Dried moss (lichen) on the rock makes it super-grippy[1]. The climb up is easy, in-spite of the fixed-gear ride leading up to it and my being out of breath (not planned) and water (planned cockiness I now regret). Lying down on the pockmarked summit (it isn’t a sizeable climb; just a sizeable climb right after a ride and unfortunate decisions) rewards one with a breathtaking third-floor-terrace-view framed for the most part by coconut groves long overdue their general grooming. (That does remind me of the aerodynamics of riding a bicycle while bearded but that tigress we shall address later.) It is near-silent, except for the faraway beats of a song being played at some wedding reception (today is one of those weekends after an astrologically well-endowed week and it shows) and the odd Bullt misfiring in the distance. (You are never far from a motorcycle in these parts, remote as the parts are.) I can hear the birds—most are crows heading home, some bats waking up—flap their wings. It is an odd sound; something you don’t want to expect as BGM while attempting to contemplate life, the multiverse, rising price of gold, etc. I grew up in a house near this rock and was denied late-evening visits till I was old enough to ride a bicycle without people waiting along the road as if it was leTour. It was a fuller rock-formation ‘back in the days;’ many homes got built over solid foundations since then and what is left of the quarry is a cricket-badminton-coconut-drying field in the non-rainy months. The niches left in the rock-face where boulders were blasted out make for a gallery worthy of ticketed entry. Some brilliant, harmless village-funds-redirection makes for ample lighting post sundown—when someone decides to get the Panchayath to fix the LD-Resistors on the electric-pole LEDs. The LEDs are not in the mood to work today. The scene is hiplessly un-lit. The only shop (down the rock along the gravel road; the blue tarpaulin in the photograph) in these parts is shut (the shopkeeper is a shout away, and it isn’t like there are no motorcycles around for a trip to the town). My new-old phone—after seven years of missed application updates and broken glass—is good at stitching panoramas. I remind myself throwing away the little green paper pieces was worth the effort and then quickly re-seal the waterproof pouch.

It starts to drizzle. Spray-and-pray in terms of hitting crucial electronics. Dried moss assumes oil-slick-consistency when wet. It glistens in rainbow colours. It starts redefining slippery. I think up scenarios where I am variously stuck on top for the night (no big deal, apart from it not being voluntary and my having heard foxes on other nights), slide down the rock-face face down (big-deal), run down yelling nothing (big-if-true-deal), etc. The clouds pass and the rain fades, not before my khakis burst into irregular polka dots of cold and start speaking clingon. There are many things worse than a shower that prematurely drops the mic, including having to slide down a rock-face, face down, etc. I am thankful of the polka dots and the added motorcycle-silence the rain brings with it. The bird-wings flap louder and the sound echoes against the concave rock-face. Ungroomed coconut trees let go of some leaves and coconuts in the wind. There is enlightenment in the air.

The ride home is slower, for there are no fenders on the #F00 and for the NR450 is awaiting its warrantied fate at the bicycle shop. (They haven’t called yet, despite the enthusiaashaan and promises to transcend customer-support timezones.) The motorcycles are out again and drain the puny backup front-light on the #F00 in their holier-than-thou beams.

1: Grippy, unlike the Supacaz tape that left me 5x poorer than the normal ones. Consider this my official review and stay away from them if you are hovering over an add-to-cart button somewhere on the internets.