"hey you are a good pillion rider"

As always (with the wonderful language that English is), we can't get the spelling of a word by the way it is pronounced. I was trying peelian, pealian, peelean with everytime the dictionary applet asking me if i wasn't sure it's 'pelican' that I'm looking for. Duh !!
This is a travel entry. So, readers are pre-warned. Go away now - Alt+F4 it or Ctrl+W it, as the case may be ..
Anyway, these were the words (ref. Title) my friend delivered, after he dropped me off on MG road this evening. This was after a 90 minutes ride covering Hoskote, Whitefield, KRpuram, Old madras road and halasuru. Twelve of us went to a resort called 'Park Field' - some 20 km from Hoskote, as three of us wanted to treat the rest, for various reasons which i will not go into here. We started off in Marthahalli on 6 bikes around 10:45 in the morning and reached this place around 12:15.

The place itself is good with good lawns and all that sort of thing. But the service was despicable ... no .. no that is too strong ... umm.. service was so .. so .. . Two of us came from Hyderabad for this get together and i could see occasional sparks of satire. Food was not that great, but our naturally complaining nature didn't find much to say about that, because it wasn't for the food that we went there.

The best part of the trip started off as soon as we reached there. I don't know what's customary in these places which have swimming pools as part of their general scheme of things. But here they had a playably big swimming pool (60 x 15 ft) and they provided pinapple juice as we were inside the pool. I definitely felt like i was a sleazy villian in a James Bond movie, what with those eye-brow-raising-posh-goggles and sipping-pineapple-juices-from-plastic-cups, colorful-tyres and a frisbee and a polo-ball floating around etc. Okay .. Okay somethings were missing .. but i can almost imagine Pierce Brosnan to slide over gently to my end and pester me about the secret plans, at a gun point.

I was having a blast there even after i was tired swimming, by lying down on a long white plastic chair thing (what is this called .. ) alongside the pool, looking benignly at the other empty chairs and my friends in the pool.

At last around 2 we started to have lunch .. i won't cover the spiritual pains we underwent there.
Then there was some TTeeing. I wasn't good at TT (any physically exerting sport). But, beside the TT table there was a chess board and I lost spectacularly to one of my friends by serving up my king deep into his den.
After that, there was the inevitable cricket. I was keeper almost through out except when i came bowling (yes ... chucking .. :-)) and batting. I took a catch, made a run-out, hit-a-four and surprised myself. As usual, people around me were very encouraging, saying things like "lovely ball" when the guy hit me for a six and so on.

This was followed by some of my friends again going into the pool and so around 6 we started back, each of us looking like a toasted bread crum.
The second best thing in the trip for me, was the initial part of the ride when we started back. The look-around was deserty in nature with a tree there and a shrub here. And, the sun was just setting red. The scene popped up a 1971 song that I was recently hearing abt a guy's journey in the desert - "A Horse With No Name". (Album: Sister Golden Hair, Artist/Band: America)

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all life ..
..... tum tarara trara ..
... something. .. something ..
.. .... ..............
I've been through the desert with a horse with no name
it felt good to be out of the rain ..
In the desert you can't remember your name
because there ain't no one to give you no pain ..
laa la laa ..

nice song ..
yeah ... and the ride was really good except for the minor set back that my friend who was giving me the ride (dude, if you are reading, skip this ;-) ) had to rush somewhere and he was freely swearing at anyone for the slightest provocation. Also, he was explaining to me occasionally how bad the roads are these days .. but when you are cruising at 80 kmph on a main road, it kinda hard to get clear understanding.
"hhheer no uch aa ffic .. but terrill ... drirring", he spits.
"sss ya .. i see ht", i spit back, trying to clean my face with a tissue.
"ay rebber aching a layt err ... height ?"
sensing that this is a confirmation question, i say .. "YEAH.. "
this went on for sometime, till both of us were in sync in our swearing due to the evident traffic as we entered Bangalore.
yes, as he dropped me off MG road, he said i was good pillion.
"what ?"
"pillion"
"what's a pillion?"
"the guy who sits behind on a bike.. you weren't tensed even as i was going high speed, you were balanced, didn't move this way and that .. etc ... you are a good pillion"

yes, i was. I mean after a day like that, who wouldn't ?