Rajnikant Facts

its been a while since i added anything here, and this too is just a copy paste from a mail just received. but this IS so hilarious.. cudnt resist spreading it around..

feeling really bad for half the world who doesnt know who R is... R will probably crack the earth into 2 for this.. :-)

1. Rajanikanth makes onions cry
2. Rajanikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.
3. Ghosts are actually caused by Rajanikanth killing people faster than Death can process them.
4. Rajanikanth can build a snowman..... out of rain.
5. Rajanikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.
6. Rajanikanth can drown a fish.
7. When Rajanikanth enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on,............. he turns the dark off.
8. When Rajanikanth looks in a mirror the mirror shatters, because not even glass is stupid enough to get in between Rajanikanth and Rajanikanth.
9. Brett Favre can throw a football over 50 yards. Rajanikanth can throw Brett Favre even further.
10. The last digit of pi is Rajanikanth. He is the end of all things.
11. Rajanikanth does not know where you live, but he knows where you will die.
12. Bullets dodge Rajanikanth.
13. A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot
belongs to Rajanikanth and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
14. Rajanikanth' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Rajanikanth.
15. If you spell Rajanikanth wrong on Google it doesn't say, "Did you mean Rajanikanth? " It simply replies, "Run while you still have the chance."
16. Rajanikanth can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
17. Once a cobra bit Rajanikanth' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
18. When Rajanikanth gives you the finger, he's telling you how many seconds you have left to live.
19. Rajanikanth can kill two stones with one bird.
20. Rajanikanth was once on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and was the first to spin. The next 29 minutes of the show consisted of everyone standing around awkwardly, waiting for the wheel to stop.
21. Leading hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.9 percent of germs. Rajanikanth can kill 100 percent of whatever he wants.
22. There is no such thing as global warming. Rajanikanth was cold, so he turned the sun up.
23. Rajanikanth can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.
24. Rajanikanth has a deep and abiding respect for human life? unless it gets in his way.
25. Rajanikanth once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"
26. In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Rajanikanth could use to kill you, including the room itself.
27. Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every dead man, there is Rajanikanth.
28. Rajanikanth destroyed the periodic table, because Rajanikanth only recognizes the element of surprise.
29. Rajanikanth got his drivers license at the age of 16 Seconds.
30. With the rising cost of gasoline, Rajanikanth is beginning to worry about his drinking habit.
31. The square root of Rajanikanth is pain. Do not try to square Rajanikanth, the result is death.
32. When you say "no one's perfect", Rajanikanth takes this as a personal insult.
33. Outer space exists because its afraid to be on the same planet with Rajnikant
34. Rajnikant has counted to infinity - twice
35. When Rajnikant does a pushup, he isnt lifting himself up, he's pushing earth down
36. Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
37. Rajnikant doesnt wear a watch. HE decides what time it is.
38. Rajnikant gave Mona Lisa that smile
39. Rajnikant can slam a revolving door
40. Rajnikan's house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.
41. Rajnikant grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.
42. If you google search "Rajnikant getting kicked"your search will generate 0 results. It just doesn't happen.
43. It takes Rajnikant 20 mins to watch 60 minutes
44. The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.
45. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Rajnikant lives in Chennai
46. Rajnikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink
47. The only thing that runs faster and longer than Rajnikant are his films.
48. Rajnikant’s every step creates a mini whirlwind. Hurricane Katrina was the result of a morning jog.
49. Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is Rajnikant there is no other way.
50. His email address is Gmail@Rajnikanth.com

60kph Anniversary Ride, Kutch

Vijaynagar - Gujarat

while looking up for a route / destinations for a road trip this diwali vacations, chanced upon this wonderful place in gujarat - vijaynagar.
Vijaynagar is a erstwhile princely state is the heavily forested foothills of the aravali mountains. The palace there converted to a heritage hotel, tariffs not over the top. Go to http://www.vijayvilasvijaynagar.com/ for further details.
It promises nature and history rolled into one, jungle safari, bird watching, ruins of ancient temples in the forests, ruins of the ancient city of Polo, which was the gateway between gujarat and rajasthan, the wooden toy-making cottage industry of idar, and walking the banni grasslands. Sounds all too delicious, and itching to be there soon.
For now (oct 21st to 25th), its mandu and the banks of narmada that has been planned and managed to get bookings as well. :-)

sidenote - mom's a devout jain and was telling me about the travels of the sadhvi (mokshanandji) she venerated. Jain sadhus and sadhvis travel from place to place throughout the year, year after year, except the monsoons. She has trekked almost all over india and upto kathmandu. Can we ever beat that? Am humbled, for travel if not religion.

My Birthday

whoa!!!! what a lovely application i found, thanks to meeta's post regarding ONE CRAZY RIDE's entry to CMS VATAVARAN 2009. Screening in Delhi on 30th oct 2009.

agardanda trip

what was supposed to be just another site visit turned out to be a wonderful ride and a head-on collision thrown in to add a dash of thrill.

avoiding the usual alibag revdanda route to murud, looked up the maps and opted for the slightly longer mumbai-indapur(NH17) and then right on the state highway for another 40 to agardanda, which is 10kms south of murud. of course it isnt the picturesque winding road through the coconut and betelnut farms of revdanda. but holds its own for the rural feel and very sparse traffic. the road meanders along the river here and there and then crosses the murud creek at bhalegaon and leads to agardanda parallel to the backwaters.

work at site done, started the journey back the same route. but 5 kms on took a u-turn and decided to try another. the murud-roha road. and what a discovery that was.. the monsoons adding to the romance.

its a narrow well paved road passing thru lush green forests going up and down a couple of hills and with a heady smell and sounds of the jungle. it was hard to keep the helmet on, which smelt of soot and died out the sound. stopped for a while to soak it all in, half expecting to see some wild-life grace me with an appearance. passed a few dirt tracks shooting into the woods and then decided to try the next one out to the right. two stips of terracotta seperated by a strip of flouroscent green snaking its way into a lush green canvas. the recent bike breakdowns weighed heavily on the mind as i ventured deeper inside but didnt have the heart to turn my back on this pristine beauty. it led to a small clearing and a trekking path ahead. a woman with a few kids was washing clothes by the pond. lazed for a while and then headed back, shooting a video of the ride, handling the bike with one hand.

back on the road, feeling heady with the off-roading experience, uphill at the first tight turn, i screamed, "oh shit!!!" ... then BANG!!!... an indica had sneaked right infront of me coming out of the turn, downhill. i am not sure if i was in his lane or he in mine, but its a situation every biker dreads.

its a tiny fraction of time. u see the car, u realise you are going to hit it, u hit it and u wait for the result. all depends on a combination of your talent at causing minimum damage to yourself and your bike, your luck and his determination to kill you. was talented enough to get the front end of the bike out of his way and bang the sidecar to his bumper, stupid enough to bang my head to the helmet on the tank (yeah, wasnt wearing it) and lucky to escape with a cut lip and nothing else. it bled like a river but i was busy checking if the forks were alright.

thankfully all was well. no damage at all to the bike except the bent crashbar telling the tale. in time the lip stopped bleeding too and the mind off the accident.

what i missed at the time was that to my left was the phansad bird sanctuary and i cud ve taken a track to the left into it. its now on my "next to do list" and wish to explore this region a lil more.

this beautiful road ended as it went down to roha and hit the NH17 at nagothane.

route and pics uploaded.

the ironbutt ride - mum - bang - honavar - goa - mum

this wasnt really the first of the hard rides, but was the first coz that was ALL there was to it, componded further by the bike breakdown. the previous ironbutt rides have all been just a small part of reaching the starting point or riding back home after some good leisurely ride.

the route map

june 30th - started from home at 5-30 am, all geared up for the big one. the bike sounded healthy and was glad there was no rain to start off. in fact it was dry all the way to bangalore except some misty showers enroute between kolhapur and hubli. scheduled stop at lonavla to meet parents and breakfast.

rode on the smooth NH4, stopping only for petrol, tea, smoke and lunch and reached hubli (640km on the odo) by 6pm. nothing intresting, except the fact that the bike was guzzling too much fuel and the carb seemed to be the probable culprit. lunch led to a 90 minute nap, having had little sleep the previous night. beyond this point, have no memory of the ride, the light was fading, the body tiring.

another 100 kms is haveri, and when the test started. the construction of four-laning of NH4 in this sector is still in progress and continuing the ride in the dark thru the dust, potholes and the multitude of diversions felt like a senseless thing to do. so i rode on senselessly. :-)

my average speed went down, the urgency to reach bangalore lacking, the mind flirting with abandoning the 1k and crashing out at a dhaba. then came a saviour. another biker on the road decided to chase me up and we raced along for abt 35-40 kms till he suddenly vanished. probably he had reached home or knew of a better paved diversion.. lol. but that set the pace for me and i zipped and skidded as much as my bike can manage. then the under-construction stretch ended and opened to a smooth expressway but i was too tired to note the kms and time, and rode on.

vishu called to say they will rcv me at a toll booth after tumkur, and he with sanjuz, biju and srini drove 40 kms to that point in the middle of the night!! what a family i got in 60kph... if my wealth were to be measured in the number of friends i got, i wud be a tycoon (to borrow from gaurav's comment in Riding Solo) :-)

reached bangalore at 3am and completed the 1k i set to do. didnt feel anything special except that it had to be done and was done. lol.

next wud be to attempt the 1400 of mum-delhi in 24 hours someday, however senseless that wud get, it does feel like a milestone till you cross one.

july 1st and 2nd - stayed at sanjuz's place, spent in leisure, attended the wedding (that was the pretext of the ride). 2nd was satrao's bday and the bang gang was in full attendence for the meet at sanjuz's place and it was great to meet up with all. it was novel to see them clean and dressed in formals, having always met them on rides and in riding gear.

july 3rd - srini and masood saw me off till the same toll booth as i rode towards honavar enroute to goa. after the partying of the previous night i had started off pretty late at 11 but had till next day's noon to reach goa, so i was cool. farida was to land at 2 pm and i was supposed to be at the airport b4 that. 5th was our wedding anniversary (15th) and we had planned to be in goa for the weekend sans the kids who were under her sis's care. and then to ride back to mumbai together on the 6th.

but.... the bike seized. hundred and forty kms from bangalore and still another 500 to go, the bike broke down 8kms out of tiptur. on a ride, its always a coordinated effort of the man and the machine to go the distance and its heart breaking when a breakdown happens. but if one were to get dejected by this, he/she will never get on a ride again.

i tried what i could, to no avail. there was shame in it, coz it was caused by the oil which had thickened to a slurry and i hadnt checked it before starting from bangalore. there was no reason for the oil to go bad in 1200kms, but worse, there was every reason i should have checked it. darn!!

a mechanic helped push the bike to tiptur, and he opened it up, but tiptur is a small place and he cudnt find the piston and pin (which was the culprit, it was fused to the piston) needed there, and i had no time to wait there till the next day. boarded a train for vasco at midnight from there, which reached late by 3 hours at 2pm. farida reached cidade de goa by herself and i reached by 3.

the next two days was a relaxed weekend celebrating the anniv. and the bike problem out of the mind. without the bike there wasnt any venturing out of the resort, and we soaked in the luxury we paid for. got lucky in getting upgraded to a suite too.

july 6th - monday morning, it was time to head back. farida took a flight back to bombay and i took 4 bus rides to reach tiptur at 2 am and checked into a hotel.

july 7th - started from tiptur at 9 with fingers crossed. the bike sounded fine but one never knows if the mechanic had bolted everything well. it had a new piston in a rebored block and the engine had to be run in. i managed to ride the first 100 kms under 60 but progressively felt confident that i wont harm her if i kept it till 80.

mumbai was 1000 kms of highway via hubli or 1200 kms of state roads via honavar and goa. the lure of coastal roads, and the new route compelled me to do the later and it was beautiful to ride after shimoga to the most beautiful ghat section from sagar to honavar. it passes thru a thick forest and goes on for abt 40kms up and down the hills, the rains adding to the charm. reached honavar at 4pm without any stops except to take a glimpse at the majestic jog falls and a promise to visit the road soon, with family.

in a hurry to reach bombay, stuck to the NH17 for the rest of the journey from honavar to karwar to goa to mumbai, enroute missing the lovely places i had heard of from friends.. gokarn, om beach. could have also tried to seek out a route more closely hugging the coast than the NH17 but guess that was not the day. should have planned for a couple of days more and put some purpose in the ride but work beckoned and i had to get back.

took a break at panaji for an hour and started at 11pm on a dark and dreary commute back home. somewhere along the way the body gave up, but had to ride for an hour to find the first dhaba to crash in. the rains were heavy and the rainwear protecting me was doing a lousy job of it. i was wet all over but slept without a care for 3 hours and started again at 6 am. the dhaba owner loved music and was swaying and singing to some punjabi music channel on tv all along. theres something about taking a break at a dhaba (instead of a hotel) that feels so integral to the riding / travel experience. like an oasis of a travelling commune. was glad there was another biker using the dhaba for the night, enroute to goa.

july 8th - finally reached mumbai at 4 pm. thank you bike, for bringing me home, without another breakdown.

july 18th - am riding to dadar to attend a meeting and in hurry to be back for the screening of "one crazy ride" and "riding solo" at st. andrew's auditorium, bandra. the bike stalls at wadala. refusing to start. i ask a local mechanic to see it. after he touches it, there is no compression. wow! another breakdown... but glad it didnt happen that night between goa and mumbai. :-))

looking back at those 3 days of 2300kms, i can remember only hazy details, flashes of places and moments, continuity lost in numbness.. eerily resembling the life we live.

1k in a day ride

.. when was the last time, you did something for the first time......

attempting my first 1k in a day ride. to bangalore on 29th june. approx 1040kms. return on 2nd july. its modest benchmark compared to some of the friends who have done over 1350 but with the combined age of the bike and the rider at half a century, its presenting as a task nevetheless.

route - mumbai - pune - kolhapur - belgaum - hubli - davangere - tumkur - bangalore

return - bangalore - tumkur - chitradurga - hospete - ilkal - bijapur - sholapur - pune - mumbai

hopefully the man, machine, road and weather will cooperate.

its a test, once passed, ceases to be of any importance and pretty boring to repeat. so the return cud as well be the immensely scenic route (esp in the monsoons) - bangalore - tumkur - shivmoga - honawar - karwar - goa - NH17 - panvel - mumbai. approx 1200 kms. and too scenic to be timebound.

update - farida joining me at goa on 4th. so we celebrate our anniv. there on the 5th and ride back together. funnnn!!!