As the title of this post may indicate, I got married about a year back. After getting married, my wife and I went to Malaysia and Singapore for our honey moon. I must say unlike my natural instincts of doing things in an unplanned way, for this trip alone, I had planned it very well in advance. I didn't want the trip to get messed up at any cost. Since it was the first time I was travelling with my wife, I wanted to build a reputation of a fine husband who could manage things really well. Thankfully nothing went wrong during the trip. We had a great time.
A few months back going for a trip on our first wedding anniversary came up during our routine walk that we do after having dinner. I started thinking of some fancy place like we did for the honeymoon, however my wife, Ranjitha wished to do the planning this time. To my surprise she expressed keen interest in doing a cycle ride with me as part of the trip. As she had never done a cycle ride more than a kilometre, I thought a short ride of about 10 to 15kms in the woods or country side would be a cool thing to do during an outing. I suggested on renting cycles at some hill station like ooty or Coorg to do an hour long morning rides during the vacation. There was certainly some positive feeling when it comes to cycling.
As days passed by the idea of cycling together grew over us. Ranjitha insisted on doing some practice rides together, instead of post dinner walks, especially during the weekends as traffic near our locality is comparatively less. We did cycle on streets in which we used to walk regularly and also on streets we had never been to. We managed to cycle about 8-10kms per day during some weekends. I was pretty impressed by her enthusiasm to cycle - I felt really nice that she was keen on experiencing something that I'm passionate about.
About a month back during some discussion, Ranjitha came up with this idea of doing a cycle ride from Mysore to Hassan. Considering the fact she is from Mysore and my home town is Hassan, she felt doing a ride of this sort is meaningful and memories of the first anniversary will remain in us for a long long time. She also wanted to visit my folks, who reside in Hassan, after the trip. Though I listened to her grand idea patently I was sceptical about its feasibility. The shortest distance between Mysore and Hassan is nearly 115kms and Ranjitha had hardly done one third the distance if we sum up all the practice rides we had done until then. Well, I didn't wish to dishearten her at that moment by showcasing my doubts about her cycling skills and hence, somehow managed to pull out an optimistic smile on my face during the discussion. I did however tell her that we should plan to complete the ride in two days.
At first I thought Ranjitha was just infatuated with the idea of cycling between our respective home towns, but I was wrong. She really wanted to do the ride. Being what she is, it was not possible for me to convince her other wise and being a cyclist myself I didn't want to miss any opportunity to cycle even if it was a matter of short distance. As our anniversary approached, I was thrilled to see a very positive optimism in her about doing the ride, which in a way challenged my sceptical thoughts about her completing the planned route.
We left with our cycles to Mysore by a Multi-axle Volvo bus, which has a fairly large luggage carrying space that was able to easily accommodate our cycles. Neither Ranjitha nor I told my parents about our exact plan as it would have made them worried about Ranjitha's well being in doing such an expedition. We just informed them that we were doing sight seeing in and around Hassan, and do a very small bit of cycling for the sake of fun. With all the apprehension and with fair bit of preparations( that also included some amount of shopping at Decathlon store at Mysore) we were all set to start the expedition at 4:30am on our first wedding anniversary, that is precisely 9th June. Even before we started our journey of 125kms, Ranjitha's cycle's front tyre's tube had got punctured. I fixed the puncture and we began our quest at 5:15am, that's when I actually wished Ranjitha a happy anniversary!
The first stretch of the ride from Mysore to KRS was about 30kms that we managed to complete in the planned duration of one and half hours. We were able see the sunrise when we were about to reach KRS. We had great pleasure in witnessing beautiful sceneries around us through out the ride, only on a few occasions we managed to click. We continued the ride further to reach a village called Chinkurli. We had idli and vada as our breakfast in that place. Unfortunately after KRS we took a route that increased our over all journey by 10kms, but on the positive side we had an opportunity to see my mother's home town and also a town where my father did his education along with his siblings.
After Chinkurli we reached K R pâté by around 11:00. We found a neat place to take the much required rest. We had completed a little more than half the total distance, that too at a very impressive pace. It was incidentally a place my grand father had once worked for some time and my father studied in a polytechnic institute. My dad's younger brother, that is my revered uncle Gopal, had called me to wish us for the first anniversary during the time we were taking rest at KR Pate. He remembered his good old days there when I told him we had cycled to that place. Ranjitha and I attended a few calls there before we continued our journey. As expected every one we spoke to were completely amazed about our ride and most of them pretty much vindicated me for taking up such a risk. Though, I must say, there was a sense of appreciation in all the calls we attended.
After completing KR pâté the sun was no more kind to us. Even the clouds that covered the sky in the morning wasn't protecting us from sun rays by noon. We were fairly exhausted by the time we had reached KR pâté, future planned destinations seemed less achievable considering our plight. Over and beyond, Ranjitha was feeling drowsy too, which further retarded the progress. We stopped below a tree to take some more rest. Ranjitha slept for some time as if it was no strange place to her. She slept on my lap for some time and then she seemed completely alright. After taking rest she told me that It was indeed a "powerful" power nap that she seldom had in the past. We cycled at a fairly low pace though consistently till we reached Chennarayapattana, also called as CR Patna. Reaching CR Patna was nearly completing 100kms of the ride from Ranjitha's home at Mysore. That was some real good feeling!
Reaching CR Patna would have not been possible if we had not found an old man selling jack fruit on the high way. It is said that jack fruit is one fruit to be had when you are hungry and our state was exactly that. We also found just plucked tender coconuts about 10kms before CR Patna. The tender coconuts had the same taste as that of the tender coconuts that we harvest at my home in Bangalore. As a matter of fact the coconut tree planted at my home was from a farm from CR Patna, which happens to be my mother's home town. The tender coconut water would have surely compensated for the lost salts and minerals from our body. I've never missed having tender coconut water in my cycle rides in the past.
At CR Patna we had an amazing south Indian food at a Jain mess called Padmavathi mess. Some local guy there suggested that mess as the best choice for lunch. The people at the mess turned out to be very sweet. They enquired about our ride and offered some place to take a rest, that too in a private room. We immediately accepted the kind offer and took the best advantage of our time at Padmavathi to sleep for about 45minutes in that room. Before we left the mess, we thanked the people there and also invited them to our place in Bangalore if they happen to visit the city.
The last stretch was CR Patna to Hassan, which was nearly 40kms. It was about 4PM when we left Padmavathi mess. Since the major battles were fought with great fortitude we had little apprehension in conquering the final destination, which was my home town. We had hit the National high way, that all the way extends to Mangalore. The road was neat and broad, but constituted more ups compared to downs. The weather was just fantastic, as the clouds had pretty much covered the sky. In this stretch we managed to cycle next to each other. We felt good about ourselves on the task we were about to complete and also about the experience we had shared during the ride. During the ride we met some complete strangers enquiring about our ride and wising us success. Some blessed us whole heartedly while some were puzzled about the idea behind it and while some were jerks trying to intimidate. No matter what, unfortunately, we grabbed the attention of one and all, who were on the road, which is something you don't really wish on your wedding anniversary!
Reaching Hassan nearly tested our patience as it turned dark and the roads didn't have street lights, and its also a normal mental syndrome during long distance cycling that we feel the destination is close but still we don't reach the final point as calculated. We also got misguided by a sign board that made us cycle on a wrong path, which further infuriated us. By the time we reached Hassan it was about 7:30PM. We had pretty much celebrated the success of completing the ride when we came across a government agricultural college located on the out skirts of Hassan, as the college entrance had Hassan written on the name plate. The final destination was my maternal aunt Seetha Lakshmi's house located about a kilometre before the Hassan city bus stand.
Reaching my aunt and uncle's house was a relief more than anything else. Ranjitha was pretty much exhausted. Meeting my lovely aunt and uncle gave us a very comfortable feeling. They were extremely happy to see us and also to know that we had cycled all the way from Mysore to visit them on our very first wedding anniversary. We also mentioned about our plan to visit other relatives in Hassan the next day. All the pain we had accumulated during the ride was refreshingly compensated by the great hospitality of my aunt and uncle. We called my parents and Ranjitha's parents after reaching, and told the true story of what we really did. Needless to say that they were shocked to hear that Ranjitha had managed to cycle nearly 140kms in a single day that too on an up terrain. My mother, as always, yelled at me for doing the tough ride, where as she was very impressed by Ranjitha's courage. She did expresses her appreciation to Ranjitha, though with some reservations. She insisted Ranjitha to never do such a ride again as it involved a great magnitude of risk, in her opinion. However I felt that she was secretly proud of us for completing the ride.
The following day we met my folks in Hassan, which include my father's maternal aunt Lakshmi Narasu, who is 93 years old. The old lady was super happy to see us come to visit her. We also met one more uncle Ashwath Narayana, who spends most of his time in spirituality and literary activities. Ranjitha and I managed to meet some more of my relatives before we took a bus to Bangalore. The time spent at Hassan was fantastic. We will remember this visit to Hassan more than any other for obvious reasons.
Now that I'm about to conclude this long post, I'm thinking of what to write about my wonderful partner who in order to make me happy on a special day did such an expedition with me for the fact that I love long distance cycling. Well, I really don't have words to express what kind of joy I have experienced in doing this entire trip with her and how lucky I'm to have a wife who so vividly gets my concept of happiness; If there is something impossible to articulate for me now - this is it!
