We can be heroes, just for one day. – David Bowie

It seems just yesterday when I kept repeating this line, “A 200 km cycling trip? Are you kidding yourselves?”. In fact, when I told some of my friends that we are going to do this, all I got was sarcastic glares and condescending smiles. In all honesty, I felt they have a good point. When Pavithra told me that she wanted to go on a cycle trip of 200kms all the way to Pichavaram Mangrove forests the first thing I said was, “Are you insane?”, to which she replied, “Come on! We can do it. At least we can give it a try.”

So, owing to a little love for cycling and mostly to the fear of being called a wuss (pussy) by her, I said “Ok! Let’s do it.”

And that’s when the planning started. She was the in charge of travel, accommodation and me, whereas procuring requirements and other easy stuff were assigned to me. We decided that we will practice whenever possible and as much as possible and we did so, to an extent. Usually, my practice would be for a distance of 15kms whereas hers’ would be around 25kms, and boy she wasn’t humble about it.

I know I am giving an apocalyptic feel to it but finally Saturday, March the Third arrived and she arrived at my place the night before. My thoughts at that time were that we were grossly overestimating our abilities and I expressed the same to her to which she replied by rolling her eyes.

“We can stop whenever you feel like you are exhausted”, she added. That rejuvenated my spirits and I was hoping that we make it a nice and clean trip of 30kms to Mahabalipuram and return back the same day. But God(I mean Pavithra) had other plans for us…

The Beginning (Chennai -> Mahabalipuram)

We started early in the morning around 6AM and headed towards Mahabalipuram. Five minutes into the trip we were joined by fellow cyclers who were all dressed up in sweat absorbing t-shirts, trousers, helmets and cooling glasses which made us look like cheap chauffers. Ignoring all that pompousness we carried on joking, singing and deciding on which properties to buy along the way. It was a jolly ride and we reached Mahabalipuram within 2 hours. We had a brisk breakfast at a roadside food vehicle. Although I was hoping that was it, a part of me wanted to go more. We never stopped in that 30kms neither were we tired.

The One where we weren’t tired and with the sunglasses swag.

So I thought, going to Pondicherry will be just like doing this 3 more times! No pressure. Easy peasy. But this time, God had some other plans for us.

Never Give Up (Mahabalipuram -> Pondicherry – Part I)

Ever felt like you aced an exam but end up with pass marks avoiding failing by a very little margin? That’s exactly what happened.

Sun started to show his effect as we were able to feel the water being drained out of our bodies. A realization started dawning on me as to why we were able to reach Mahabalipuram without much effort. Strangely, even with the punishing heat, we never thought of heading back. Time passed devilishly slow as the sun was directly above our head and also because this prick of a woman started reporting false timings to make me cycle more than half-an-hour a stretch. Some of our breaks were shortlived which involved eating glucose and drinking water. Some involved sitting under the shade of a tree eating watermelons from a roadside vendor. We applied remains of the watermelon flesh to our faces as a sunscreen. Everything was cheerful and nice until…

My front tire got punctured. We just crossed a bridge and Bam! For a moment everything went blank. However, none of us panicked. Fortunately, the nearby village was just 1km away from the place where the incident happened. Fortune favors the brave indeed. So we walked back finding out the location of the repair shop and to our agony, the guy was not there. It took him 2 hours to reach there and while I was contemplating ways to head back home, there she was, sleeping on a narrow wooden platform, not a care in this world. If ever I have learnt anything in life about not panicking in a stressful situation or never giving up or holding on to your goals, that moment was a practical demonstration of it as much as the incident was an eye-opener for me.

Finally, the guy came after 2 hours of waiting and our journey continued. After that we rode for another 2 hours i.e.., 40kms with 4 breaks in between. We saw a toll plaza with a small lawn that had shade and we just couldn’t resist. We parked our cycles and lied down on the grass an expression of content in our face and mind. All of a sudden we were exhibits in the museum for the passers-by. All the aunties judged her and all the men stared at her. And observing all this from behind, I was like Jeez, what does a man need to do to get a wee bit of attention? After an half-an-hour long break, we started again but just then…

Everything happens for a reason (Mahabalipuram -> Pondicherry – Part II)

It was my back tire’s turn to get punctured! Again we were fortunate as we had to search for just half-an-hour to find the puncture shop. But this time I had no ideas of turning back. Also, Pavithra was saying that we need to eat something as we haven’t eaten anything since morning. I hate to believe that it’s just a coincidence that the repair shop and a restaurant are side-by-side and the restaurant served only one dish at that time (around 4PM), Parota, which incidentally is the food crush of her’s. We ate, we got our cycles repaired and started again feeling energetic owing to the unscheduled consumption of complex carbohydrates. By this time the sun was already coming down and we were just 35kms away from our destination. We rode 15kms at a stretch in half-an-hour. And then we rode for another 10kms. Now we are just 10kms away from our destination. We were practically in Pondicherry outskirts. We stopped for a short Chai-Samosa break. We reached our hotel by 7PM. I was just ecstatic that I was able to finish 120kms on cycle, calling all my friends and telling them about it. On the other hand our captain Pavithra is unimpressed. When being asked the reason she said, “You are happy now that you have cycled 120kms. I will be happy when I cycle for 200kms so that like you, I too can call my friends and tell them ecstatically. Post dinner we started discussing whether to travel by cycle or by bus tomorrow. We decided that we will make a decision depending on our state in the morning.

We didn’t have the time to change the bicycles for posing.

The Real Marine drive (Pondicherry -> Pichavaram Mangrove Forests)

I spent tossing and turning in my bed the whole night as I was getting nightmares about my work and apparently she dreamt about convincing me to go on cycling to Pichavaram. She woke me up at 4:45 AM when I was just trying to fall asleep if we can start then. Obviously, I said NO. But she is not the one who usually gives up and she asked me again at 7 AM when I was still sleeping and this time I was feeling much better and agreed to continue. However, the Sun made sure to make me regret starting late. With great effort, we completed 35kms. As we were close to dehydration by then and decided to take a long break and drink Maaza. We gulped two half-liter bottles in a row and it kinda reminded me of that quote rooftop scene from Shawshank Redemption that goes something like – sitting on the rooftop and drinking ice cold beer we felt like free men. I said it out loud to her and she gave an elevated eyebrow expression signaling what the hell are you blabbering? I was aghast at the fact that she hadn’t watched the movie. I mean who hasn’t watched Shawshank Redemption.

Ok, so it was just 30km more to go when our captain makes this “wunderful” decision of taking a detour via a country road rather than traveling on the highway. After 5kms of a bumpy and gravel filled road through a village, we hit a sweet spot. The road was deserted. On one side of it are the sand dunes that accompany the sea and on the other side was a deserted barren land. To be frank, for the first time in the entire trip I was afraid for the both of us. But then she was like “Look how nice the road is. We have the beach on one side and deserted barren land with patches of teak plantations appeared as we passed through.” Of course, I couldn’t enjoy any of it. But looking back in retrospect I regret not going into those teak plantations and experience that cool shade. Those 7kms felt the longest in our whole journey. To add to my fears we hit a cemetery and this is where our captain wanted to take a small nap. I offered little prayers inside my head to God to not let anything to happen to any of us. Fortunately, we hit a village 10 mins after that and I felt relieved once and for all. We took a little nap on the verandah of the primary school in that village and drank the water from a nearby water pump. Those were the sweetest water I ever tasted in the recent past. After that nap, we felt relieved with some new energy and started again. We started hitting village after village at a very short gap and felt more safe and secure. One special thing about these villages was that they were literally on the banks of the sea. You can literally see the sea 100 metres from the main road. Each time we encounter the beach at a turn we used to look at each other and rejoice like little children when they find hidden treats. This entire phase was an awesome experience and it felt like a Real Marine Drive. This lasted for another half-an-hour and without us noticing we have cycled for 15kms. And now its only 10kms left. We felt more excited than ever as the end of the journey was near. We started counting down the kilometers and stopped when we were just 2.5kms away to take a little break. We stopped at a juice shop and we had the Badam Milk and Mixed Fruit Shake (Urban Falooda) of our lives. They were so tasty that we gulped two whole glasses in a jiffy. The last 2.5kms didn’t feel like a lot after that. It turned out that the last mile is the easiest one in our case. As we reached the boating place we felt like we “Rocked it” and hence the pose.

The Boat ride through the Mangrove Forests

There is nothing much to talk here as all I did was sit and enjoy the nature and occasionally clicking pictures and all she did was cribbing on how we got cheated by the boat driver who talked us into bribing him 500 rupees to take us through the Mangrove forests. The ride was nice and peaceful and enjoyable as it felt like moving through a lagoon inside a real forest.

We spent one hour in the water and headed back to Chidambaram where we had to submit our cycles to parcel them back to Chennai. On the way back we hit that juice store again and I had another two glasses of Badam Milk.

Chidambaram to Chennai

It was a 15km ride from Pichavaram to Chidambaram. We submitted our bicycles to the parcel office and when the parcel guy asked where we were coming from. She said, “We cycled all the way from Chennai.” He asked, “Why?”. “Just for the hell of it”, she said.

We then headed back to the bus stand caught a bus heading to Chennai and returned back safely to our respective homes. On the way back we felt content, relieved and mostly more radiant than ever. I think I said, “I am grateful to you”, to which she said, “Thank you, it means a lot to me”. And that was the end of it.

In closing, I just want to say – Pavithra, you crazy bitch.