When We Were Swingers

To one who has been long in city pent

‘Tis very sweet to look into the fair

And open face of heaven, to breathe a       prayer

Full in the smile of a blue firmament.

-          John Keats

Its summer and time for another summer holiday. KK calls about going to Coorg and we don’t need much convincing. He arrives from Chennai with his harem and we set off. Coorg is about 250 kms (~170 miles) from Bangalore and it should be a smooth drive.

The  Beemer has a sports mode and KK uses it to the fullest. I try hard to keep up, but my poor Accord is not much of a match for the X5. I don’t do too badly though and catch up with them after a while. The ‘Sport’ mode on the BMW is awesome – it transforms the car into a mean machine and makes it a pleasure to drive. My life needs a “sports mode” button! 

The road from Mysore to Coorg is two lane. There is no divider; just a thin white line that separates us from the high speed agents of death hurtling at us in the oncoming lane. Its dark, it’s raining and road winds up into the mountains. I haven’t driven like this in a while and I begin to enjoy it. The radio plays “Take it to the limit” by the Eagles. Well, that seems like something that we can do. I push it up a notch and soon we are doing insane speeds upwards of 120 kilometers (~80mph) an hour through the hair pin bends. Needless to say, the X5 is right on my tail. The Beemer has a sports mode!

We are staying at the Club Mahindra Holiday resort in Madikeri. The resort is built on a hill and is layered down into the valley. The infrastructure is well planned and the foliage reminds me of Oregon. There are birds everywhere and we even spot a few fireflies lighting up the night with their flashing backsides. The place is simply superb. I can’t say the same about their staff though. They range from plain incompetent to downright rude. As to the cleanliness of the place, the less said the better. The tables at the restaurant are sticky – they don’t seem to have seen soap and water since Christmas. Club Mahindra needs to pull up their socks and get down to it (or as my American friends would put it “take their hats out of their asses).

I discover a new alcohol diet and lose three days in a week. The resort is packed and there are a lot of people walking around. Cameras are the new phallic symbols and each guy is trying to outdo the other with the length of his lens. I am glad that I don’t need a crutch for my crotch. We go for a walk and spot a swinger couple. I fondly remember the days when we used to be swingers too – when you spend your whole holiday in the children’s area pushing a swing all day long. We are well past that – our son now prefers to spend his time in the arcade rather than the children’s area.

We take a long hike to Abbe Falls and meet the locals along the way. People are very nice and friendly and all the men seem to have mustaches that stand out straight from their faces. Viagra seems to be the gel of choice for grooming whiskers. We encounter a bunch of leeches on our way back and they attach themselves to our legs. I now understand where the term “blood sucking leeches” comes from. We have a few relatives that fit that definition pretty well. I remember a story about one of them: He and his wife were having trouble conceiving and he was explaining how expensive the fertility treatment was. “Why do you need all that?”, I told him. “Just put more men on the job”. He does not talk to me anymore.

The drive back is a little less exciting until the wife suddenly asks me “Would you like a dark fantasy?”. “Well, honey I had a blue eyed blonde in mind, but this could work too”. Well, it turns out that I am way off base – Dark Fantasy is a new kind of cookie. For a minute there, I thought I was gonna get lucky!!

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All said, a nice and relaxing holiday.