Have I told you about the feeling of riding in the early hours?

The sun is up. It is starting to heat the earth. Soon it will get hot and people will complain about the heat. It is January. One always associates months like December and January with winters. But this is a tropical state. There are no winters here. I would classify the climate here into three - the summers, the monsoons, and then the hot season.

Mind you, here the summers are really hot and the hot season is a little bit less hot than that. The mist hanging out in some hilly areas in the morning or in the evenings doesn't attribute to the characteristics of the typical winter. The nights are hot. People living on the topmost floor of any apartment are bound to have switched on their AC before going to bed. One can’t sleep in the heat that remains in the house even after the sun has gone down. Stepping out of the rooms into the balcony will surely offer you respite because the surroundings have started to cool down. That is a good feeling. If a wind blows by it feels much better. But otherwise, it is hot and humid. People will sweat and might take a couple of showers a day to keep themselves fresh and non-smelly.

The only difference between these two months is that the sun is a bit lazier than it was during the summers. It takes time to rise and heat up. As the day begins one can find a slight chill in the air.

When you jump into your bike or scooter in a hurry, you are not thinking about all these. You will be in your tee and pants. The tee would be a normal one, not like a pullover or something you would wear for the cold. Actually, we don’t have any winter wear here. At least not in the major parts of the state. Towards the hilly areas, sweaters and jackets are worn by the people. They need it. For people living near the coastal regions and the area between the two, this isn’t a requirement. Jackets might be available to those who are passionate about riding motorcycles. Otherwise no wool.

So off you go. You are bound to speed up soon. And then it hits you. The chillness. In your face, chest, and in your arms and fingers. The more you accelerate and speed up, the more you feel it. Within seconds you feel cold.

It is a good feeling if you can enjoy it. I enjoy it. I don’t think older people enjoy it. They might also be clad in their mundus or lungis, making it even worse for them. They will feel the cold more in their thighs and their private parts. This is why you will find aged people wearing mundus driving their bikes or scooters at a leisurely pace at this hour. There are exceptions to this though. The daily ones - the milk guy and the newspaper guy. They are actually more prepared cause they are fully aware of it. They would have donned themselves with some ear cover or a monkey cap for some protection from the cold. They have gotten used to it for a very long time.

I love to drive in the wee hours. This is the time when traffic is the least. You get to drive before the sun wakes up. It warms you as you reach your destination. I lower the window to the point of letting in enough air to not make us feel cold. Sometimes I put my hands out and enjoy the cold. But not for long.

I have only had a couple of early morning rides in my lifetime. I don’t own a bike. To be honest, even though I might come across as an amateur bike enthusiast, I have never given it much serious thought. Mainly it is because of my job. I am away from my home for almost half the year. When I do get back I take time to travel and explore places. Or just laze out my day. I have a scooter with me which has served my purposes very well. So the idea of buying a bike and having it stand idle almost all the time was something I detested. I do drive my friend’s bikes whenever I feel like it - which is a rare occasion.

One of the early morning rides happened in Bangalore. It was a chilly February morning in 2014. It was cold. We were prepared for this. Or we thought. We had a pullover and a jacket to ourselves plus a beanie that was pulled over the ear for the pillion. At five we set out for Nandi Hills. It is one of the quintessential rides everyone takes if they have been living in Bangalore. It has become so popular that it is regularly featured in movies. This has led to it being crowded over time but that is not something new in the country. As soon as something gains popularity, you can see it transform into a hub of sorts, raking in people until the time its fad runs out or until a better competitor comes into play.

It took us nearly ten minutes to get out of the city limits. We didn’t feel the cold much here. It was okay. The pollution and the concrete jungle trap in enough heat to last for a long time. As soon as we entered the countryside we felt the cold hit us. After a couple of minutes of speeding at sixty, we knew we had made a grave mistake. We forgot to take gloves. My friend who was riding first stopped the bike and took time to warm his palms. I asked him if we should go back and get it. He said if we did that we would miss the sunrise from the top. He didn’t want me to miss the sunrise. He is a really nice chap. He was my roommate back in my college days. We have a very good bond that has stood the test of time. Although we don’t call each other much these days, we do text from time to time. When we do have a call, it would stretch out for an hour. It would be a comprehensive update on what is happening in each other's lives and of our mutual friends.

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There was a shop nearby. We got out and walked to it. Tea was boiling. We had two black teas to warm us up. I took the bike. A couple of minutes into it, I couldn’t feel my palms. He tells me to go below fifty. I slow down to it. There is a slight respite. We endure this and take turns to reach our destination. In the end, it was all worth it. Up on top of the hills, as the red sun pierces the horizon and grows, the peace and happiness of it makes you forget your troubles and appreciate the beauty in front of you. It was cold up there too. A sly breeze was playing around too which made it all the colder. But the sunrise took away the coldness and the pain and filled us with a certain joy that can’t be explained.

We lingered on for a while, exploring the area a bit. We had black tea once again and by eight we left the place. It was still cold. The tree cover along the winding roads prevented the sunlight to warm them up. But the cold was fading away. Since I can’t go fast downhill, the speed was apt to enjoy the chillness that hit us. At the base of the hill, we stopped at a restaurant and had a good strong coffee. It was getting warmer and warmer as the sun rose in the sky. The ride back was much more comfortable.

Today I felt the cold when I took the scooter out of our home. It hit me. It was nice. I forgot about it soon enough. As the ride progressed, my mind was processing all that it was seeing around. Although it couldn’t make heads or tails about it, it was on it, and in that process, it forgot to give heed to the cold. I think it successfully blocked out that feeling. I am sure that it was completely involuntary. I don’t know how to do it by myself. I was reminded of it when a breeze hit me. The sudden chill it brought in gave me goosebumps.

The next main junction lies a quarter of a kilometer away. This is a busy junction. The traffic signal would be up and running. Yet there are policemen stationed at the junction to regulate the traffic. In their absence, a bottleneck can be formed, which usually leads to an unnecessary traffic jam along my side of the road.

The various tea stalls that line the pavement are a place of bustling activity. Immigrant daily workers crowd here to have their daily dose of tea and snacks. This is their breakfast. A couple of them serve the usual breakfast items. Today there is nothing of this sort happening. There is no one around, no shops open, and no vehicle on the road. In fact, there isn’t any movement at all. Everything seems to be in a frozen state. That is how it is. A frozen state. It is as if someone has said ‘Statue’ and the whole place has frozen. I know that doesn't account for the veered car or the fallen bikes, but still, that is how it seems.

I love reading books. After having read 1984 by George Orwell, I began reading more dystopian books. They took me to a kind of future we can’t normally imagine and got me hooked on a gripping narrative. Normally the protagonist wouldn’t fare well. A tragic ending would be in store for them. We get to know it somewhere down the line. But we still carry on because the dystopian future has us entrapped in its enchanting snare. There is no escaping it until we finish it. A future without books, or with different creatures having an uncanny resemblance to humans, one without fear or emotions to rule, all these worlds are actually scary. You might want to be in that situation when the protagonist pulls off a heroic move and takes the story arc in a different direction. But other than that I am pretty sure no one in their right mind would even think of such strange and crazy futures. At least for now. For the foreseeable future, everything looks good, if we factor out the Covid pandemic.

The pandemic surely has given us a picture of how truly frail we are. A small virus is all that it takes to bring about our downfall. This is what we should be taking away from this pandemic. As a species that wants to prolong its tenure in this cosmos and to understand what it is and what it means, we should set aside our differences and unite against all those that can potentially bring us to our knees. The third wave is upon us. The way these waves seek us out as the seasons' pass, we will be living with it at least for the next few years. Survival is our main objective followed by the preparedness to welcome the sun over the horizon as a new day begins. Economies have suffered, lives have been lost in masses, and years of progress have been reset. We find ourselves questioning our sanity and health.

I too suffered during this pandemic. I was stuck in my job on a remote site. Hopes of going back home seemed bleak. After two months of being stuck, I finally returned home. In the one and a half years since its beginning, I had to undergo long quarantines all by myself. I have spent more time in a hotel room and an empty house than I have ever in my life. I was familiar with the word quarantine from the movie Aviator. I never imagined using it on a daily basis. It has become a common word. Masks have become a way of life. They hang near the entrance of every home. It dons your face the moment you step out and stays there till you get back. You can forget to take your watch or your phone, but not your mask. It has become apparel we wear.

Death has come to adults of all age groups. First the elders. Then the youngsters. Now there is no such distinction. With every passing wave, the virus mutates and enhances itself, probing the efficiencies of our vaccines and our strategies to counter it. Over the long run, this is going to be a part and parcel of our lives, like the seasonal flu. We have to live with it. I guess we are finally coming to terms with it.

I have a mask on. It is an N95 mask. My wife makes it a point to wear either one of these or a three-ply surgical mask. She doesn't agree with the various cloth masks that are available in the market. It was this decision that probably insulated me from contracting the virus when I went to work on a project during the second wave. When it comes to our safety and our near and dear ones, she is staunch in her views. She will take a hard stand to get them implemented. She is my rock and pillar. I can’t imagine a life without her.