Me, Mad?

We all have our “Moments of Madness”, decisions which had really bad consequences, irrational choices, sudden realization of immortality and of course the very common “plain old stupidity”.

I, in particular, had more than my “normal “share. In fact, you could consider me in the top 20%.

So here are 5 of my “Moments of Madness”. Don’t try to understand, don’t judge. Just have fun

1) Sleep? Naah.. Who Needs it?

In the early years of my career, I was “over” passionate about my work. I was working on preparing a 200 page document of the project. Somehow time became non-existent while working on this.

For the first time in my life, I was awake for 72 hours at a stretch.

For 3 days, I was in the office working without sleep. I didn’t even take a bath.

Wait, it gets better. After working for straight 72 hours,

I went home.

Slept 8 hours.

Came back to work and stayed again for 48 hours.

This should have been impossible. So, no wonder, there were consequences. I fell sick and suffered for an entire month.

Really crazy thing to do. But quite a story to tell any fresh graduates joining my industry

2) Disclaimer: This stunt on you-tube should not be attempted.

Broke the hand. But not the smile

If only there was such kind of a disclaimer when I was watching a You-tube video about a guy doing a stunt on his motorbike.

This guy was riding through traffic, when he let go of his hands, laid back with his arms behind his head, started making a call on his mobile – ON A MOVING  BIKE!

Link for Video

I could not believe my eyes when I saw that stunt on you-tube. Damn! This guy was good. I was wondering, if only I could find the guts to try something like that.

Alas, turned out that I did have the guts and enough craziness to try it.

Been there. Done it. Broke it.

To cut a long story short.

Tried the same stunt on my shiny new 10-day old Enfield thunderbird.

Ran into a friend.

Crashed.

Broke my right hand.

The first attempt went well

Shouldn’t have tried again. 5 seconds before impact!

Hopefully, this post will be reminder to all you kids out there – Don’t watch You-tube!

3) Never Give up. Even when life is slippery.

Impossible is nothing

I and a friend (venkat) went biking in the Himalayas. Venkat rented a pulsar and I took the big blue 350 kg Enfield Thunderbird.

Our destination for the day – Khardung la, a pass 18,000 feet above sea level. The road through that is said to be the highest motor able road in the world.

But right after passing the peak, we ran into trouble – Black Ice on the Road.

Ever try riding a motorcycle on ice? Impossible!

Now try riding a 350 kg “road king” motorcycle. On black ice. Through a snowfall (BTW I was seeing snow for the first time in my life)

Only the foolish attempt the unknown. Only the “Real Mad ones” prevail.

Against all reasoning, we attempted to cross the 100 meter stretch of ice and this was after we saw a truck getting stuck in it.

We not only tried, but we came through safe. I still don’t understand how we did it!

4) Keep your eyes on the road

More than ten years before we did this bike trip, the same two guys (Me & Venkat) had a very interesting scooter episode.

Before I elaborate, please understand that we were young and “boisterous”.

Venkat and I picked up dad’s LML Vespa scooter and went to a movie theater. We got the tickets. We were too early for the movie and had a lot of time to spare.

So we decided to drive around the main road (MG Road) of our home town. I was driving (oh man!)

My sharp eyes saw 3 pretty ladies walking on the road and I was quick to point this out to my friend.

Venkat looked back and was checking out the ladies. Of course, I had to make sure Venkat was actually checking out the girls. So I looked back.

Unfortunately, we were only two and without any proximity warning on the scooter, we saw the rickshaw a little too late.

BHAM!

We were on the road, the scooter bent out of shape. We, uninjured, although I can’t say the same for our pride.

Too late, the girls saw all this – we checking them out, we NOT checking out the rickshaw!

We ended up walking the damaged scooter and the girls giggling at us.

Definitely not a story for my grand children.

5) Biggest decisions are done in the shower

Ever decided to go on a 1000 km round trip on your bike, alone?

Ever decided to do the above in the few minutes while taking a shower?

I did!

I had to! Decided while taking a shower, came out, packed a bag and left on 550km non-stop solo bike ride.

Returned back again in 48 hours. The return trip was an all-night road trip. At one time, I had to sleep in an abandoned bus shelter next to the highway.

Scary moment :- Running over a dead carcass (pig?) at 3AM while driving half-asleep!

Definitely something to tell my grand children

This blog is in response to the BlogAdda contest ‘Moments of Madness’ sponsored by Pringoo.