Dharma* for Bums

Not only was a life a lot less stable without the motorbike, but also less adventurous and surreal. Heading out to Madikeri with another South African couple on their Royal Enfield, both girl passengers helmeted despite the fact that our Indian side-saddling fellow commuters went bareheaded, we soon discovered the joy of being able to stop on a whim far outweighed the benefits of scheduled, and possibly more reliable, pitstops. Just two and a half hours away, which, in Indian congestion translates as 90 kilometres, our first taste of impromptu rural hospitality, in the form of a humble welcome by a toga-clad farmer, was gladly received as we unbundled still-cold beers and tuisgemaakte ham toebroodjies to quaff in natural luxury beside his well-tended rice paddie. Indeed, rice paddies, greener and more lush than I have ever seen, were the order of the scenery for the next 50 kilometres and, dotted with sari-clad workers and a monkey-bearing cobra charmer, made for photographs which would make any national calendar proud.
And better was still to come: Destination Honeypot on a coffee and cardamom plantation lifted the hoods from head and eyes alike. Owned by two brothers with a legacy dating back possibly to the Greeks, the hideaway’s three double-storey cottages were expertly kitted out with all the trappings of luxury and a well-rigged donkey kept the shower water boiling for two days. That it had taken us seven hours to travel 252 kilometres, (plus another two getting lost seeking out cigarettes, which in their mild form were all but elusive) was quickly forgotten by our tired extremities, and an evening of alcohol-aided unwinding tucked into with gusto.
Kicked off with a full Indian breakfast and a quick trip round the plantation, which was just two days ahead of blooming, Sunday was a mini epic. With stop-offs at the towering Golden Temple (complete with Coca Cola gifts and other contemporary eats fit for a western birthday party) and refugee centre for exiled Tibetan Buddhists, and a parking attendant’s T-shirt logo “No-one ever died from hard work, but why test it?”, we were well-aspected for hedonism. Not that eight hours in a saddle, either in driver or passenger mode, rates high on the scale of pastoral pastimes, but aided by meditation-like cushions from a roadside stall for aching passengers, we re-invented the meaning of Dharma Bums. Though the seating at drinking holes en route home were often too suspect to sample, Honda’s “Live off the Edge” billboard reminded us to relish the storm which greeted us on arrival in frenetic, unrelenting Bangalore. Percolated coffee never tasted so good, even if we missed the blossoms!

* In Sanskrit, Dharma literally means that which is established, that which is firm. Often equated with religious creed or dogma, a human’s dharma is what s/he was born to do, for all dharma is ultimately sva-dharma, an individual’s personal path through existence. (Sunday Times of Bangalore, 5 April 2009)