Royal Mysore Walks

Royal Mysore Walks is Vinay's new venture. He quit his IT job in mid 2008, and decided to be his own boss. He took up English classes at the IMS learning centre for a batch of students planning to take up the GMAT. But this didn't hold his interest for too long, and he relocated to Mysore to start the Royal Mysore Walks. I had helped to promote it to a few of my acquaintances, and had also sent him a few clients. But ironically, I'd never been on any of his walks myself, and today that was going to get fixed.

A vacationing couple had driven from Bangalore for a weekend getaway, and had seen an article on the Royal Mysore Walks in Mint, a popular business newspaper. Vinay was entertaining his clients, and I was just trudging along. We went along the Palace Wall a bit, checked out a busy marketplace, walked along narrow forgotten lanes, bought Mysore Pak at the shop where it was first made, visited a small holy shrine and finally wound up at a historical heritage site. All along the route, Vinay kept us keenly interested with his trivia and small anecdotes about the places around us. It really felt as if we were taking a stroll through a slice of history!

Got back home and waited till Vinay's Dad had performed Ayudha Pooja on the vehicles, and then bade goodbye to them.

Before leaving Mysore, I went back to the old places that I used to frequent when I stayed in Mysore for a month during my "Industrial Training" period at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) sometime in early 2003. For the return journey, I decided to avoid the Mysore-Bangalore highway, and instead take the longer, and not-so-well-made road through Bannur, Malevalli & Kanakapura.

<- The alternate smaller roads

The countryside ->

It started pouring almost as soon as I reached Bannur, and I stopped at a small tea shop and started chatting with the chaiwalla. He asked me where I worked, and I told him I worked in Bangalore for a company that made mobile phones. His next question was how much did they pay me. That made me a little uncomfortable, so I pretended not to hear him. But he was persistent, and asked me again. So I lied to him, and gave him a smaller figure. I had estimated correctly, and he was impressed but not overwhelmed. The next question he asked me was whether I was married yet. When I answered in the negative, he was surprised and said that I ought to be married when I'm already earning so much. I told him that I wasn't prepared for marriage just as yet, and that I wanted to go on many more motorcycling trips before settling down. That's when he started advising me on why one should get married, and how one should choose his wife carefully. He also gave me a lot of advice about how one should not be too greedy for money, and how one should identify fair-weather friends. I was a good listener, and he was happy to find someone to dispense advice to. Not only did he give me 2 cups of tea when I was there, but also refused to take any money for the teas. Finally when the rain had stopped, I took a picture with him, said goodbye and got on the bike again. If you're ever passing through the small village of Bannur near Mysore, do ask for Syed Mudassir Kadir's tea shop and have a cup of tea there!!

<- With Syed, the chai-walla

It was wonderful feeling riding through the small roads with hardly any traffic, looking at the bright green fields on both sides and breathing the fresh clean air that was non-existent in Bangalore. Eventually I got onto a tolled freeway going towards Bannerghatta road. I was riding on a freeway for the first time in India, and the feeling was very similar to being on one of the Interstate highways in the United States.

100 kms to home ->

Reached home around 8 pm with the odometer reading 33478. I had covered 434 kms in the last 2 days.

A hot shower after a long and tiring ride... aah, bliss!