Overdrive

When I said yes to Sid I had no idea that how the two of us could make it on our own all the way to Goa, so we pulled in Keanu in the discussion. Any such discussion would be incomplete without Gaurav who was not willing to move his big ass beyond water kingdom. I pulled the plug on this discussion and decided that may be only 2 frustrated souls would embark on this trip.

Next day brought in hope when Keanu with all his matrix like convincing powers brought on 8 people on board and I was on my way to Ganpati phule having one of the best rides of my life inKeanu's K(c)orolla. Thanks to me staying in the countryside miles away from the city I got shelter in Gaurav's house and after staying up till 4 did I realise it was too late to sleep. With Keanu's timely call I decided to catch a quick nap while our baby elephant was busy in the bathroom. I can say with pride and slight remorse I managed to maintain Gaurav's reputation of turning up late for the second time.

We had a good look at the new machines Sid's Elantra and Keanu's Corolla whose power was about to be unleashed on the meanest of roads for a gruelling 8 hour journey.Once the pessimistic Kushal joined onboard I was sure our vehicle had the 2 most negative forces in the world so both of us did not take wanna take any chances with our already screwed up fate. It was quite a sight to see the two of us tugged in our seat belts at the rear side when one of the safest drivers on the circuit was on the steering wheel and to balance the centrifugal force we had our 1 tonner man Gaurav to make up for any imbalance on the road.

Keanu was hitting speeds of hundred and twenty plus with such elan on the hilly terrain as if it was his home circuit and was slowly demonstrating his matrix like skills of the man becoming the machine itself. After a few hours we changed seats and I got to witness Keanu's driving skills up close sitting right next to him. I resisted my urge to pull his leg and was enjoying the ride as Keanu was overtaking every other mortal on the road effortlessly.

For the next 2 seconds my legs froze, thank God I kept my mouth shut out of shock and rued that I dint take that insurance cover, Kushal chose to stay silent and Gaurav tried to say No once before he chose silence. In the midst of all this Rahul hit the pedal hard and manoeuvred his way from right to left overtaking the truck, missing the one coming head on by a whisker to see another tempo coming right onto us missing us again by tenth of a second . And then we started laughing and shouting, in 2 seconds we summoned all our Gods just like Constantine did in the movie to call on Gabriel and for a change our prayers got answered instantaneously.

On our way back we were wondering just in case if the 4 of us didnt make it, it would have been so difficult for our colleagues to attend 4 funerals since each one of us stayed at 4 corners of the city. I wanted to build onto that topic but was stopped by Keanu as Kushal was trying his best to make up the last leg of our journey more adventurous by hitting speeds of 140 and above.

Once we reached the beach Keanu donned the role of a photographer clicking each and every thing, he even went out in the midnight and came back disappointed there wasnt enough light.
Close to dawn one by one we fell flat out, some by the effects of alcohol and others by the sheer tiredness of the long drive and the exploits on the beach.