Haan Haan Mein Crazy Hoon

Haan Haan Main Crazy Hoon

On May 11, 2014, we group of friends set out on a bicycle ride in Mumbai at 10pm in the night. Cycling through the streets at night, we saw Mumbai with a different perspective.

We rode for over 100kms in the darkness and had very interesting encounters along the way. This small poem I composed along the lines of the iconic Coke Ad sums up the feeling, our group had that epic night.

That night we tested our limits of endurance and came out winners!!

This ride was to support TABOFA's (Take a Breath of Fresh Air) 'kick the butt' campaign.

हाँ हाँ मैं Crazy हूँ 

Some pictures along the way 

Crazy Crazy Crazy 

दोस्तों  के साथ जाना,

रात भर साइकिल चलाना ,

लोगों की cigarette छुड़ाना,

खुशी यूँही लुटाना ,

अगर ये सब crazy है ,तो,

हाँ crazy हूँ 

मुंबई पुलिस को डराना,

गेटवे ऑफ़ इंडिया  सामने थेपला खाना,

Half पैंट पहने रात 2 बजे ताज में सुसु करने जाना ,

मौज यूँही मनाना , 

अगर ये सब crazy है ,तो,

हाँ crazy हूँ

5 बजे बिल्डिंग में वापस आना,

Morning walkers, दूधवाले और Security को चौंकाना,

धूम यूँही मचाना। . 

अगर ये सब crazy है ,तो,

हाँ crazy हूँ

Yes I am crazy.. am crazy, crazy crazy

हाँ हाँ मैं Crazy हूँ 

The route we traversed along

My Friend Nikhil Karnik, described the nights madness on his Facebook Post which goes like this...

Haan haan mein CRAZY hoon!!!! (Title courtesy Sandeep Bangia)….

Literary Warning: Folks, this is going to be a longgggggg post, please read it at your peril!!! However, if you want to join me in enliving my crazy journey across Mumbai on a cycle over 7 hours, you are free to continue reading...And yes, any reference to a person, Living or Living and situation is purely intentional, and you can sue me if you don’t like it… :P

Quit Smoking! A simple to preach, but a difficult to follow maxim…this is what around 50 crazy cyclists decided to take across to Navi Mumbai and Mumbai under “Take a Breath of Fresh Air” (TABOFA)’s third anniversary…this post outlines my “Once in a life-time experience” of associating with all these crazy people, as Sandeep Bangia has put in a nicely penned poem (which is reproduced at the end of this post, without his permission)…

How do I start? Well, the leader of this crazy pack - Kripa Sagar starts talking to / cajoling / forcing us – the Striders NRI group to join her for the 3rd Anniversary celebration of TABOFA – that is the day when she had quit smoking and gave herself and people around her lots of breath of fresh air!!!! Now, we had 3 choices – cycle 100 kms. through the length and breadth of Navi Mumbai and Mumbai through the night of May 10th and early morning 11th, run 21 kms. on Palm Beach Road at 6 am on May 11th or the craziest part – do both!!! I had a family function to attend in the morning of 11th and hence wisely chose to register only for the cycling event, not knowing what I was getting into...

As the D-day started coming closer, I started getting butterflies in my stomach – the longest that I ever had cycled before this at one go was 20 kms., that too mostly in the safety of my residential complex, and here I was aiming to do 5 times that on the roads of Navi Mumbai and Mumbai…I had asked Kripa a few days before if she thought I could do it, and she suggested me going out and doing a 40-45 kms. biking a couple of days before the event, which I could not. Looking at my anxiety (it was getting difficult to concentrate on smaller aspects of life including work and meditation), my better-half kept on asking me over Friday and Saturday if I really wanted to do it…and I kept answering in affirmative. Given that TABOFA was not only about asking people to quit smoking, but also was supporting a very noble cause of providing support to children with Cancer through the Janrakshita Trust, there was no way I was going to skip the event…

The preparation for the event itself was an event for me – I decided to drive down 50 kms. on Friday evening all the way to Decathlon in Thane to get myself some gear – Cycling Helmet, Shorts, Goggles, Lights for my Cycle, Air Pump, et all, came back home and proudly showed the shopping to the family....my daughter and my better-half were all giggles saying I looked like a school kid preparing for a picnic…

Now, cometh Saturday – I decided to have a nice siesta in the afternoon, which I could actually take, which refreshed me…then went and collected my bib from the event desk in the complex, went home, got into my gear and calmly went to the event start at the Rotunda in NRI Complex – Phase I….thankfully, all my nerves had settled down by then…my family joined me for the start, and we had some really nice time listening to Kripa sharing her history, and what made her go this crazy path; my good friend Col. Jasprit Bakshi sharing his thoughts on the event and most importantly, the young and brave Ashwini, a Blood Cancer survivor sharing her story…her strength was immense, which gave me further resolve of ensuring that I completed the ride that night….there was more fun around the way with lots of phones clicking away thousands of pictures…it was very nice of Firefox cycles to give each one of us a riding jacket, and all of us looked pretty good in them and giving the group a look of solidarity…

Come 9:15 pm, the cycling event was flagged off and it was a fabulous sight with most of the cycles blinking red LEDs on the rear…the weather was really nice with a nice breeze blowing...coming out from the Complex, we hit the Palm Beach Road, riding all the way to Vashi, crossing the flyover, heading straight down the Thane Belapur Road, all the way to Airoli, taking a left turn and heading over the Airoli bridge and taking the first Pit Stop just before the Toll Gate…roughly 22.5 kms covered in around 75 minutes…we helped ourselves with some nice Chutney and Jam sandwiches…

After a 10 minute break, we headed out towards the Eastern Express Highway, taking the left turn and then cycling down towards Chembur….the road was really nice to ride and we were zooming pretty well down towards the newly inaugurated SCLR, which I was looking forward to traverse….the group took an unscheduled stop just before the SCLR started from Chembur for all the riders to assemble together. The ride up and over the SCLR was a pretty nice experience, where I got chatting with Jitendra, the person who had chalked out the route for the ride and asked him if he actually covered the 100 km. route himself once before…got to know from him that one could design a route on Daily Mile….crossing the SCLR, we took the left turn towards Bandra Kurla Complex, took the right on the main BKC road, and traversed the road pretty quickly…here got chatting with another rider (missed his name), where we discussed the participation in the forthcoming Global Corporate Challenge, kicking off on 28th May…both of us were rueing the fact that TABOFA was not held during the GCC period (and missing out approximately 50,000 steps at one go)….

Getting out of BKC, we hit the Mahim Causeway, crossed Mahim and headed towards the second official Pit Stop at CCD near Shivaji Park…we crossed over onto Cadell Road, and stopped just at the turn…here is where the group had the first of the two trysts with Mumbai Police….it was past midnight and close to the mid-point when a Patrolling van stopped where we were talking a break and asked us what we were doing and if had permissions…the cops were directed to Kripa and wonder what miraculous words she uttered that they flagged us off to move further…

We started down Cadell Road, crossing Siddhivinayak Temple, down towards Worli, where I moved as the leader of the pack and for a moment when the lead vehicle slowed down, I was ahead of it (got chided by Kripa a little later for that)…we continued the ride smoothly, crossing Atria Mall, and as we hit the promenade in front of NSCI at Worli, the second and the most important tryst with the Mumbai Police happened….there was a big posse of Police (as if they were waiting for us), and had a lot of questions for us….again it was the charm of Kripa and the other organizing members who explained the purpose of the ride to the Police…some of my friends in the meantime had a gala time posing for and with a Page 3 types celebrity who had stopped to see so many cyclists at the same time, and pose with a cycle held in her hand as if she has never seen one (my friends are still searching for the photos taken at that time)….away from this humdrum, the Mumbai Police suddenly turned our best friend, and actually led the group with a Pilot vehicle…the best part was that this vehicle stopped the traffic at the Haji Ali signal (which had a lot of oncoming traffic after the MI – CSK IPL match) and allowed all the riders to get onto Peddar Road…

Up Peddar Road, down to Babulnath took us to Queen’s Necklace (Marine Drive), where I got my memories of the tough time I have got both the times when I hit it while running the SCMM…we continued biking down Marine Drive, took the left turn for Churchgate, turned right at Fountain and headed towards The Gateway of India, which was our designated Dinner Stop…reaching the iconic Gateway was a tremendous moment…we had covered 62 kms. by then and wanted a good break…here also a Police van came and briefed the SPG guards posted in front of the Taj Mahal Hotel that we had permission to take a break there…so out came the Dinner packets – what fun it was eating Theplas, Aloo Bhaji and Amul Masti chaas in front of the Taj Mahal Hotel, and having chilled water….there were some quick calculations being made by Kripa, it was around 2:00 a.m. and she wanted all of us to get back to NRI Complex between 4:30 and 4:45 a.m….it was another 38 kms. to go, which was over a good 2 to 2:30 hours ride for the somewhat tired group….the camera phones were busy clicking a lot of photographs!!!

Finally, we decided to move from the Gateway, which seemed like starting for the return journey!!!! The ride back took us past VT Station, where I joked to Col. Bakshi that let’s take the last train out, get down at Vashi and wait for others…saying how long did you guys take!!! Thankfully, even though it was well past 2:00 p.m., we decided not to take the JJ Flyover and instead took the long road via Mahatma Phule Market and under the Flyover…as we emerged at the other end of the flyover, we saw Traffic Police catching hold of all two wheelers that were ignoring the ban on 2 wheelers on the Flyover…this is where the Pilot vehicle actually gathered some speed, and a group of cyclists led by Raja Arora, Jotinder Verma and @Jasprit Bakshi started racing each other….we continued zooming past the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Road, crossing Byculla, Lalbaug, Parel, Dadar, Sion till Priyadarshini Circle (taking a few and leaving a few flyovers in between)….I think this stretch of 10-12 kms. would have been the fastest for me, which my Endomondo mapping does prove…I covered the 70 to 80 km mark in 29 minutes, which was by far the fastest 10 km stretch….

Crossing the Priyadarshini Bridge is where fatigue finally had started taking over…this is where I had realized there were another 20 kms. to go…the battle between the body and mind had started…however, I continued biking at a slower pace…I took an unscheduled stop at Diamond Garden to have some water, and saw a few bikers go past me, including Kripa…I started biking again and caught up with her…asking her why I was doing this!!!! I was looking forward to the last scheduled stop at Deonar….the entire group stopped there, and we were treated to some nice Besan Laddoos…this is where I had to literally dip into the last ounce of the mental strength not to give up (was thinking of loading my cycle onto the Tempo that accompanied the group and hop onto one of the vehicles)…this is where I told myself that I could not quit after having cycled close to 80 kms.

The start from Deonar was uneventful, and I again saw the leading gang start racing again…we decided to skip getting onto the Mankhurd Flyover and went under it…getting onto the freshly laid Sion – Panvel Highway from Mankhurd…here’s where I caught with the running stud @Anurag Chaudhary and continued biking with him….the Vashi bridge was pretty much in sight, giving an indication that we were close back to Navi Mumbai…we had a discussion during the Deonar stop, where @Amit Mittal had highlighted that the Vashi Creek Bridge had a pretty steep gradient that we rarely noticed while driving our cars over it…however, when I started biking over it, I realized how steep it was…here I was fighting fatigue and here was a steep gradient to ride…putting the cycle in a low gear, I pedalled along…crossing the Vashi Toll gave me a new high of being in the home stretch….

Coming close to Vashi Flyover, I had the only scary moment of the ride…there was one rider from the group whom I did not know, who asked me if I knew the way forward…I of course knew it and rode ahead, not knowing why he had asked me…As I crossed Vashi signal at around 4:00 a.m., 2-3 Dogs started barking and chasing me (was riding alone at that time)…knowing the best thing to do in such a time, I simply breaked and stopped…and so did the Dogs…however, this other rider started cycling really fast and the Dogs had a new target…I had to shout at the top of my voice to ask him to stop!!! He did listen to me and the crisis blew over!!! Imagine being bit by a Dog when you had less than 10 kms. to go…both of us then got talking and I had the shock of my life when this person tells me that he had come all the way from Kandivali for the event…he had cycled 50 kms. even before I had started pedalling for the event…and that he was cycling back in the morning!!! I had a shock of my life when I heard this….

I hit the Palm Beach Road and had a renewed burst of energy knowing that I had only 8 kms. to go…however, the next source of worry was the dwindling battery of my mobile phone…did not want it to die down before I completed the event since I wanted to badly record the completion of 100 kms. on Endomondo…I prayed for a minute to Guruji asking for the battery to last till I completed the task and continued pedalling…I bade farewell to the Firefox Support team who had stopped at the Nerul Signal…having this team with us through the event was a big back-up and a huge mental support in case anything went wrong with our cycles!!!

The Seawoods signal was where the realization sunk in of the enormity of the task….I was ecstatic and as I reached the complex gate, I saw the early finishers waiting for us…there were Hi-Fives all around and congratulations being given!!! It was 7 hours and 15 minutes since we started at 9:15 p.m., ending the 101.88 km. journey at 4:30 a.m. with a cycling time of 5 hours and 45 minutes for me!!! Gradually all the riders kept coming in, and after a few photographs, I decided to head back home since I had to get up again in few hours to drive down another 40 kms. for the Family function!!!! I had a rousing welcome back home from my better half and really felt at the top of the world after having done the unthinkable a few hours back – to cycle 100 kms. at a go!!!! A final post-biking photo, an ice pack and a shower later, I was ready to hit the bed!!!! However, sleep just refused to take over me in light of the excitement of what had happened in the last 7 hours….

So friends, this in long is my story of being completely crazy…and here is the reproduction of the nice poem penned by Sandeep after doing the same crazy thing as 50 of us:

Haan haan main crazy hoon,

Crazy Crazy Crazy

Doston ke saath jaana,

Raat Bhar cycle chalana,

Logon ki cigarette chudana,

khushi yunhi lutana

Agar ye sab crazy hai to

Haan main crazy hoon

Mumbai police ko daraaana,

Gateway of India ke saamne 'thepla' khaana,

Half pant pehne raat 2 baje Taj mein 'susu' Karne jaana

Mauj yunhi manana,

Agar ye sab crazy hai to

Haan main crazy hoon

5 baje building mein Wapas Aaana,

Morning walkers, doodhwale aur security ko chaunkaana,

Dhoom yunhi machaana,

Agar ye sab crazy hai to

Haan main crazy hoon

Yes I am crazy.. am crazy, crazy crazy

Haan haan main crazy hoon!

Last but not the least, a big salute to the crazy lady – Kripa, hats off to you for conceptualizing and executing an event of this magnitude!! I can again keep on writing on the fabulous organization of the event, but already lot of it has been written about it…I can only wish that Colonel Bakshi’s prophecy of you giving SCMM a tough competition in times to come comes true…just on the closing note, I hope I become crazier by the next year to not just cycle 100 kms., but also join the running gang to complete the 121 km. event!!!! One last question to you - why did you quit smoking in the month of May??? You could have done it 6 months before or 6 months later....at least this torture could have been more enjoyable ;)

Tagging all my crazy friends here in the note - @Kripa Sagar, @Raja Arora, @Jotinder Verma, @Jasprit Bakshi, @Anurag Chaudhary, @Sandeep Bangia, Amit Mittal, Abhijit Mandal, Jitendra Kumar Gupta, Varadharajan Chellappa….friends, please tag yourselves if I have missed you out….enjoy the pictures!!!!