Episode 26 : The ride back home - Concluded

Previously on The Edward Hyde Show...

The 100ft Road at the southern end of the city connects a populous suburb to the eastern end of the city. A deserted road, only the brave (that is those who drive trucks) use it at night. The road is raised to a considerable height from the surrounding areas, so I had no reason to expect ditches. Expecting lack of lights on that road, I was not surprised to see pitch-black darkness in front of me.

Barring the headlight cutting through it.

I kept to the median dividing the road and rode on at a slow speed of 25kmph. And thought to myself, this is the place where I test-rode my bike the very first time. Un-helmeted and with broken speedometers, Archer (my brother-in-law) and I rode like the wind. He on his RD350 and I on my Thunderbird. And here I am riding at speeds totally unknown to me on this road!

The rain fell upon me like shards of steel. I have ridden through rain before. I have felt rain fall on the visor of the helmet and break into tiny droplets. I never saw rain like this before. The lone light of the bike illuminated the falling rain and made it look larger than what it was. The raindrops felt like tiny stones hitting the visor.

Soon I could not see what was ahead. The spectacles had misted over and so had the visor. There was no option but to let the rain hit my face. After depositing my spectacles safely in my shirt pocket, I continued riding.

A few vehicles and two-wheelers went in the opposite direction. This gave me the confidence that I could make it too. Soon I came to a board that showed the way to a college very close to home. Only a kilometre away, but I was sure the road was in no position to let me use it. I turned the bike and pointed it at the road ahead.

I was right. The road was a mud path and at the bottom, a few yards away, was a huge puddle. There were bound to me many more like that after that one!

I had only a few more kilometres to go before the turnoff to go to the suburb near home. I expected another 15 minutes of riding. I only feared running out of petrol, even though I knew I had at least a couple of litres in the tank. The bike moved on, slicing through rivulets of water sliding down the surface of the road.

Soon a man on a TVS Victor overtook me. I thought he was daft to ride at that speed. I was in no mind to fall into a ditch and find myself alone and helpless!

The taillight of the TVS Victor slowly grew faint in the distance. Then, it seemed to steady itself and continued to glow. Perhaps he was moving at the same speed as I was? Then the light went out.

After a few minutes, the road ahead looked to climb and seemed to shimmer. I could not understand what it was. Was it a wet signboard reflecting the light? Was it a grey concrete wall?

Then I saw him. The man on the TVS Victor. His bike had stopped moving and he told me the road ahead had water as high as one's waist. And there was no way we could avoid it. The only way out was through, and on trying that his bike stopped. I pointed at a van that were moving in the opposite direction. Bikes cannot, he smiled sadly.

Now I had to ride back all the way, and... and what? Wait at the railway gate till it opened? Or take that shortest route and take a chance on the bad road? And what would I do this man who obviously cannot be left behind?

The man left his bike inside a building by the roadside, planning to retrieve it the next morning. He inspired some confidence in me by saying that only a very small part of the shortest road is bad, and can be negotiated. The rest of the ride was spent talking about how each got stuck in the rain and where the final destination is.

Soon we were back at the beginning of the road. I suggested he help me with the balance as I was not sure I would be able to manage with a pillion as well. He seemed to have misunderstood, got off the bike and started walking across the muddy path. I took that as a cue and took the bike through the same path. A few hundred yards or so later, he got onto the bike again and said the road ahead is hard.

But there was a lot of water. Water gushed off the railway tracks that ran parallel to the road. And the fear of losing my balance still lurked in my mind. We moved ahead slowly.

The bike seemed to handle itself pretty well. And the good road gave me some confidence.

Then the bike sank a few inches.

Apparently, the level of water was higher than I thought. Now my only fear was the bike stalling. And I knew that would not happen as long as I throttled it enough to keep it moving. Every second felt like a minute.

After what seemed like an hour, we made it to higher ground. The water level was still high, but not enough to stop us from moving. Once we reached the other side of the railway gate, the man got off.

He thanked me profusely. I felt I should thank him for guiding me!

The rest of the road was my usual route, and I knew it well enough to ride through it in pitch darkness. Or through knee-high water. It felt like I was riding a stallion, wading through water that swirled in the rain. The water flowing down the nearby hill only added to the force of the moving water. Rain had long stopped falling. But the water on ground covered every bit of the road, spanning from the walls on one end to the other. The safest way to ride would be to keep to the middle of the road.

And that's what I did till I reached home. The same time I reached home 8 years ago, after similar rainfall had cut off almost all of the public transport system. At 1.30am.