art of living bike ride

see it big

Art of Living - that's one of the Yoga programs popular across the country here - mostly, the cities. Today HBC (Hyderabad Bicycling Club) joined hands with AOL for a ride...I guess AOL did the trick...today's ride saw the maximum participation that I have seen with this club...20 riders - some pros, some beginners, some amateurs...20 bikes - some state of the art, some semi pro, some jittery...the mission was same though - ride to a 'ssshhhh-dont-tell-anyone' secret place and practice some yoga and meditation...pretty early in the ride, we left the smooth tar road and took to the dirt tracks...true to their character, the tracks rose, fell and curved with the land, cutting through bushes...that's the fun of off-road biking - the tracks bend so much that you can hardly see where it's going beyond a few feet...unlike the tar road where you can see from horizon to horizon - you ride and ride and ride and then ride some more, waiting for the road to end...but when you're off the road, you take each turn, trying to guess what's up around the next - and you get surprised every time...we rode over rocks, gravel, clay, under the bridge, over the dam, down the slopes, till we reached our little 'secret' place...I can't tell you where it is because then it will be a secret no more...you need to be a part of the 'cult' to know the secret...the secret place had a beautiful and big secret lake, some secret bushes and some secret open land, where were going to practice our secret yoga and meditation...as we started getting off our saddles and spreading the carpet for the yoga, a black horse appeared from nowhere...you see, in a secret place, anything can happen anytime...you gotta keep all your senses wide open...

the yoga session started with some easy exercises to open up the joints and loosen the muscles...slowly, the yoga teacher started cranking up the difficulty of the exercises...stretch you arms above your head...stretch them further...now breathe in and bend to your left...when you can bend no more, bend your stomach and try reaching out further...when you can't, turn your head and try looking over your shoulder...stretch as much as you can...at that point, I started wondering whether my head would remember its way back or not...thankfully, soon I was standing straight again, without much struggle. over the next few minutes, I rediscovered the joints of my body, that I had long forgotten, exist...my body started bending at places, which I used to think were straight...

this was a very interesting ride...I don't think I've ridden with so many people before...it was fun...the yoga session, quite enjoyable and relaxing...it took away whatever little bit of tiredness we had from the ride...Thanks Ed for conducting this...I think this should happen more often :)

on the way back home, I stopped at a Rajasthani sweet shop near my place...I was starving and badly wanted something to eat...the shop was being taken care of by a young girl (probably in her mid-teens)...she was really cute, in a sweet way...when I complained that the kachori is not hot, she shot back "we prepare them in the morning, they can't stay all day long, can they?" Ideally, this response should've been considered rude but she said it with such sweetness and cute smile that I couldn't help but smile back at her...I helped myself with a kachori, 2 samosas and some sweet - a lot more than I originally planned to...putting up a cute face on the counter can actually do wonders for the sale of a shop :) To heck with hot kachoris, I'm going to visit the shop again :)

a few more from today