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The torrent reduced the visibility up to a few meters making the road surface very slippery, while the high velocity winds made Marmalade shake like leaf.  Moreover we were travelling on a high speed highway which was bustling with trucks, tankers and trailers  each one looking as wobbly as the other. A number of overturned trucks and trailers, some in  headlong collisions lined the sides of the road. 
I rode too fast for the prevailing conditions, dreading the prospect of having to ride the stretch at night. At times we reached above eighty km/h and I remember clearly, the intense effort it required.

We reached Abu Road, a small town twenty eight kilometres from Mt.Abu at night fall. It was already dark and we had to negotiate our way through hundreds of blinding beams directed from the onecomming truck's headlights.
The road from Abu Road to Mt.Abu was steep and winding, climbing twenty two kilometres through the dense forest of the Mt. Abu reserve. 
Right on the outskirts, I noticed a familiar shape. It was Alvin's rat standing on the roadside minus the luggage and the owner, on a patch of viscous fluid; gas  leaking out of the overflowing carbs. Switching off the fuel tap, I left the bike knowing that it probably had a serious breakdown, and that it would keep me occupied the next day. Ridding into the town one of the first persons we saw was Christina who directed us to the hotel where the rest of us were putting up.

If there will ever be a competition for the most grossly over commercialised resort in the country, Mt. Abu will win hands down and take the runners up prizes as well. Cramped with hotels, motels, restaurants and tourist agencies, each arrogantly striving to have the largest  billboard, if there was any natural beauty in the place it had been sacrificed to the cause of free trade. 
The tourist crowd there was mostly domestic comprising of Jain and Hindu pilgrims, vacationing families and honeymooners; thousands of them. The former visiting the famous Dilwara group of temples, the latter boating in the lake and sharing a "Jain" piazza or an cone from "Dairy Queen".

My first day in Mt. Abu was spent wholly in Abu Road. Alvin's bike had more then one problem. The front sprocket was lose on it's mount and the gearbox was jammed and making strange crunching sounds. The necessity of specialised tools and the lack of spares in Mt. Abu, made us head down to the town below. Alvin coasted down on his bike to the plains, while I rode alongside. Once on the plains I had to tow him for the remaining eight kilometres into town, with an uncanny sense of Deja Vu.
The next day it was again Abu-road for me. This time it was the motorcycle health hypochondriac Ralf, who hearing Alvin's praise for the mechanic and his alleged rapport with me, coerced me to accompany him to the town again to get his steed a worker.

Mustaq Bhai was a thorough gentleman and knew his job. He worked neatly, meticulously and his charges were reasonable. An uncommunicative man, he somehow decided to open up with me with an occasional grunt or a monologue. Ah yes !! He did tell me how he once repaired a BMW belonging to a Britisher and how  two German women brought their Enfield to him. Apparently one of them later went balmy while doing Raj Yoga and started streaking down the road in the nude, while half the town ran after her clutching bed sheets and tablecloths. 

The afternoon I got to check out the Dilwara temples. Unassuming outside but intricately carved marble inside, depicting scenes and deities from the Jain cosmology. Tour guides went about explaining the various aspects of the temple, often voicing something ridiculous like that the craftsmen were paid in gold equivalent of the weight of the finished sections. 
The interior of the temple undeniably involved a phenomenal effort, and resulted in possibly the most beautiful sculptures in the entire sub-continent. Nevertheless, I somehow couldn't relate to them. For one they seemed to impersonal, to plasticity. Besides, all the time I was mentally comparing the temple to Khujurahao!!

In the evening Debi and I went about exploring the town and stumbled upon the world Headquarters of the Brahma Kumaris, an organisation I knew only from seeing their name boldly painted on their fleet of cars. They were the Raja Yoga people. Started by a Sindhi merchant, a.k.a God, because it was actually god speaking through him. The cult has a very simplistic if not out right crude philosophy where the supreme creator is represented by a red light and only right livelihood and adherence to their teaching guarantees salvation. Besides only a limited number will be saved, cant say I remember the figure. Chastity and unquestioning obedience is a must, besides it appeared that only young women are encouraged to join their flock of workers.
Seeing us a white haired, middle aged man looking much friendlier then the grim faced draconian women hanging around, approached us. He was quick to introduce himself as a fellow foreigner to Debi, as he was from the Maldives and that he joined the outfit, because he was summoned in a dream. Otherwise a nice chap, a bit too talkative, especially as the dogma he was preaching seemed not only tedious to the ear, but primitive as well. With everything stemming down to glorification of the God in the form of the Sindhi merchant, and in that of the red light. 
A red tear drop shaped symbol was omnipresent in their  renderings and diagrams, as well as being mounted on the wall above the stage of their auditorium. 
"When ever the tape recordings of the Guru (God) are played , the red light blinks, so we believe that it is God speaking !!"
Photographs of the founder of the organisation, as well as those of the current head, a lady with more then a passing resemblance to the dowager Empress also dominated the auditorium. 

The entire place was spotlessly clean, with all the devotees dressed in white and with a distinct air of purpose. A strict new-agers commune, with as simplistic a philosophy but lacking both finesse and sophistry. 
I was glad to be on my way out.