We, about 7 of us waited impatiently at the Rajiv Gandhi memorial, Sriperumbudur anticipating the arrival of the founder of the Dohnavur Riders’ Club, Binny Singh alias Prince of Peace (2006 batch), who perhaps was following his own slogan – to arrive safe is more important. He eventually did arrive and we all set of about 07:30 AM from there, agreeing to stop somewhere for tea. We stopped to have tea and vada, a few kilometres away after which Paul Raja’s (2006 batch) Yezdi, the vintage bike refused to start and his rather relentless efforts to start the bike gathered a few onlookers. When it did start after 30 minutes, we all clapped passionately with joy and set out to Yelagiri, with a plan to pit stop to meet the three guys from Bangalore, who on hearing the news about Paul’s Yezdi took detours to visit the Krishnagiri dam knowing the Chennai folks would be ridiculously late.

 

 

We met up at the expensive coffee Bistro, Vaniyambadi about 10:30 Am after we witnessed Ajithlin (2006 batch) trying to carelessly race a Ducati on his Pulsar 220, with the Bangalore guys who seemed delightful to meet us all and in that hype to take photographs of the cool bikes we all had, they asked a local guy to remove his dusty Hero Honda Splendor, which was parked between our bikes. We then pulled out our bikes and headed the last 23 Km to Yelagiri, a small hill station in the Eastern ghats.

We checked in at YMCA at 12:35 Pm and sprang into the two rooms allocated to choose our beds while Hudson (2006 batch) immediately power napped. Deciding to have lunch outside, thanks to the splendid organisational skills of Binny, we had lunch at one of the not so great restaurants, we rode out in a single file announcing to the entire town of our convoy, while they gazed, even closed their ears and noses to the noise and smoke from Yezdi. After lunch, we set out in three pedal boats, photographing each other as we drifted around the tiny lake. Later we found ourselves photographing to perpetuity and eating jack fruit and walking aimlessly around the lake, where we found a small shelter with benches  to sit with names of couples’ scribbled in dark charcoal on the walls and also a name of a guy from among us, who claimed to have visited yelagiri several times. We documented it, sought our bikes and got back to YMCA.

We changed to play football, the teams were named Bangalore and Chennai and the dormant footballing skills of many came out in a rather programmed way. After the Bangalore guys declared themselves the victors of the game, the Chennai guys wanted another game to prove their worth and the game ‘Under Knee’ was considered, in which the Chennai guys won even though most of them were injured during the game.

We grabbed a quick delicious dinner of Chicken and Chapati from the YMCA mess, got back to our rooms to play UNO cards. We added extra rules to the game to make it more fun and even paradoxical, when Arnold thought he won but didn’t when it was his neighbour Sudharsan who had actually won but didn’t expect so. All the guys were amazed although Jeremy, Binny’s nephew was deep in sleep beside us.

We woke up the next day, with Johnson(2006 batch) shouting ‘get up, get up’ like at school and Binny insisting that we didn’t miss breakfast , as counters closed at 9 Am. After breakfast, we trekked our way to a nearby rock, perched on a hill for a view and to launch the SVAA website. When it was 10:30 Am, we made our way down to pack and leave while a debate whether to have biryani at Ambur or Vaniyambadi ensued. Binny Singh decided to democratise the final outcome by voting, even though Ambur got only one vote, Sudharsan (2005 batch) persisted we go to Ambur but eventually democracy prevailed, unlike the Middle East.

Here’s the link

We parked our bikes for an annoying final photograph and with strict rules given to us by Binny, who asked us to follow him in a single file; we left YMCA about 11:30 Am. Binny was deeply rebuked by one for not stopping at a nice spot for photographs but the moment passed when photographs were taken at a hairpin bend called the Avvaiyar bend, with a decent view. We reached Vaniyambadi by 02:30 pm for a delicious biryani, it was certainly delicious and we hogged greedily besides sharing photos wirelessly.  We also met Ranjith Babu (2007 batch) at the restaurant, who had come with his friends to yelagiri too.

It was about 03:30 Pm and it was time to part with the Bangalore guys, Arnold (2006 batch), Jerish    (2007 batch) and his friend Biddappa. We waved goodbyes and left before which as usual the Yezdi wouldn’t start. It was about 03:45 Pm, when it did and we all embarked on our journey to Chennai, stopping once to refresh and we all did reach safely.

 

As recounted by Jason who was part of the trip.