The Best things in Life happen unplanned. This Saturday, one such thing happened and its probably the best!! I had gone to my school friend Manikandan's sister's wedding in Tiruchengode along with ten other friends from school in the evening After chatting for sometime, one guy began talking about how they had gone to Yercaud from Erode late one night after the engagement of another friend's sister. Then somebody else asked "Why not go today too?" But there were apprehensions from many quarters, some thought it was boring to be going back to the same place everytime, others that we could simply watch a movie and take rest to be fresh for the Wedding the next morning!
On my part I badly wanted to go, after all it is such spontaneous moments that make life worth living! But I didn't nag the others who didn't feel like it because we were going to be using their vehicles and probably they had problems letting their vehicles travel such a long distance at night! Let me tell you here that Yercaud is 80 km from Tiruchengode and the last 30 km were on a hilly terrain. I even secretly prayed," God please make this trip materialise and in exchange you can fail me in all the four subjects for the second internals !!!"
After a lot of debating and reasoning one of my best friends Vignesh single-handedly got everyone to agree and after dinner we left. Cibi, Manoj, Kauvya Deepak and Prem were in a Honda City and Vikraman, Rajesh, Sethu, Manivannan and Vishnu were in the Dzire and Vignesh and myself got onto his R15 and were off on the Salem road at ten thirty!
I had travelled this way a number of times before as a student of Montfort with tears streaming down my eyes and now too there were tears in my eyes but only now it was because of travelling at the speed of 85 kmph on the bike!!!! I was thoroughly enjoying it - my first long distance travel in a bike and that too at night in a very fine climate. I was so excited that I didn't even mind flying one feet high into the air every time the bike negotiated a speed-breaker.
Finally we were in Salem and we came together at the foot-hills , Kauvya gave me his you-guys are-insane look but trust me Insanity is FUN! Poor thing he was the only one who didn't enjoy much I guess (at least thats what his expression told me). It was eleven thirty and we began to climb the hills.
On my part I badly wanted to go, after all it is such spontaneous moments that make life worth living! But I didn't nag the others who didn't feel like it because we were going to be using their vehicles and probably they had problems letting their vehicles travel such a long distance at night! Let me tell you here that Yercaud is 80 km from Tiruchengode and the last 30 km were on a hilly terrain. I even secretly prayed," God please make this trip materialise and in exchange you can fail me in all the four subjects for the second internals !!!"
After a lot of debating and reasoning one of my best friends Vignesh single-handedly got everyone to agree and after dinner we left. Cibi, Manoj, Kauvya Deepak and Prem were in a Honda City and Vikraman, Rajesh, Sethu, Manivannan and Vishnu were in the Dzire and Vignesh and myself got onto his R15 and were off on the Salem road at ten thirty!
I had travelled this way a number of times before as a student of Montfort with tears streaming down my eyes and now too there were tears in my eyes but only now it was because of travelling at the speed of 85 kmph on the bike!!!! I was thoroughly enjoying it - my first long distance travel in a bike and that too at night in a very fine climate. I was so excited that I didn't even mind flying one feet high into the air every time the bike negotiated a speed-breaker.
Finally we were in Salem and we came together at the foot-hills , Kauvya gave me his you-guys are-insane look but trust me Insanity is FUN! Poor thing he was the only one who didn't enjoy much I guess (at least thats what his expression told me). It was eleven thirty and we began to climb the hills.
Now, the road to Yercaud was built by the French in the nineteenth century. Since then it is only being over-laid or repaired and no new one is ever constructed in its place. The French were excellent Mathematicians and constructed a one-of-its-kind road in such a way that its slope was 1. No other hill road in this country has its slope as 1. Now what is the significance of this??? You can climb the entire twenty-hair-pin-bended hill in first gear itself without having to change gears at all!!
Of course we didn't do that now and went ahead in good speed! The view of Salem from here was breath-taking and the cool breeze on me was therapeutic. We stopped again at a bridge on the way and took a few photos and after sometime we started off again.
Now on the way all of a sudden our bike's light shone on an empty ambassador parked in the side of the road with broken glass and all and my friend shrieked and hearing that I too caught my breath only to realise that it was a vehicle that had encountered an accident. It so looked like a car out of Hitchcock's genre of films that it gave both of us the creeps. A cross on the way was the next thing to give me the creeps. But we sped on sandwiched between the two cars! The wind was colder but it was unable to dampen the spirit that was raging within me!
At the twentieth Hair-pin bend we stopped and sat on the wall and spoke for sometime and then decided to go in front of the lake and chat! It was Midnight!
We drove up there and were only talking for two minutes when three policemen came there. We didn't take any notice thinking that they'll go away but they came straight at us and asked what business we had discussing things over there at that part of the night! They took down the car numbers and the details of the car owners of the vehicles. They told us that in that same spot a guy had been stabbed on his butt a few hours ago and had been taken to the GH in a critical condition. They then let us go asking us not to stop anywhere but to go straight to where-ever we intended to go!
Our next stop was our dear school, Montfort - we stood outside her gates and looked at the newly constructed entrance and the 100 ft tower with a statue of St. Montfort on top. The school had changed so significantly since I left two years ago and that was evident from looking at the Entrance alone! I tried taking pictures but it was no use in the dark!
The journey continued from there in another direction - 20 km from Yercaud town through forests and forest-like estates is the small village of Kottachedu where a friend of ours Thenappan lived in his dad's estate - The Beverly Estates! The way was infamous for being frequented by bisons at night! Now that definitely gave me much less creeps than ghosts. The spirit of adventure took over and we rode on to the Estate.
The path was very beautiful even at night and no bisons cared to greet us on the way so we reached the estate home by 1:00 am and after some excited chatting and plans to watch a film on a laptop we all dozed off.
Getting up at 5:30 wasn't much of a problem. We got ready and started off down the hill from Kottachedu itself through another path and the way down was breath-takingly beautiful! My phone had run out of battery so forgive me for the absence of pictures! But I got you a few pictures of the estate from a friend's phone ! And the return journey in the Sun back to Tiruchengode was rather uneventful!
Yercaud is more of my first home. The only town on earth where I can find my way blind-folded. The place where I rubbed shoulders with the greatest of great teachers who inspired me! The place which moulded the way I think, reason and act! It is always a pleasure to go upto this beautiful place nicknamed poor-man's- Ooty for all the rich fun she has to offer!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this trip and would love to do it again another time.....Now as I sat back and relive this recent experience in my head "Adieu! You guys! Godspeed in whatever calling that has come your way!"
Can't imagine I'm reading this blog after 3 years. Can't forget such crazy stuff we did.
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