Spiderman in house

I have sometimes wondered where I got this affinity towards some weird creatures, even though I would probably never want to handle them. It seems it started many years back in Battiprolu in AP. When I was two years old a cobra was found in a cupboard very near to where I was sleeping, then there was the crab and three or four snakes in Berhampur. Even in Chennai where it is really hard to find any wildlife other than crows/cockroaches, a snake somehow managed to find my cycle’s front wheel a comfortable place to coil itself around and take rest. This was all when I was in school, and it didn’t really matter then, but an encounter with a 5 inch spider in your living room is a different thing. This is exactly what we had to deal one fine night a fortnight back. Vivek’s frantic call for back up at home didn’t raise any alarms, we (Venkat and I) were relaxed, it might have been some cockroach or a small harmless insect, but imagine our shock when we opened the front door and found ourselves face to face with a 5 inch huge spider.
All our lives we have always seen spiders as some harmless things hanging out near the ceiling with wiry legs. We just had to blow them away. But this one was humongous, the biggest we had seen outside the T.V. We were faced with a dilemma –to kill or not to kill, what if we tried to kill and it escaped and attacked us instead, regardless of whether it is poisonous or not its size was enough to seed fear into us, if we just shoo it away it might come back also. So we decide to kill the foe. But it wasn’t a simple matter either, the spider was near the ceiling, away from mine or venkat’s striking range with a broom. So we had to lure it to a lower height and then give the fatal blow. We decided to film our brave efforts; vivek took up the position of a cameraman. I tried to lure or rather irritate the spider into coming down, it was quick for its size, once or twice it attacked the broom, I was happy I was nowhere near its huge fangs. It kept running towards the tubelight – its safe haven. After nearly half and hour we got it in a safe height. I handed over the broom to Venkat to deliver the final blow. The attack came from the left, with a blinding speed Venkat leapt off the ground with arms raised as if ready for smash in badminton. It was over in a second. The spider which had taken refuge in our house had left this mortal world, it soul departed, only its body remained, after a final photo of the crime scene we hit the sack. We had conquered one of our worst fears. The spider was a visible threat which we could easily conquer, while there are other mysterious biting insects which have so far been invisible to our eyes but somehow have managed to wound us every night. The mysterious insect might have won the battle but the war will be ours, we will win over every foe that kochi throws up at us and live to tell the tale in this blog.
Our fight for independence continues.

Kochi to Allepey - beyond the horizon

The prospect of another weekend going waste, with us doing nothing other than the basic activities to live was enough to kindle the roadies in us. Neither were we the real roadies with big Harley’s or the Bullet nor were we planning to go on a all India trip in our steeds, but we were simple people working (spending time in office) 45-50 hours on weekdays and looking for something exciting in the weekend atleast. Rajan as usual with his ever enthusiastic planning of trips which never really happen suggested Allepey as a possible destination, we agreed. So we got up early on Saturday at around 11am, got ready and had lunch @brindavan – one of our life savers in kochi and the starting point for the trip. I had to fix my rear view mirror as it had become loose and kept falling on my arm. We started from Brindavan @1:30 after rajan got a pair of new sandals. The route was fairly simple, straight road with no forks or turnings for the full distance of 64 km. With Venkat and Rajan on one bike and me and Vivek on my bike, we hit the road.
The ride was mostly uneventful with Venkat being the avid photographer trying to take pictures on the go while the bike was going at 60kmph. We passed two bridges a few kilometers from vytilla, great view from there, although at the time it felt as if the bridges were made of some other material other than concrete as it started wobbling every time a truck or bus passed over it. After these two bridges, there wasn’t much change in the landscape. The highway at many places became a bit dangerous with too many potholes. Even though I wasn’t breaking any speed records I was going at decent speed, while Rajan on his fiero sped away out of sight with Venkat taking photos on the pillion seat. After nearly one hour and ten minutes we reached the outskirts of Allepey at 2:40pm, had tender coconut in a roadside shop and were off to back waters where the famed boat races took place. The entire place was off for cars and bikes, we parked our bikes and proceeded on foot.
After about a 2 km walk, we reached the back waters only to be greeted by a huge wall of people. There was a raised platform made out of wood and people were all over it. The entire place was a mess and we couldn’t see a thing. So we left that place and walked a kilometer further down, the place here wasn’t so crowded, we even got ourselves spot near the water’s edge. Although we couldn’t make out who or what were the teams, we enjoyed our first live boat race experience. After an hour or two at the boat race, we raced off towards the beach, with a little photo session at the railway gate. It started raining heavily when we reached the beach, so we took shelter in a Guajarati temple nearby. The allepey beach is what a marina or a besant nagar beach would have looked like 15 years ago. Neat small little place. Then it was time we left and by the time we reached the highway it was dark. The vehicles coming on the opposite side did little help by being on high beam, thus blinding me. The ride back took more time with us trying driving slow to avoid the potholes. A wrong turn took us to Edakochi instead of back to Vytilla. It was the shorter route but it took us more time to travel through the crowded streets of Edakochi, Mattachery, Fort kochi . Finally we were back on MG road. Not wanting to have dinner in a place where cockroaches kept flying all over, we came out of dhaba and finally ended up having dinner @Brindavan/Abhirami- the place where it all started.
It was a fresh experience, traveling 120km on bike, watching the boat race and the clean beach. Nice way to spend the weekend although a bit more tiring than the other option of eat/sleep/eat routine.