Thank God for Sunglasses

I haven't blogged in a long time, but just had to get this on the site.

I was riding to office this morning, as is customary. The weather is beautiful this time of the year and the rains are temporarily on hold, so it is just perfect to be riding your Royal Enfield on near-empty roads. And so I was enjoying the ride to office. I was navigating through the sparse traffic when I came upon this dumper in front of me. Now anyone who has read the newspapers regularly know what a menace these dumpers are to fellow drivers. So at once I was cautious. I changed my lane so that I wasn't following it. I contemplated following on just like this, coz I am not a fast rider as it is. Then I saw the problem.

This dumper was carrying wet mud. And as everyone knows, these dumpers carry less than they drop, and this guy was keeping with tradition. Bits and pieces of mud were flying off in every direction. I didn't want any of these to land on my formal office wear so decided to make an overtaking manoeuvre.

1) Accelerator to zero.
2) Compress clutch.
3) Switch gear down by one.
4) Release clutch slowly.
5) Accelerate with intent to leave dust behind.
6) What the.....

Just as Rossi was going to leave this challenger behind, I noticed a lump of wet mud flying towards me. I hope you have seen "Speed" where that piece of paper with "Bomb on Bus" goes flying towards the drivers windshield. Well that is precisely what happened in my case. I could see that mud-piece actually grow in size as it moved towards me. It just grew exponentially and then SLAM!!!

Thank God for sunglasses. That piece of mud completely covered the right side of my sunglasses. Left with one eye to navigate, I carefully slowed down and moved to the left off the road, and with the one eye saw the challenger quite literally kick dirt into Rossi's face. As I got the bike cloth off to wipe my glasses clean, i just wondered what would have happened had I not been wearing the sunglasses.

Just another day on Bombay Roads.