I don’t know if it is the effect of watching too much bollywood movies or it was real!!!! We were shit scared.
It was a late afternoon bike ride from shimoga to Bangalore as we were returning from our short 3-day trip. It went well as we picked up the speeds of mid-70s cruising through good (but not great) roads. But after couple of hours of riding, I saw a Bajaj Discover bike zoomed past us as we were traveling one-behind others. BTW we had four bikes and six people in all. Initially I did care less for this strangers on a bike, who zoomed past us and again slowed down to allow us to pass them. This happened couple of times and now I started noticing it. I slowed down as if to catch some breath as I held my bike close to my friend who was traveling behind me. I cautioned him and he looked scared too.
Our caution seemed appropriate as we stopped to ask the way, and I saw them stopping little ahead of us. Now I was almost sure that they had come to rob us as we were passing through some lonely areas. I zoomed past to reach the rider friend ahead of me and cautioned him too and we all decided to take a break just to allow them to go much ahead of us.
we must have taken a not-more-than-5-minute break. This was the time for our creative minds to spit out their own theories about possible action by them.
“I saw them going past us and going back and also they stopped a little ahead of us when we stopped” I declared in a detective tone. I was happy that I was able to bust their plan.
Everyone seemed to agree with me and I felt good about that.
“Lets all be together and don’t leave much space between us” some one said in our group and everyone agreed in unison.
But much to my surprise, our body-builder, I-go-to-gym-everyday, six-pack-abs friend looked shit scared. More than any other in group. All this time, I was thinking that he is the one we can bank on if we had to fight. Now my assumption was wrong as he declared:
“We cant do anything even if we are 6 and they are 2. They must be well prepared”.
I felt the ground beneath me was shaking.
Till now our body builder, who was finding it difficult to catch our speed (due to his bike being new), now decided that he will ride ahead of us and we will all follow him.
For once, I must tell you he had broken his own pre-decided speed limit and it was clear that he was shit scared. Now it was me at the back of the stack and I was all alone. Lot of thoughts were going through my mind but I decided that all I have to do is catch others speed and ride close to others. I did it pretty well.
Now after a short span of riding, we saw them again, (as if) waiting for us on roadside, bike parked. And once we passed, they followed us again. And started their routine of going past us and again allowing us to go ahead of them.
“Now we should stop and take a long break” I thought and I think everyone thought the same.
We stopped again at the next city and parked our bikes and started gossiping again.
“I got even more scared as their name plate was broken” said some one.
I went through my theory of how I busted their plan. And we discussed what we can do if they attacked us.
“They cant do anything if we stayed together” someone declared. I was not sure but hoped so.
No body was interested in eating anything, even-though our last stop was hours before.
“We should cover much path before dark” and I agreed.
We started again after about 10-15 minutes of break. During this time, one of our friend decided to offload himself in a near-by toilet. I am not sure if it is an aftermath of this incident as he repeated the same performance most of the places we stopped and was quite consistent to be credited to this freaking incident.
We started from there and i kept my eyes wide open in anticipation of them. No sight of them. I was surprised, really.
Then why did they follow us? Just a timepass along their way? Or just to have some fun with us? Or finding some biker partners along their way?
I don’t have an answer. My theory has already failed. But it gave us a good fun (thinking of it now!!!!!) and also had driven away our afternoon sleepy mode.
We reached Bangalore safely at around 12 in midnight in the middle of pouring rain. Safe.
Gopalswamy betta ( a.k.a Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta) is located at around 80 kms from Mysore. The route is to take Ooty road from Mysore till Gundlupet and then head straight in a patchy road for about 10 kms, where you will find the welcome board to betta. From there it is a hilly road for about 8 kms and the road is pretty bad, I must say. The way up is little tough specially for smaller bikes. The road has beatiful views on either side of it. 
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