21 September 2005

Tribute to Irma

Even though it took Alonso Quijano 4 days to come up with a meaningful name which pleased him greatly for his horse and 8 days for himself, it took me even longer to name my new bike (the one I toured Oz with, well, not that new anymore).

The first one that came to my mind was Siberia because the name conjures up images of the great land mass, the harsh environment, the spirit. And I thought what could be a more apporiate name for a touring bike which was designed to bear the weight and do the long haul?

But due to my indecisive nature I had other ideas in my head. The second candidate was Althea because I wanted to follow the "tradition" of naming my bikes after the girls that haunted me greatly and made no sign of disapearing from my mind.

Now let me introduce the third challenger, Australia. You know I was thinking since it was the place that the bike's virgin voyage would be, it would be rather appropriate to baptize her by naming the beauty after the place.

Then entered the fourth contender Jai Guru Dev. Three reasons behind the inclusion of this one: first, it was from the song Across the Universe that I loved very much because it was the one that played in the café when we were together for the last time in Reykjavik. Second: becasue Jai Guru Dev means "I give thanks to heavenly teacher" which is pretty good, very meaningful. And third, my surname is Devn, it would be cool that me and my bike we share the same name.

So if we draw a comparison chart and choosing by the points, we would see that JGD has undoubedtly the upperhand. So the answer is pretty obvious isn't it?

Well, not really, as you probably already knew either from the photos of the trip or the title itself, she is called Irma. Irma?! why? Who the hell is Irma? And does she mean so much to you that she beats all the other rivals?

No, the answer is no. I don't know any Irmas, and it has nothing to do with Picnic at Hanging Rock either. I finally settled with Irma simply because I loved that name the first time I heard it. And that was it, no big great profound mind-buggering philosophical ideologies whatsoever behind the scenes, I just love that name. Why everything has to have a reason? Why is has to mean something? No wonder why don Quijote says to Sancho, "Ahí está el punto y esa es la fineza de mi negocio. Que volverse loco un caballero andante con causa, ni grado ni gracias; el toque está en desatinar sin ocasión".

No comments: