The Roadie experience...

Once there was a 'fat kid'. He was friends with the 'best friend' and the 'tall kid'. They were like the best of buddies. They were always together. The teachers were always behind their backs, the school canteen owner was always fed up with them, the other friends were jealous. They always were found in the canteen, always eating Vada Paavs and Chinese Noodles even if they had brought their tiffins. They individually had a mighty big appetite for their age and they still do. If not in the canteen after school, they were busy riding their cycles all over the town. The Knight Riders...

My bike

Once, the best friend's brand-new(1 week old) bike was stolen while he was in the tall kid's building. They both were scared but then the tall kid had a plan. The fat kid was unaware about this and the plan...

The fat kid didn't see the best friend's bike for days. During that period, the fat kid had to take the best friend from home and school on his bike. They lived in adjacent buildings, that is why. The fat kid, now totally fed up with the daily weight he had to carry (the bag and now him!), confronted the best friend about his bike. The best friend told him everything about the bike, about how they were going to get it back and the reason why he didn't tell his parents about it. 

The plan - the tall kid had money he saved. They were going to buy the best friend a new bike. Crazy plan, which sounded foolproof and potentially successful...

Reason - the bike was stolen in the tall kid's building. and if the best friend had told this at his home, they surely were going to you-know-what(like every parent in India does if a kid has done something wrong), as it was only a week old bike.

The execution - 

The best part, as the fat kid describes it, a thrilling adventure. The three of them (the tall kid on his bike and the fat kid and the best friends together on the fat kid's bike, as usual) were cycling through out the Mumbai suburbs to get the exact same model of the bike. Cycling on bridges after bridges, the highway, going through the traffic was an amazing experience, the fat kid says. He adds that he wasn't even confident in himself that he had this much stamina and more importantly this much strength to help out his friends(not that he was a bad friend)

They kept asking shop after shop about the bike, all they got was a 'no', 'not available','1 hafte baad milega'. They kept going and going. Of course they stopped for the occasional Vada Paav and Pepsi (What else? :D)

The whole day was gone. They didn't find any shop selling the exact same model. The fat kid might have lost some bit of a weight I think. But they didn't want to go home without the bike. It was a do or die situation for them.

They set off again, this time far away from home was their destination. Arriving in Goregaon after talking to all the shopkeepers about the main town where they could find this model, finally they got a shop which had the same model. They were happy. The tall kid paid for the bike. They all took the plastic covering off and made some intentional scratches and rode back home. They took a taxi half-way home (not that much stamina was left)

They were big Roadies fan. They labelled it their own little Roadie adventure. The friendship no doubt grew a lot stronger than before. The fat kid had an experience he had never ever had before. The feeling of hard-work and the fruit of fulfillment in the end. Amazing day, he says. The thrill of the cycle-hunt, the thrill of not telling the parents, the thrill of doing things on their own, the thrill of the road (they were kids!) are the things he won't forget ever.


It was an adventure of friendship, of growing up, of things you don't learn from books...
It was about being free and independent, learning from our own mistakes, paying for our mistakes and most importantly the value of friendship...

P.S - The fat kid was me ;-)

The 3 Idiots on Teacher's day in School

This is my official entry for the 'Incredible Stories' contest by Mahindra on http://www.indiblogger.in
This was a short adventure of mine but an Incredible adventure which I won't ever forget...
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