stormchasers!

we have gone and bought a bike.
a rather mean looking one. every time we attempt to ride it, it rains. it really does.
we had gone to the showroom, the husband and i, the day we were to get the monster home, i dutifully carried a camera all paparazzi like. with the dorkiness of a mushy, squished fruit, i hoped to take some pics of the husband's first ride on it.
i eyed the bike with some suspicion as the husband's eyes misted over in a rapturous expression. he circled around it like it was some divine, mystical being.

i looked on... i am objective about bikes.

"what should we call the bike?", he asked.
"candy", i mumbled for some strange reason (well the bike is a bright red and i was hungry).
"sheesh! no!"
"reddy", i was being rather frivolous here.
"we need to figure out whether its male or female first", said the husband, ignoring all my bright ideas. "er... what?... like how?", i was intrigued, i looked at the bike carefully. i could see no such indications. so i said,"lets call it roopmati if she is a woman and ramprasad if he is a man". i got a very blank, deadpan look from the husband in response.

we are calling 'him' storm. the clouds and my naari mukti morcha jhanda helped us decide.
every time we sit on storm, the clouds go, "ha! lets get those two!", and shower us with a deluge of rain. i decided storm was a nice bucksome man, just out of spite at all these total morons who go about calling their bikes, "baby" and "honey" and liken them to us women! so there! you mcps, get a load of this!

the next thing we did was even dorkier. we went and bought matching red helmets like teenagers high on endorphins.
i have decided helmets are brilliant! nobody looks at you if you wear one! it gives you total anonymity! club that with a baggy jacket and you are practically invisible!
what i mean is, men cant tell if you are a woman, and that ugly, ugly, male gaze just doesnt happen! gosh, men do look at women dont they? men look at women. men do not look at men. women look at women. women only discreetly look at men!

but life's now terribly exciting, sore-pillion-butt notwithstanding. we've decided to zip by all the autowaala chors and show a finger at them and vanish in a blur and haze.

stormchasers in red, bulbous helmets, nursing bad backs and sore butts, thats who we are...