Sunday, February 12, 2012

Veladrome


If I had any doubts that I'd still be sleepy after only a score of the proverbial forty winks, they were cleared emphatically in the first few seconds down the famous Amod Path slope. The morning, still in its winter slumber, seemed to throw a blast of icy wind across my unprotected face. Misty-eyed, I took it in my stride, puffing my cheeks in and out with warm air. A slight moment's hesitation forced me to check my right jacket-pocket: Haddu's Hershey's bar was safely locked in. Head down, hood up, I glided past the chirpy many as we reached the road by the canal...


It's the final semester, finally. The time I couldn't wait for ever since that first meal in the Rajendra Bhawan mess. But three years of watching one and many sing that cloying swansong has left me unsentimental. Five years is way too long anywhere, leave alone a hellhole like Roorkee. It'll be goodbye and good riddance, when the time comes. Until then, to paraphrase Lynyrd Skynyrd quite incorrectly, there's too many places I haven't been.


One of them's been that long misty stretch called the canal road at the stroke of dawn. Following the many faintly visible jerseys ahead of me, I forgo the familiar right turn across the bridge towards the railway station, and soldier on ahead in the now navy blue darkness. The road's full of speed breakers, and the many squirms of anguish and the hollow clanks of metal ahead forewarn me of their oncoming agony. A diversion's taken, and now on my left is a vast stretch of fields, only slowly growing back to life after the kharif harvest. On the right, an offshoot of the Solani aqueduct, a grey mist floating over its calm blue surface. And the two still dark sides, are seemingly seperated by an incredibly peeved wall of wind, that'd flipped my flimsy hood off long ago. The annual HEC Cycle Race could take a break- I stood up to soak it all in. It wasn't 5:15 a.m., like that Knopfler song I love, but in that cold pre-dawn haze of tranquility, I took those few breaths that I'll just hold in as long as I last.


Past the chaotic midway point, scything through the remaining heavy air from the night before, chest number 114 entered the portals of the campus at dawn. After an intriguing battle with number 126 ended in a comic defeat, I collapsed at the foot of a huge tamarind tree. 4Th placed Nivedan and 6th placed Ashwin were nice enough to keep me conscious enough to soak in the ecstasy of finishing the race, halved as the distance may have been from the original 36 kilometres. And after missing the year's annual b-plan contest, and the last DJ Springeezz, I finally had my first check off the bucket list.


P.S.- In the long hiatus between this post and the last, I missed out on a few things. In a short summary: there was one last sexual Nihilanth trip, a first New Year's Eve at home in five years and this little icky green blot on the face of the blogosphere turned four. Happy happy!