders Inc.

The distance between Vastrapur and Gandhinagar is roughly 30 odd kilometers. The roundtrip took us about 1.5 hours and 74 km on an open highway. Before you do the mental math, let me clarify that its true what they say - The average man will sooner have a body part waxed than ask for directions!

My personal sense of direction has always been a little, shall we say, off. K. is, if possible, much worse :)

We left campus at 2 am and immediately proceeded for 10 km in the wrong direction. To give us some credit, we went in exactly the opposite direction. No mean feat that!

There's something about the wind in your hair on a cool morning, an open road, and no destination or timetable in mind. For as far as we could see, the road was ours.

As Sally says, in Cars

Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.

And we ended with piping hot parathas at a roadside dhaba..

A pic of me at a sign saying Gujarat Tourism welcomes you

My Morning Run

I used to sleep at 4 am. Then it became 5. Nowadays, I usually sleep by 6.30 - 7 in the morning. Sometimes not even then. To say my cycle has turned upside down and inside out is an understatement.

For the past week or so, I've been going at 6 am to get chai from the roadside shop opposite the campus gate. Its usually an motley crew of people who're awake. We've usually spent half the night chatting, talking, or just hanging out and watching the stars at LKP. And then at 6, we get on DBab, message everyone who's online, and head for chai. Steaming hot cuttings of sweet chai, with half the junta heading to the tiny cart around the corner for cigarettes. The most amazing and mundane conversations I've had here, I've usually had over morning chai.

I have two classes left. One paper and two exams due before I'm done.
Unless I decide to go back to school at some point of time, this could be the last time I 'study'.

I feel the pressure to say something poignant, something significant about this experience. But it won't come now.. the memories, the nostalgia..

Later maybe, a few months from now when I realize with a pang that I miss the complete freedom of an academic environment. No fixed schedule. No real responsibilities. And no real pressure.

Maybe when I'm working, I'll look back and think about this time, when I had nothing to do except plan holidays and read books.

Right now, I'm just having too much fun.