Actors.
I, Abhishek, Mushir, Vinay and last but the most (In terms of weight), Kanchan. I am the hero of the story, Abhishek being the only other qualified driver and the story being of speeing, due to lack of qualification is rejected to be antihero, he is just a supporting actor. Mushir, with his '5 cm - across' physic, helped all of us to travel in the smallest car possible for 5 people to travel in a managable comfort, damped by the combined effect of the tummy Vinay has gardened over the months in US and Kanchan, at her full demand of three dimentions and Oxygen for four. Vinay is the spirit of the team and cheers up himself when everyone else is in extreme lethargy and when he does, takes a few dancing steps which he do not plan to patent as no on can ever imitate them, and everyone else gets knocked up again. His body language, clubbed with his long never-cut nails is extremely dangerous to the audience and is one of the scariest things in the world for the hero, second only to the taste of offsprings of hero's own cullinery skills.
Plot.
We chose a few places in South Dekota to spend our weekend in. Kanchan did most of the planning and two third of the places we visited were closed before we reached there. Exertion of her precious office time, which, given any other conditions, she would utilize to leverage the free phone facility provided by the company to disturb her boyfriend Abhishek, served us little purpose, but for a few printouts which never took us anywhere. Of course, we came to know about a few places and as history has proven in the case of any of the other four gentlemen, none would have ever moved a finger to do even half of what she did.
Pulling the job
The drive was long. 9 hours from our dwell. Two drivers, Abhishek and the hero. Abhishek was rolling the wheels first, Kanchan acting as the navigator. Navigator is a special post, front seet, along with the driver. Responsibilities are giving precious directions to the driver, passing on chips, coca cola, thoughtless instructions etc. from the back seat to the driver and watch the traffic and finally the most important of all - watch out for the police. Kanchan did the job well, eating all the chips we had and drinking all the cola we had and ignoring all the comments from the less previlaged backseat. After some long hours of drive, in the pursuit, making all in the backseat fall asleep ( intermittently waking up and wondering if we are in the reverse gear)it was quite dark and we were all tired. We had food, bad old McDowell's of course, and then hero, took over the wheels. (Greate background music and chorus sings a sad song).
I am fast by nature. Sometimes to some extreme stupid levels. Here in US, if you go beyond speed limit you will get a ticket, there will be some fine - usully some 250 $ and if your crime is severe like ignoring a red signal, they might even cancel your license. going beyong 100 is a big offence and i dont offend people. The speed limit in freeways usually is 60 to 70 and I usually keep the box rolling at something less than 100 and greater than 70. Mostly 97 - 98, to be more precise. Mushir was given the honour of taking the navigator post and was happy to escape from the back seat.( Now Kanchan ha occupied half of the backseat and Vinay's tummy ate the other half. Abhishek, poor buddy is struggling to claim at least his share of oxygen back there. )
The drive was tiring. it was night, the continuous row of vehicles on the other side was draining off my eyes and i started repenting calling Abhishek names about driving too slow. I kept the dial hit by 95 plus and Mushir was very vigilant and did his job well. We kept changing the lines every now and then, passing over other slow moving losers. Police did not show up too often and we have already learned how to read signs from the traffic about their presense. Usually all the vehicles goes some 5-10 % above the speed limit on the boards, which is considered acceptible. But if a single police car is in the vicinity all the traffic comes down to the atcual book value, in such a short time, with such a precision as to beat the most advanced scientific measurement techniques. This change can be felt for some time even after the police car leaves or takes a turn and joins the other side of the traffic. Everyone knows how this works, and everone uses these tips. The police folks must be doing this themselfs when they are outside their uniforms. But once inside it, they are all idiots.
The Play
Then we drove through another national park in the evening , a dense forest and we saw many wild animals. (many here means a few deers and rabbits). We saw many huts on the way. Muhsir and Vinay, having seen some stupid movie (from their references to it, I guess it was a horror movie or a comedy - name was 30 days of night or the same lengh of time of light or something else) were continuously searching for draculla, satan, and other demons in those huts. Strengtened by holy knowledge, that these species uaually have only blood for meals and confident of the scarsity of blood in his body, Mushir was very much keen on meeting one and may be having a good evening time filler live show, of that thing feasting on one of the rest of the folk's neck. Vinay was pretty sure that no draculla will survive for seconds after even smelling his blood and was also dreaming in the similar lines. I was keen on blood donation and wanted to befriend one of these - I have heard that the female vampires believes in free sex world - just for timepass. Well nothing happend. Next day's major attraction was Jewel cave world's longest cave. Second longest one now, as its not explored even to 10% of it's real size but some jobless Germans last year came and looking at the way these caves breaths in and out decided that there is 9 times as much still remaining, unexplored in it. Another spot, Crazy Horse, was really crazy in Vinay's anouncement. One family is moving sand from a hill to make it look like one native indian warchiefs. They have moved millions of tons of rock till now and have successfully carved the face of this person which looks similar to his drowing in a local store below, as both are not anything anyone will call beautiful. He was a hero of the locals and died fighting aginst the whites and passed away in warfield, stabbed from behind. The Indians decided that it is a wonderful idea to create a monument for him, like nothign else anywhere else and someone came with this idea of changing an entire hill to look like this chap sitting on a horse. The 5 presidents in the Mound Rushmore together will be of lesser size than this folk's ear. May be it will be more famous in future when it's more out from the rocks, that is not going to happen in at least a few lifetimes anyway. Last sopt, Badlands, was really bad, offering nothing other than weired sand structures, may be a hiker's paradise but none of us were in mood for hiking that day. Still the facts about it that we listened to in movie there, in the receiving office was nice and attractive. It was about how life grows in the dry lands, and how does the animals and palnts save themselves from the sun etc..
I forgot to mention about our hotel room. It was big enough to play hide and seek. We had TV, Fridge, locker, heater, coffee maker.. well everything, and the rent was only 40$ per day. With it came complimentary breakfast for all which alone would have been 50 otherwise. Even the lady at the counter was nice and cute.
Two days and we were on our way back. It was a nice trip as for a conclusion. Abhishek drove for sometime in his 'tending to maximum' mathematical derivative speeds almost getting a negative value for the second derivative - in short - was keeping up with the speed limit of 60. Every old men and women that drove on that road with us went ahead of us, many pumping their heads outside to make sure that people in our car were alive as the car, measureing the comparitive speeds was almost dead for them. even the wild looking oaks that feasted on the rich grass, sometimes gave us thoughts that we have seen the same one before and may be it just happend to go for a jogging or something and overtook us in the effort. Then, as per the public demand for fast life was approved by abhishek, I again took over the fifth wheel after food.
Well, for at least 3 hours I kept it rolling in 99-98, gaining a remarkable 1 mile over my usual upper and lower limits. Mushir Ahmed was the self appointed navigator with full public support. He did the best job ever, employing all his senses for one sole purpose which he at that time considered as the sole purpose of his life - to watch out for cops. He saw them before anyone else, he heard their sirons before anyone else and he was continuously trying to smell them in the air, chocking in the process due to insuficient respiration. The read was mostly long and straight, bending at lengths sometimes, and driving at 100 was fun. We had music, chips and
thoughtless jokes during this time.
In three hours we have covered more than half of the 550 mile stretch. Abhishek took over as I was tired and Mushir needed to rest. The boring stroll continued till we reached the corn palace. And it was there that I got my long deserved ticket - for speeding.
It was not fun. The corn palace is a two store building with all the walls, doors and everything make of corn. It was nice from outside that that is all that we ever learned about it - It was closed. We could not go in. a few more photos and we went back to the car, again the responsible me took the wheel in hand and Mushir volenteered to look out for cops. Vinay, bored so far in the backseat came forward for a seat exchange and was promoted to the navigator's seat.
He started his career like a 10 year experienced and started giving expert comments without delay. I have to mention, he has a greate sense of direction and has always been a reference point for reaching a place. First of his suggestion was to roam around in corn city downdown (It was not even a town) and take a rather winding road to get our way back. I half-mindedly agreed -mostly because i wanted to get back to the 70m/h freeway asap. We went for it anyway and it happend just a few blocks down. The road declined in a close to tan Pi by 2 angle and the speed limit was 30. The car, , even though we have travelled so far so fast, just like an indian newly married girl walks into the bathroom with the vegitable bag, taking it for the kitchen,being new and still not used to my rough stampings on the gas pedal that i usually discusses with my 10 year honda, catalysed by the decline went a little above 35. Well, cops pops up from anywhere in us, perticularly you have vinay as your navigator. I have been stopped and questioned three times already when he was my navigator. This time what made teh plot more funny was that the police did not hide or anything they were just waiting there for us and then say us and they caught us. That was a complete disaster in Vinay's career as a navigator even though he never accepted it. I say flashing lights behind me and pulled over , one officer walked over and asked for my license, i told him that it is in my pocket and asked if i can get it, e gave me permission and i fetched it and he took it and went back to his car and took another 5 minutes to turn up and asked me a few more questions and and and ... well, simply gave me a ticket for violating a huge stuff in amarican law.
i was happy that i did not see any thing like murder in the ticket. 35 Miles!! imagine i have went below 40 miles when it was a pressing reason like a read sign or the cops in a 30 mile road. I was so disappointed, maily because i felt berated and even considered telling the officer that i had already crossed 100 m/h 17.68 times in the last 184.87 minutes and asking him to give me a ticket for that. I would have proud to show someone my ticket then. but look at this ?!! 35 miles per hour and law says i am too young for that? For a moment I thought no one will ever marry for at least 3 lifes from now..
That was embarassing. But still , I got it at last. My ticket!
