The Elusive Bike Delivery

Now, Now, ..Don't you start haggling for a party at the mention of the words "Bike" and "Delivery". Yours truly, has of course not decided to abandon his faithful two stroke powerhouse - The Yamaha RX 135 for some pathetic contraption they call a four stroke motorcycle! And mind you, It is NOT that the bike that is having a delivery!

Its just that I had parceled the RX to Kozhikode (my home for the next two years) from Ahmedabad and the next logical step would be to "get the delivery" from the Kozhikode station's parcel office. Now, Why do I call it the "elusive" delivery you ask? Aaah! For that you'll have to take the trouble to read the entire post....

It was on the 12th day of the sixth month of the year 2006 (don't worry...just tryin to make it sound grand...) that I was to collect my bike from the parcel office of the Kozhikode Station. I asked a new found friend on the campus also named Aditya to accompany me to the station. He also had to collect his bike from the foot of the hill where we have our campus. We decided to ride on his bike to the railway station. Well, the roads here are pretty decent but unfortunately the traffic is not. The roads inspite of being decent are all confused. They don't go along in a straight line like our sensible city roads but choose to go up and down small hillocks twisting and turning. Crazy traffic and confused roads pack a dangerous concotation. Take my word for it. So as Aditya's Unicorn was blissfully chugging along a crowded city road without a care in the world, the bright red Indica just ahead of us decided to create some problems by braking hard for some wierd reasons. The result? We failed to respond and before you could say "Watch Out" both of us found ourselves flat on the road with the bike giving us company. As sudden as the accident, a swarm of helpfull people descended from nowhere. Someone's picking up the bike...the other is fetching the petrol bottle which shot from my hand at the moment of impact..Just the kind of thing you would expect in any corner of India. Makes me think how much alike we are inspite of the innumerable differences. Medically speaking, I was quite OK but poor Aditya J. was not so lucky. His nose was bleeding and his teeth and lips were soaked in the stuff. Quickly a rickshaw was summoned and both of us were packed off to the nearest hospital - The Baby Memorial Hospital. Well, I could just go on and on and on about how things turned up in the hospital but it all boils down to the fact the Aditya J. came out with a crepe bandadge on his right hand wrist and the promise of an intimidating root canal treatment on two of his front teeth. Of course, his gloomy face did crack up into a smile as soon as he realised that he has become the object of all the girls' sympathy...Just tells you how there's a ALWAYS a positive side...no matter what!! As you might have guessed, the bike delivery did not work out that day!

So off I am again to the parcel office with an almost naieve optimism. The thought of my dear RX languishing in the stinking godowns of the Railways was gnawing away on my heart. I took a Rickshaw with two other friends, dropping them en route and dismissing their offers to pay up right then and there. Finally, I find myself face to face with the office in question. The Rick-wala demands his fare. A cool Rs. 150/-. I wince in pain at the prospect of parting with this princely sum but there is no time to argue. Just a few minutes dear and I'll be right there with you...I had around a hundred and seventy bucks in my wallet. My heart is throbbing away....I follow a maze of directions to finally reach the Goods Delivery Office. I present the receipt. The clerk checks his register. Writes something in greek (or mallu?) in the n different columns....and asks me to pay Rs. 30/- as demurrage charges. Not a big deal, you say? Now if you quickly reach out for a calculator (if you are mathematically challenged like me) or do some mental maths you will figure out that 170 minus 150 leaves 20 which was the sum in my wallet at that given point of time. A shortfall of some 10 measly rupees which had positioned themselves like the stereotypical "baap of the ladki" whom we so often encounter in bollywood flicks. I begged. I pleaded. I appealed to the good senses of that railway clerk. I praised his mother, father, uncle, aunty...but to no avail....I could not succeed in moving his stone cold heart. Makes you wonder what the Railways does to turn up their clerks into such merciless monsters! After tolerating me for some 5 minutes, I was shooed away...

With a heavy heart, I shrink back...hands in my jeans pocket...face turned down...taking one step a minute. Everything looks sooo gloomy. But I hadn't lost the determination. I found myself doing the unthinkable. I cooly touched a man walking on the road for ten bucks! And he agreed. You will agree that I have an impressable record as a "bhikari"....One Target. One Bheekh.
I rush back to the delivery office with my feet hardly touching the ground below. The exhilaration of having turned a bleak situation upside down had left me in raptures. I present the required sum of Rs.30/- in the denomination of a ten rupee and five rupee note with the rest made up by assorted coins of 2 and 5 rupees. The Clerk equally determined to create all possible obstacles in the delivery of my RX raises a new issue - that of tipping the poor porters who had so laboriously unloaded the RX from the train. At that moment I realised what Gandhi, Nehru and company must have felt during their negotations with the British. There comes a time in every man's life when the proverbial paani sir se upar chad jaata hai and if there ever was such a time in my life it was right there and then! I put my foot down and told him to go to hell and boil his head taking his damned porters along with him or something to that effect. It worked and I saw that this same Railways Clerks who looked like Aurangzeb's first cousin melt before my very eyes revealing the vulnerability of humans to the force of iron wills. He quietly made out the gate pass and handed it to me with a meek smile on his face.
With a few minor hiccups because of the negligible quantity of petrol being addressed, I found myself some time later lying down in my room with the smuggest smile on my face, truly content with the knowledge that my baby is safe and comfy in her new new home - the A hostel parking.