That day I was busy exploring the city of destiny, Visakhapatnam. I wanted pictures. I took my camera and started wandering down the beach road. I went as far as I could till the point where it ended. It was the ship harbor. I was actually inside the ship harbor wandering on my bike. Anyways I didn’t know that. So I took my camera out and started the burst sequence. I took a few and while I was returning back I noticed that it was the ship harbor. By the time, I almost got out. And the rest of the road was a bit crowded and the smell of the dried fish covered the arena. I had to hold my breath until I came out of the place. Then I got a call from a friend of mine, asking me whether I was interested in coming to the party later that night. I would have actually said NO, But I didn’t, because I had my reasons.
So, finally the hour came and I was at the meeting point. The birthday boy had already arrived by then and the time was past twelve. We had to leave right away in order to wind up quickly. So the vroom and zroom began. The empty streets were lit by the engine sound. The silence of the roads were broken. One after the another we headed towards Yarada. I was a little bit excited. Or was I? I don’t clearly remember. Because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have gone. Or, may be I couldn’t have said no and was going under dire situations. Never-the-less I was on my bike and was speeding in the lonely National Highway-5. Usually, this is a very populated road and that the time was quite some time past twelve, it was all calm and dreamy. I passed through each signal, following the bikes ahead of me because I didn’t know the way. Whatever. I was following them. After a long journey, we had to stop for a moment just to clarify the route. Well, this moment took rather long time to find the way. Again, we started and headed towards the desti. I was still thinking it was at the hill top. Because I heard people saying that we have to climb a hill and the road is not at all good and sometimes its steep also. This was for the ca actually, which I over-heard.
Anyways, the rugged hill did arrive at last. And believe me, it was not at all good. All ruggedness and unevenness and also the curves added to it. We forced the bikes and the car through the unevenness and was going up and up. The scene of the night and the lights from the top was aesthetic and totally awesome. But the journey wasn’t over yet. This was the point where I came to know that the destination is a beach and not the hill top. Now the next task was getting down the hill. And the same type of road was ahead of us. The brakes were on, but the bike wasn’t stopping. That was the steepness of the hill. Finally, when we did reach the bottom of the hill, it wasn’t over yet. Now what lied ahead of us was another few km’s of unevenness and ruggedness. I was almost sit-sick as I had been driving for almost more than an hour by then. The road never ended, it seemed like that way. We drove and drove and finally we reached the so called “Yarada Beach”.
It was pitch dark. Totally dark. Even the moon wasn’t able to provide the light. That was a beach by the way. And I came to know by the sounds of the waves. I frankly didn’t know who came over here through all that road and found this place. This place was supposed to be a nice beach spot. But for me it was a dark beach where nothing was visible. And the party began. Actually this was for two people. One was Abhiram whose was the birthday boy and the other was Prithvinath, whose actual birthday was a week earlier but wasn’t celebrated because of the exams. So two cakes, two birthday guys and nearly twenty other people. The cake was set and so were the candles. And the party began in the darkness.
The birthday bumps were a common thing in these kind of parties, but these people invented another thing also which was dangerous though. It was setting the pants on fire using the foam or whatever it is called. I was busy clicking in the darkness and filling the lame dullness with the flash firing. After some time, the party was over , but none was ready to move. They sat by the beach and did nothing. It was nearly past three by the time it was all over.
After a great deal of thinking and talking and cracking lame jokes, the return journey began. I would have cursed them if we had to go the same way back. But they were saved. We took a rather good one. I wondered why they didn’t take this one earlier. This was a tarred road and rather smooth. The steep was never the problem now. I actually enjoyed the ride. I don’t know about Prithvi who was siting behind me. Whenever I asked, he said he was comfortable, so does everybody says. And before I forget, there was a patrol on the road this time. We actually expected one in the way up and this wasn’t a surprise though. We suddenly stopped and it took some time to find a way to get away without being noticed. This was rather too difficult. It would be easy to find the engine sound in the silent streets. We went through the streets and nearly escaped the patrol. That was kinda fun actually. Then we went acing through the NH-5 , disturbing the late night silence of the streets. Rather exuding feeling. By the time we reached back, it was nearly 4 in the morning. It was still dark like mid-night.
On the contrary, I did had a amazing ride and night out with friends. But, I am not going to do it once again.
P.S. This is totally absurd on my part. There was a lot of things that happened that night and a lot of things I wanted to tell. I cut short it too much. My apologies.
