Rested, restless, still, agitated, calm, nervous, impatient, waiting…for the Tour (http://tourofnilgiris.com/) to start.

Big, red, malevolent eyes which look down on our pathetic and yet repeated attempts to scale peaks, the paths to which seem to grind in a direction opposite where you set your bicycle and efforts to. And all I’m doing now is hill-ride simulation – haven’t even got to the real thing yet.

There was a post recently asking if the collective noun for those of us attempting TfN (http://tourofnilgiris.com) is TfNers. Maybe it is. But what it should be is TfNuts, really. In more than one sense.

And while we’re talking that sort of thing, you know what eases staying long hours on the saddle? Butt-cream.

Risque business, this.

My song for the TfN (http://tourofnilgiris.com) – REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’. I only hope it doesn’t change to Dylan’s ‘Everything Is Broken’ before, during or after the Tour. By the time the Tour’s done, I should’ve finished composing RAM’s ‘Everything Hurts’. I mean Everything, really.

I’ve been getting responses and reactions from friends who read my newly started blog. Is all good. All nice people. But one shook me up…in mirth. A good friend – he’s someone from whom I have always got refreshingly honest opinions – called up and asked me if I had lost my job 😉 

I love this job/blog 😉

And no, I have not lost my job…not yet. I did lose something else though…

Read about it somewhere. Nice things written about it, don’t quite remember what though. Heck, I’m a sucker for things new and I thought these guys would’ve learnt a bit from the mistakes/problems of the others. I checked WordPress. It made some impolite noises – mysql, phhhpppp…Sounded like too much effort. And I don’t like Blogger. Don’t know why, but sorry, there it is – just don’t like it.

Some of you know me as Santosh and some as Ram. This is not what my parents had in mind when they hoped that I would be multifaceted. All it has done is turn me into a paranoid schizophrenic (my friends Simmi and Amritha will probably lecture me on being a psycho-quack).

I mean, come on, who am I? No, I’m not delving into existential tommy-rot here. My brother’s ‘short’ name is at least related to his official (officious South Indian) ‘long’ name. But me, Santosh -> Ramakrishnan??? Ramakrishnan is my maternal grand-pappy’s name. Poor man died when me mum was 4 I think. If the name’s to preserve his memory, what memory? Mum was too young to have even a fleeting frond of memory of him any way. And then ‘Rama’ and ‘Krishnan’ – named after 2 of Hinduism’s most revered and complex Gods. God I’m not. Revered? Hah 😉 And these 2 characters were/are diametrically opposite in nature. One ram-rod (yes, cheapness of pun wickedly intended) straight and the other…well, flexible, supple…hmmm – not quite straight, anyway. Ergo the modern day Ram/Santosh – paranoid schizophrenic.

Ummm….but that’s not why I started this. Before I started on psychobabble, I wanted to clear the question of identity. What I wanted to tell you was that some of you know me as Santosh and some as Ram. This is not what my parents…Aaahhhgaaahhh!

Yogesh Rao sent out a note to me on the ‘Why the hell’ post which had earlier appeared on the TfN10 participants Google group.

One of my friends told me men do 3 things when they hit (or about to hit) 40. They do one of the following:
1. take on a mistress
2. buy an expensive/powerful 800cc motorbike 
3. take to running and bicycling

Damn, I didn’t know people go through the Rider Profile pages on the tourofnilgiris.com site. Evil man, Yogesh!

My response:

3. Done/doing

2. Inclined to trade in the car for a Harley

1. I will not tell you.

His friend talks of doing one of these things. Well, I’ve never been one for following cosmic rules.

Why do we keep seemingly punishing ourselves going round in circles/cycles? Really, what motivates, drives us (sheesh, I can’t seem to get rid of the habit of throwing cheap puns)? Other than what a neighbour said in puzzlement ‘koracchu mental ano?” (I don’t need to translate that, do I?). Why go through the pain? Over and over again….

Me, I’m not out to change the world by adopting an ‘eco’ friendly mode of transport. Heck, it’s too painful and too sweaty to get to a job that I do for someone else. And I love cars and motorbikes. So why the pain?

I like running/riding…away. It’s my break from a world that doesn’t often make much sense to me. It’s my time to myself. It’s my time to breathe – really breathe, to not be hearing someone else’s song in my ear but to strike a chord in my head backed up by my body’s rhythm.

But pshaw! mainly it’s my last-ditch effort to lose my beer gut. I thought losing that would be as easy losing hair. Fool, I.

So what’s your excuse, you sado-masochist?

My first blogs are likely to be dominated by matters cycling. I will be riding this year’s edition of the Tour of Nilgiris (TfN) http://tourofnilgiris.com/ and so…