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I have been telling my family off and on that I want to go to Rameswaram. My wife used to put her fore finger on her nose, shake her head side to side sadly, and give me the I told you so looks.I have car but still choose bike ride because I was fade-up with car ride ,and in travel I want to feel bike ride thrill. But I don't have idea how to arrange bike only for a trip.I called some of friends ,suddenly one of my friend tell me about skyout,he also tell me that they have different branch in Bangalore and provide bike in lowest price.

Has the doctor told you, your liver is about to pack up, because of overdrinking, what is it, fatty liver, or the final cirrhosis. I ask her, what Rameswaram has got to do with my drinking habits. She tells me that all good Hindus have the urge to visit Kasi, Rameswaram, Amarnath, Dwarka and few other temple cities like Mathura and Haridwar when they realize that their time on earth is running out.

I tell her, she is stuck with me, for many more years. It is the good, that die young.

I had last visited Rameswaram in the year 1998. I can’t claim that the visit was religiously motivated, as I was a toddler of six years who needed his mother’s help to pee. I remember the train passing through Madurai, Mandapam Camp looking across the sea as the train passed over Pamban bridge and reaching Rameswaram; the tonga ride to the Dharamshala and the walk to the temple on the beach.

What I remember the most is the short train ride from Rameswaram to Dhanushkodi town; land’s end and standing with my parents who were pointing out to me the bridge made by Hanuman and his Vanar friends so that Ram and his Army could cross over to Lanka. I told them I can’t see Lanka. They shushed me , and said when you grow taller, you will be able to see. The magnificent church on the beach, with the sea waves almost caressing its walls remained in my mind for many many years.

At last the day came , when me and my wife , decided to take off to Rameshwaram. The highway from Bangalore to Hosur, Salem, Dindigul and Madurai is well laid out, immaculate with flower shrubs on the median and no police to corner you even if you drive at a maniacal 140 Km/h .

We reached Madurai, a Temple Town on the banks of River Vaigai. This town was the capital of the Pandya dynasty. After walking through the cavernous corridors of the Madurai Meenakshi Temple and seeing the Devi, we were on our way to Rameswaram.

I stopped the bike on the Pamban bridge, a kilometer long road bridge with a parallel railway bridge running alongside, and took photographs of President Abdul Kalam’s fishing village, with its array of fishing boats, trawlers, fishing nets spread around for drying. In the afternoon sun, I could see the sea bottom from the bridge. Looking up, I was transfixed by the vastness of the ocean all around me. And how small and insignificant we are, with our petty ambitions and pettier disappointments.

We soon crossed the sea bridge, and arrived at our Hotel Park. A good cold shower bath, a tot or two of Royal Challenge, and the fatigue of driving long distances in a bike wore off .

Rameswaram is a typical temple town with hundreds of pilgrims from all over India. In this deep distant corner of Tamil Nadu, I noticed shops advertising the services of Pandas (religious Priests from North India), who can guide you in performing various religious rites. Swami Vivekananda stood here in 1897, and gave a speech on Hinduism, a marble tablet proclaimed in front of the Rameswaram Temple, a very very old temple dating back to thousands of years, its granite floors worn away to slippery feel by the feet of crores of old pilgrims seeking salvation before they depart for ever from this cruel world!

I told a guide I wanted to visit Dhanushkodi, a place imprinted in my mind, from my childhood days, strips of grey nebulous memory that thrill and haunt me with sentimental nostalgia.

They said leave your bike at the Hotel and take a contraption with sand tyres that looked like a Jugaad running around in Punjab, a tractor modified to look like a mini bus without a roof. We bumped along through swampy sandy stretches where the sea water had seeped up from below ground. I could see broken remains of railway tracks, lying about like bits of discarded ribbon.

The driver tells me, a great sea storm with hurricane scale winds ripped through Dhanushkodi in the 1960’s, burying the city and its inhabitants in a watery grave. I stood next to the broken ruins of my favorite church on the sea beach, I remembered so well as a six year toddler. It looked as though it had been bombed by the Germans, and then its belly eaten up by the sea creatures a skeleton of a landmark.

A fond childhood memory erased for ever.

I told my wife, I had stood right there, twenty years back, holding onto the fingers of my mother, a toddler of six years. Then, Dhanushkodi was throbbing with people, the sounds of fish market nearby, the train hooting and sneezing from the station across the road and the greedy crows swooping in and out for a meal.