Auroville returns !!

The auroville marathon lived up to its expectation. After missing out on the Mumbai marathon - I was intent on going for it and all the planning paid off. A wonderful run and my best in a longtime. Our Original plan was to go by train but the return options from Podi to bangalore had dried up. No trains on Sunday and no buses available.

Packed our selves up in our beatup Santro and off we went leaving home at 2:15 pm. The drive was our first on this route and I had not planned on the night driving on a 2 lane road with no dividers . It was a tough experience driving at 9:oo pm on such a stretch. Luckily in the Thiruvannamalai - Tindivanam stretch I latched on to a Maruti who drove at a manageable speed and just followed him . From Tindivanam it was just another 40 kms and its was done in as many minutes. By the time we checked in it was 10:45pm . 8:30 hours we were at it except for a brief stopover for dinner at Tiruvannamalai. Now that was another experience - food was great absolute home made food except that the restaurent turned out to be a single bedroom house. Sudarshan A/c had one small room 10ft by 10 , with two tables and an aircon.
But we were not complaining as the food was great and had it not been for the fact that we were entirely out of change we might have tipped the waiter luxuriously ( by thiruvannamalai standards).

We straightaway crashed and were still asleep at 8:00AM when my sis called to say that were on the way from chennai and would be reaching by 9:30. After a quick break at Nallas and brief stopover at our room were we placed sis and families' luggage we were off to brief visit to Pondicherry town and then to Auroville to collect the bib.

A Bullish start to the New Year

A Lusty Bull , a not so lusty cow, WOW! My foot!! & me on all fours.( The above picture is quite misleading)

Thats what happened as missus and I came out of a More outlet. As I stood by the bike putting on my helmet there was a mild commotion behind - the sound of empty wooden boxes falling - I turned around to see a bull mounted on a cow - the typical mating pose and the cow heading for us - 3 feet away. My wife as usual froze and I had to push her and myself out of the way. In the process landed on the road with the helmet taking its own route to the other side. Managed to escape with only a trampled foot-Thanks to the hooves of the cow.

As I picked up myself and the helmet missus was very concerned about my kerchief which was right under the cows nose and tried picking it up.

The episode got over as quickly as it started and I only had one bloody toe to show for it. One passerby indicated to me that it was my red T shirt that attracted the cow to me and I very patiently tried to explain why that was not the case.

Eventful start nevertheless - what do you think?