Unveling an hitherto unknown dimension of my life!!

This IS a long post! Read on to know an unknown facet of my life!

Exactly 35 years ago! 22nd September, 1980 evening around 8 PM. ....flashback!! Am posting this almost exactly to the minute;)

Unveiling a hitherto little known fact of my life!!

On that day, I was eagerly awaiting in Sri Venkateswara Vignana Mandir, Guntur, one among many hopefuls, waiting for the announcement of names of Winners!!

Cut to 1 day before. I've participated in the Grand Scooter Endurance Rally organized by Rotary Club of Guntur on the previous day. It was about 100 K.M.s starting from the Parade Grounds, Guntur and going to Managalagiri onward to Tenali and back, a triangular route. I didn't know, as are the others, anything about motor rallies till then! We all participated in the briefing one day before and all I could understand was that to win we have to maintain the given timings in the given sections! It was a Time, Speed, Distance rally and I had a Priya scooter (well my dad bought it and I was in my final semester of MBA!). I've successfully completed the rally and there were no navigators! Only the rider has to check the TSD charts and maintain those speeds. Of course very safe speeds were given and the most painful part is that we've to actually maintain very low speeds for longer periods! That's why it was called Grand Endurance Rally!!

Next day evening all of us gathered in the huge auditorium and it was the concluding function of their Youth Activities Week celebrations and lots of participants of other games, contests etc., as well as all the members of the Rotary and Rotaract Clubs were there numbering 500+ people in the auditorium! I waited for the announcement of results of our Rally but to my disappointment they announced in the beginning  of the meeting itself that the tabulation of results is still going on and the results will be announced as soon as they were ready!

I wasn't expecting any prize as it was the very first Rally I've participated. But was there just out of curiosity and perhaps with a faint hope! Finally around 8 PM they started announcing the top 3 prizes of the Rally. First prize winner announced! It wasn't my name :( Ditto with the second prize!! And out of the blue I heard my name being announced as the Third prize winner!!

Wow! It was music to my ears and an unbelievable experience, receiving the prize from a dignitary in front of some 100's of people!

(It was the 2nd time for me to receive a prize, first time was in my 7th class when I got a prize for “Best actor” (!) or some such thing for a doctor's role I've played in the school anniversary! I got a soap box as prize for that, a prized possession in those days ;) )

Well another unexpected bonus that evening was an over excited Rotary club member suddenly announced cash prizes to all the winners of the rally!! And I don't exactly remember but I think  it was either Rs.500 or Rs.1,000 which was a HUGE amount in those days!

Am posting the photos of the function and try to identify me ;) Yes! I was THAT thin in those days :(

And I walked err floated in the air and reached home and after showing off my shield to my family immediately rushed to my friends cum classmates room which was just 200 yards from my home and shared that joy with all of them. Next day I showed it off in my University and boasted that I missed the 2nd prize as I wasn't wearing the helmet ;)

That win in the very first Rally got me hooked to motor rallies and after coming to Hyderabad few years later I joined Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Club (APMSC) and started participating in their Club Rallies for amateurs. Since I had no money to modify my bike to participate in the bigger events I've confined myself to the club events as well as “Treasure Hunts” (fun family events which involve solving clues and visiting those spots) organized by the club.

In one of the rallies I drove my brand new Ind Suzuki motorcycle at speeds of around 100 KMPH in the competitive segments which typically run through the hinterland through villages and all of you should be knowing the condition of rural roads 35 years ago. And in the TSD rallies higher speeds are given in the hinterland and speeds of 20 KMPH are given in the city!! First time I've experienced riding a bike an inch or two above the ground, it was literally flying!! Unfortunately motor rallies aren't exactly a spectator sport and doesn't have much following in India back then at least.

I still remember in one of the rallies I ran out of petrol about 30 K.M.s from Hyderabad and  if I remember correctly it was somewhere in the Vikarabad area. And our only option was to go back about 10 K.M.s to a village which we crossed and where we saw a guy selling petrol in barrels! But how to travel 10 K.M.s and that too on that road with lots of steep gradients?! We stopped a villager on a bike and my brother pillion rode on his bike holding my left hand and dragging me and my bike all along! At some points I literally cried in pain especially while he was pulling me up the steep gradients, literally an uphill task. I've a suspicion that my left hand must've grown at least half an inch longer that day!! In the same rally I distinctly remember another rider NTR as he was called (N Tirumal Roy) had a flat tire but he cut off the tube and tire and completed the last leg of the rally riding on the rim!! Oh Boy!! That was what you call guts. He later became famous in the rally circuit.

As I was unable to participate in the bigger events, to satiate my appetite for rallying, I started thinking out of the box (yes I used to think out of the box even as a student, though that term was coined much later!) and used to volunteer for the Time Check controls  for the Charminar Challenge Rally one of the prestigious events of APMSC in those days! I along with 2/3 other friends used to man one of the Time Control check points and it was an unbelievable experience, sitting in the Narsapur forests in the night and waiting for the very first car to drive in. And the rush of adrenaline even as a Time Keeper when those cars zoomed in was to be experienced. I used to enjoy that experience thoroughly. Later on as I became older I somehow lost interest in mid 90's.

Well, now you “know” that hitherto unknown dimension of my life ;)