Update

I suppose you guys know that I had messed up with the shifters on my bike a couple of weeks back. Today, I decided to fix it up!

I had picked up the Allen-screw set last Sunday, and I also had bought a new cable for the shifter. I was all ready to go. And guess what?! I got it right this time! Hurray! So now I have all the twenty-one speeds to choose from!

So now that the gears were fixed, I thought I should retune the brakes too. Well, this time around I have messed up with the brake levers! The front one kind of works reasonably well, but the rear one is hopeless!

Thinking about it, I do not ride all that fast anyway, so I suppose it isn’t going to be a lot of trouble!

Three Mistakes

I just finished reading this book, ‘Three Mistakes Of My Life’. So on that note, I would like to start this with my own three mistakes. So here it goes:

1. Choosing to read the book
2. Choosing to read the book, even though a lot of people advised me against reading it
3. Did I mention, reading the book?

Oh, I think I preferred the story of Om Shanti Om better than this! Speaking of which, this book is perfect Hindi movie material. There is this guy – a dreamer, and he hangs around with two of his best friends. One of them has a sister, and so it is quite obvious – he falls in love with her, and her brother does not know it! Duh!

Anyway, there is also cricket, an earthquake, communal riot, politics, religion and a suicide attempt! And the best part is that there is also a gathering of the entire cast (for a filmy photo shoot!) in the climax! Ah, the only thing missing was the dude having a baby!

Big!

The other day in office, we guys had this little discussion on oversized people, as we waited outside the conference room, before our meeting began. Each of us had some weird stories, but none of them were as interesting as my experiences with a few of them! And for that reason, I guess I’ll share only those here.

So, when I was in college, there was this one guy who, well, was just about as wide as he was tall! You know, I am not exaggerating here - he really was that wide! Honest! I always used to picture him as a square walking around! Kind of like this ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants’ guy! I used to wonder as to what would happen to this guy if he ever would fall over his side. I am sure he would not have been able to help himself up and we would probably have to use a crowbar to flip him back up!

Anyway, this guy was big and I had thought that I would never get see anyone bigger than him. I could not have been more wrong! This one time I was in Ganderkesee, and I was serving myself breakfast at the buffet table – when it suddenly got dark! I was kind of curious to find out what was this blocking all the light. So, I turned back and looked over to my left – and I saw this guy! I turned to my right - and I could still see this guy! I looked on top, and hell - he was there too!

I never have felt more intimidated in my life!

How to ruin your Sunday!

I had absolutely nothing to do last Sunday, and for that reason I decided to overhaul my bike. Honestly speaking, it did not require any maintenance at all, but then what the hell! I remember I used to open up each and every part of my bike and put it back together, during my school vacations! It is quite an interesting way to kill some time. Actually, a lot of time!

So, I checked the bike in the morning, and figured out that there was one tiny problem. Most of the parts of the bike were held together by Allen-screws, and I could not find the Allen-keys in my dad’s toolbox. And so, I had to first purchase a set! Wonderful, I had another activity to do!

As my parents were headed out anyway, I joined them and thought I would pick up the Allen-keys on our way back home. But somehow, one thing led to another and I had completely forgotten about picking them! It was about four in the evening, when we finally reached home.

So then, it was time to work on the bike! I managed to find a screw-driver that did the job of an Allen-key, and tinkered with the brake shoes and the brake levers. It was too meagre a task, and besides, I was in a mood of getting some serious work done! So I decided to retune the gear shifters on the rear wheel. Now I had previously opened up the shifters on the crank lever and the rear wheel, the very next day that I had got my bike. And for your information, I put it back together too! (Also, it has been working alright!)

Anyway, I opened up the screws, pulled the cable out and voila, I was all ready to get started! Well, I also removed the two adjustor screws on the shifter, just because I was kind of curious to see what was behind them! (Sadly, there was nothing interesting behind them!) After all the experiments, it was time to put things back together. While checking if the gears shifted properly, I overlooked the fact that the free end of the cable, had gotten into the idler sprocket, and had begun to open up! Not really a big problem, actually! I pulled it right out and proceeded. Obviously, I could not get it right in the first attempt, and had to redo it. And since the end of the cable had opened up, it had all the individual wires pointing in all directions. I took a pair of pliers and coiled them back together. Of course, it was inconvenient to be working with the damaged cable – every time I touched it, I hurt my hand!

Anyway, after using the pliers to pull the cable over and over again, I was successful in permanently damaging it! And added to this was the power cut! Imagine this, I could not get it right under the sunlight, and I was trying to get it right with the illumination provided by an emergency lamp, placed some twenty feet away! I think it was half past eight when finally I conceded defeat!

After washing off the oil and grease from my hand, I noticed that the loose wires had poked my palms, like in a million places! My fingers were so sore, that I could not even press the keys on my cell phone! In fact, my palms were hurting even yesterday when I was drying my hands under the hand drier!

Now coming back to my bike, well, it shifts only through gears 3, 4 and 5 now! Thinking about it, it is not all that bad - after all, these are the three gears that you use the most! And I do not really have any plans made for the coming Sunday, so maybe I should pick up a new shifter cable, and get things right!

Bee Story!

Say you are riding your bike. You are wearing your helmet, and the visor is down. You just raise the visor up to say something to the guy riding the pillion, and bam! There goes an insect into your mouth! I am sure every person who has ever ridden a bike, must have had at least one insect get into his mouth, while riding the bike! I think these stupid insects, kind of wait there right in your path to get into your mouth! Maybe something like those Japanese kamikazes!

And oh, I also think that birds drop their poop on you, after carefully calculating to ensure that it falls on you! As strange as it may seem, a crow once crapped into my left front trouser pocket! Like, the crap was literally inside the pocket! I am serious! And incidentally, that is where I keep my handkerchief! Now imagine this, I had to get my hand through the crap to get to the handkerchief! So, do I get through the crap, and get the handkerchief, or walk around with the crap in my pocket?! Quite a dilemma, isn’t it?! Anyway, I am digressing!

Now mosquitoes are the most common kamikaze victims, but I have had other winged insects visiting my mouth too! Sadly, I could not recognise who they were though after I spat them out, for obvious reasons! You see, it would be mixed with all the saliva and stuff! Okay, let us not talk about it!

Anyway, there was this one time when I was riding and an insect actually got into my shirt trough my left sleeve! I thought I felt something enter, but then since it was not moving around much, I thought it was nothing and I continued riding. A little while later, I kind of felt something crawling on my back! Oh crap! I had to stop the bike and find this guy (read insect) who was inside my shirt! Our pal was having a ball, and was crawling all over my back! I did manage to squash him finally when he was taking a walk on my right arm!

And now for the finale – I was once riding in quite a congested road. As usual, I had my helmet on, with the visor down. I was riding alone, so there was no necessity to open up the visor and talk! So, tough luck you wannabe kamikaze insects! Anyway, I felt something hit my neck! Next thing I see, there was a freaking bee inside my helmet! He was actually flying in the space that is between the visor and my face! Ah, at that time I thought that my time is up. Things were kind of moving in slow-motion! I am sure that my heart beat would have been higher than the reading the bike’s tachometer showed at that time! It took me quite a while to figure out that I must open up the visor!

Luckily, no one was killed that day!

Lucky me!

Have I ever mentioned to you guys that I hate kids?! Probably more than a million times already!

The one thing that irritates me the most about them is their never ending crying. Actually speaking, I think it is probably the only reason why I hate them so much! Ah, not really, there are definitely other reasons too, but never mind! Anyway, crying is one thing, but what these guys do could be classified as howling! I sometimes wonder as to how could such a small object (read kid) with such a small opening (read mouth) produce such loud sounds, and for such long durations! It is kind of like these jet engines which produce more thrust than the entire weight of the aircraft – totally disproportionate!

To my rotten luck, there always is a kid no matter where I go! Say I am in a restaurant enjoying the food, and having a nice time; and then in some stupid corner a kid starts crying! And that is about all the food you can enjoy. But at least when it comes to a restaurant, you do not really spend too much time there.

So now, let us talk about travelling! Honestly, I do not remember when was the last time I went anywhere without a kid accompanying me! Imagine having to listen to an idiot cry all the way from Italy to India! It has to hurt, right? And now, imagine two of such idiots! It is absolute torture!

Anyway, so this one time I got into a bus and I was very surprised to find that there was not a single kid in it! Can you believe it? Not a single one! Hah! Oh, you have no idea how happy that made me feel! Just thinking about it even now makes me want to smile! So, I got into my seat thinking that my luck is beginning to change and stuff!

Ah, come on now, it is quite obvious that this does not have a happy ending! If it had one, then I would probably not have written about it! Anyway, so these guys start playing a movie, and guess what? The movie was ‘Hey Baby’! Now if anyone of you has not watched it yet, then consider yourself very lucky! God, that dumb movie has got a freaking kid crying for like - ever! The guy who wrote the dialogues for the movie must have had an extremely simple job. Every alternate dialogue would have been:

Baby: cry!

Okay, now did I tell you that there was a freaking speaker right over my head?! So much for me feeling lucky!