Riding in kerala

From article from web describing the experiences of riding a bullet in kerala. Really liked this one. Read on.


So the beeping thing -- If I beep like hell -- I'd be shot for this in the US -- all the way through the town, I'm okay. I don't even have to brake. Better yet, if I shift so the engine is straining like those guys with bumblebee engines AND I beep, well, that's even better.

So here are the beeping rules.

Beep all the way through villages.
Beep at blind curves.
Beep at people standing in groups on the curb.
Beep at all men under 30, under any circumstances.*
Beep at all bicyclists.**
Beep at all motorcyclists carrying wife and baby.***
Beep at all animals. Beep at all groups of schoolchildren, especially boys.****
Beep at intersections.
Beep at bridges.
Beep at bus stops.
Beep when thinking about overtaking.
Beep upon having decided to overtake.
Beep upon overtaking.
Beep as being overtaken.
Beep before you turn, slow down, speed up, or think of doing anything but maintaining current speed and position.
Beep if you haven't beeped in a little while.
footnotes

*Men under thirty they're immortal. Apparently, until a man is about 30 he believes that he can step out in front of a truck and live through it. Men over 30, more often than not, tend to look before they step into the road. This rule of nature is, of course, overridden by the rule of lungi. A lungi is the ankle-length cloth that men here wear tied around their waists. Of course they can't just leave it at that. They must always be adjusting the lungi, because the lungi is at any time uncomfortable. Now tell me, if you're a grown man and you've got a piece of cloth wrapped about one and a half times around your waist and legs do you think you might be uncomfortable? So you'd be messing with it all the time. Here's what you do. You pull the bottom of it from your ankles and fold it up and tuck it under what's tied around your waist, so now you are wearing a mini-lungi which allows your knees to be freed so you can walk. But still, maybe it's not really practical, maybe you want to bend over and do some work or ride a bicycle or something and don't want it all to hang out. So you'd pull the ends of the lungi around and pass them between your legs and tuck them up into the part that's tied around your waist, making a kind of balloony shorts. But that kind of gets uncomfortable, too, and will eventually need to be adjusted. Personally, I think that if men here started wearing pants a lot more would get done. Like, they could pay attention to the road, work, walk, talk, eat, and take a pee without having to be majorly adjusting their lungies. It's a common sight to see a grown man walking down the street holding the ends of his skirt up, absently trying on different tie-styles, open and closing it, tucking it, hitching it, tying it, pulling at it... It talks a lot of time, this lungi thing.

** Many bicyclists are quite competent, but many are boys under 16 carrying boys under 16 and the front wheel of his bicycle is wavering wildly, indicating either a desire to turn in front of you or a complete loss of control. I haven't yet figured out which, but at any rate, the effect is the same. Accident.

***Motorcyclists carrying wife, sidesaddle in a sari no less, who is, in turn, cradling a few-months old baby in her arms seemingly quite unconcerned that her husband is taking turns at a 45 degree angle. These people absolutely must be beeped at. This is a courtesy beep, just so he knows you're there, not that he would make any squirrely moves or anything.

**** I'm sorry, but girls just don't tend to do the nutsy things that boys do, like just run out into the road without warning, carry more than two other kids on a bicycle that's too large to handle, or pretend to throw things at you as you pass. I do not remember even once having to beep at a female person of any age here in India, or for a matter of fact, in any other country I've visited. What's up with that? I mean, could it really be chromosomes?

The left thumb of my leather glove is worn so thin that it's about to tear. I have a great idea. I want to invent a little device that will beep the horn in random intervals so you don't have to bother half the time. It wouldn't disable the beeping if you wanted to actually beep by hand, but it would save a lot of effort.

The original article can be found at http://www.motorcyclemisadventures.com/indiansunset/dispatches/dis_13.htm

And this is what my dear friend kaveri who was touring england at that time had to write after reading the above article

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i am now in Ashford, Kent, getting suntanned like nobody's business. it is said to be the hottest summer in the last twenty five years. anyway, the only condition that my friend had for me before i left was to buy two lungis for him. not just any but spectacular 'KONGARA' LUNGI. the familiar blue with the big , darker blue checkers and blue with the 'god knows how it matches' big, pink checkers. he is literally drooling over them remembering the hot indian nights spiced up by distant memories of the samantha fox poster in his cupboard. well, the lungi is acquiring celebrity status with his white friends already. jai lungi.

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