Well, it was to celebrate Vishnu’s birthday. The bugger turned 18 the other day. Damn it, it means I will have to hear that “you are still a minor” joke for the next eight months. Anyway, we decided to go to Osiyan. The real desert is in Jaisalmer. Osian though had its own miniature version of Jaisalmer’s sand dunes. We thought we would stay there the night, drink, talk around a cosy bonfire burning merrily all night under the starry sky on the dunes….
Piyush and Virmani have driving licences. So that meant Vish and I was to be pillion. We needed bikes and there was a rent-a-bike, in the city on station road. The deal seemed ok. 200 bucks for 24 hours. We got hold of two pulsars-a black one and a deep purple, Piyush and I on the first. Initially we thought of going in the morning on Sunday i.e. today, but then Vish on a sudden burst of adrenaline decided to leave immediately on Saturday evening. I was assigned to fill up the out passes for the overnight journey. but the assistant hostel warden refused to let us out.
Why not, sir?
Because too many people seem to be going on trips.
But please sir, it is just for sight seeing, we’ve never been to Osian.
So what? Out passes can be given only for going home. If Osian is your home, I’ll give you the out passes.
Well, I guess you got the point; we were not going to able to go.
But with people like Virmani, Piyush and to a lesser extent Vish, one learns never to accept defeat, at least not in non-academic pursuits. Piyush recommended forging, Virmani for a second attempt.
So with some deft licking of boots, we managed to get the permission we much needed. We ran then, right outta the university, within minutes we had packed-4 mattresses and an empty bag (to be filled up by booze en route!!). We didn’t know what we were in for then, never realised how cold it would be. The bike rental guy didn’t have helmets that could actually protect your head. They were all cracked. But he said it’s only to evade the police. Also it was evident on the face of it that the engine had been modified to give more efficiency. Safety had been sacrificed for performance, and that’s the only thing that mattered to us anyway.
We rode then, hi-fived just before we started the engine. Finally it felt like we were in college.
Piyush zoomed through crowded Nai Sarak manoeuvring around camel carts, startled bi-cyclists, and a host of other vehicles which I couldn’t make out in the haze of speeding. His long hair billowing in the wind all over my face. This guy could drive.
We stopped for petrol at the nearest bunk. After filling up and checking for air, we moved on. This time faster, as we were out of the city and on an empty stretch. Piyush pushed the vehicle, which willingly obliged its master, although making a curiously echoing sound in the process. We stopped enroute at Chamunda, a highway side Dhaba. Rich food, loads of butter. But we ate light anticipating a strenuous ride ahead. We also bought booze- a bottle of RS half and another quarter of RC. Also we got hold of a bisleri 2 litre bottle and a thums up 1.5 L. Evidently we intended to drink quite a lot…….it was pretty enlightening for me. I have never bought drinks before. All of them were being referred to in their short forms- RS Royal Stag, RC Royal Challenge.
We zoomed off then into the dark desert highway, Hotel California on our lips. It was like The Eagles had actually composed that song for us, for today. I unlike the other three guys didn’t have gloves. And as we rode on, all of us froze in varying degrees depending on the number of layers of clothes we wore. Piyush and Virmani realised that they had lost their feeling below their knees. For me it was my fingers, it felt as if they had to be amputated. They were a pair of lifeless driftwood, cold and dense. But then again we weren’t sissy to complain. We were here to have fun, and we had it no matter how chilly things got. Who gave a damn!!!
The guy at the back bent forward and yelled into the bikers’ ears. No body heard the other, yet all four of us used to nod in agreement. We decided to race.
“One, two three...!” I shouted at the other bike.
The pulsars fled into the night, with the headlights piercing through the veil of darkness.
Whoops of joy escaped from our mouths, the sound already left far behind as the two wheelers accelerated.
Piyush shouted into my ear, “DUDE, I THINK WE’RE DOING A HUNDRED! DAMN THAT SPEEDOMETER, WE CANT SHOW OFF”
Thankfully the road was entirely deserted, not a soul in sight. Not that we could’ve seen them anyway, the night was such. I looked around on both sides. Ha! The advantage of being a pillion. Piyush though was staring straight ahead, his eyes tiny slits, and the better to see. On both sides there was nothing but emptiness, seemingly stretching till infinity. Now and then there were lights on top of some hill, those orange specks, so irrelevant at such a distance.
There came a signboard asking us to slow down. It was a railway crossing. We stopped, waiting for the train to move on. We decided to take pics. So with 50 odd people staring, the four of us took snaps of each other, against the bikes, against the railway crossing, using the streetlamp as the camera light. We reached the Osian temple complex at 10: 30 p.m. It took us 15 minutes to start walking. Only then did we look around. We removed our helmets and tried to rectify the damage to our hair, using the rear view glass as our mirror.
The place was deserted. It was like a ghost town. The temple gate was open though and we walked through. We needed directions to the dunes and some firewood to realise our dreams. We found a group of five men who were huddling around a fire, sitting on their haunches. They didn’t have a clue why four guys should want to come all the way from Jodhpur to spend the night freezing on the dunes. Obviously they were of no help. We asked others outside. Curiously many people turned up, all of them young men. This led us to believe that Osian was a gay district, and I have to admit, we were quiet unnerved at the thought!
We drove off then to the market place in search for wood. Got lost, stopped near a banyan tree, fell off the bike and still no people. That’s one thing about this place, people either come out of nowhere or else disappear equally mysteriously. We kept driving on. Saw a few lights in the distance on top of a hill, never realising that’s where we needed to go. We stopped at a Dhaba. The same old story- No firewood and no recognisable sand dune. But this time Virmani and Vish suggested cutting some dry branches off some bushes by the side of the road. They were horribly enthusiastic; I knew the idea would come to nought. I didn’t say anything though, for fear of being abused and being called a pussy. Piyush though was busy, talking to his girlfriend.
There was a minor problem though. The ass was using my cell.
“DUDE, DON’T SPEND ALL THE MUTHERFUCKING BALANCE!!” I yelled after him as he walked off to get some privacy. As if we cared though, about the gooey conversation he was going to have with his girl.
“What the fuck do you need balance for anyway, you just got dumped. Who are you going to spend it on?” Vishnu teased from behind my back. Virmani snorted in agreement. I looked back. Both of them were deeply engrossed in the job at hand-literally. For I could see only their upper torsos. The lower half was lost in the thorns. Virmani the bulkier of the two was doing the dirty job. By holding one end of the branch in his right hand and his left foot as a lever, he managed to price out three ten foot long branches. Vishnu was holding the torch overhead to prevent their throats getting slit. Virmani then proceeded to throw the dried branches javelin style on to the road. Piyush too was done by then. I had lost just 30 bucks. Not bad considering his average per call was nothing less than 120 bucks.
We had to move on now in search of the dunes. Vish and I held the reward by our fingertips to prevent getting pricked. It was a sight to see. Piyush and I followed the other two. He couldn’t control his laughter as we saw huge branches trailing the pulsar moving awkwardly ahead of us. We stopped 200 metres ahead. Virmani had seen something like sand on the right hand side of the road through the beam of his headlight. We decided to send Piyush on his bike to investigate. The side road though was sand upto a foot or so. He couldn’t get far, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. The bike swayed perilously on both sides, but at the end of the pendulum swing he managed to strike his foot out to break the fall. But defeat was inevitable. Virmani and Vish decided to explore on foot instead. So I waited there with Piyush. He got a call again:
“Airtel sucks!! The bastards are everywhere. How the fuck am I getting a signal even here? I realised that he probably had a fight with his girlfriend and didn’t want to talk to her, so I didn’t pursue the matter.
So we waited hopefully for the other two to get back. We could see the torchlight bobbing in the distance. May be they had struck gold after all, in the form of dunes of sand!!
They came back fifteen minutes or so disappointed. We had to move on now. It had been more than two hours since we started the trip, with no luck.
The four of us stood around the bikes, the pulsars being our round table for discussion.
“I suggest that we ask for directions, otherwise we’d end up getting lost.”
We ended up sleeping by the road. After cleaning up the shit of camels and dogs, we spread out the blankets: two on the ground and two to cover us. The branches we had cuts and the two bikes forming our enclosure. We looked up at the star lit sky. It was brilliantly lit, almost as good as Jaisalmer. Our feet became numb. A truck stops midway on the highway. We wonder whether the driver saw our cigarette lights or the reflection of the headlights upon the shining armour of the bikes.
We woke up in the morning to see curious faces of half a dozen villagers. Looking around, GEES, we had slept in the middle of nowher. And there it was in the distance, the dunes. How did we miss it last night I have no clue!!
We went there after all and wow, it was so amazing. We sat on top of the highest dune and looked around, the scenery was breath taking to say the least. While Piyush and I dozed off Virmani and Vish decided to do what they know best: fight!! So they had a good dog fight with Virmani coming trumps…although Vish will never admit it….;)
We left the place then at around 12:30 p.m. We went back to the temple gate where our bikes were parked, this time though we realised that Osian was not that dead a place after all. The temple complex was abuzz with activity. Our tummies rumbling, we had a lousy thali and went up the temple. The first thing you would notice are the steps: stretching right up to the top of the hill where the temple was situated. We had to remove our footwear at the entrance itself. It took us 15 minutes or so, there was so much sand in them! There was one Reebok, one Nike, a woodland and some other fancy brand I don’t remember. No way were we gonna risk leaving them without supervision. I volunteered to wait there while the other three went ahead. It was a rewarding decision on my part, for I got a direct peek at all the hot foreign tourists coming and going!!
Later back in college we found out that a bunch of fifth years were planning a trip to Osiyan in two jeeps. the four of us glanced at each others our eyes sparkling with anticipation.
We' ve done that already, WHAT NEXT!!
