I learnt cycling in 12th grade.
Recognising the tyranny of board exams, our family didn't want to leave it to chance (or when I think of it, fully to me) for me to pass my physics. They found a tuition teacher that my cousin and I would go to in wintery mornings of January 2000, 5:30am! That's the only slot the teacher had it seems. I don't remember my teacher's name but I do remember he would start our class with a bowl full of pomegranates, eating all by himself while we were stuck solving his "questions for today".
One of the mornings, my cousin decided he will not carry me pillion anymore to the tuition. To be fair, he had done that for the past whole week and it's really no fun to carry another teenager on the back of your bicycle in a super chilly morning. While I was irritated with him then, I can't be more grateful to him now.
I had the option of walking up to my tuition class. It was made clear by my folks that no one else would drop me. Or I could learn to cycle. Well, I had never figured out why would anyone put their life in danger by trying to focus on the road, pedal hysterically, keep saving one self from the monsters such as motorbikes, cars and trucks on road and tire oneself out before even reaching the place!
But then, my family decided that it was time I learn how to cycle. The only other cycle at my home was my cousin sister's ladybird. Not sure if it was her generosity or my uncle asking her to let me use, she did let me use it to learn. Irrespective, she was big-hearted, I think. The way I am possessive about my cycle even now, I would have hated the idea that someone else is using it to learn (what if they break it down?)!
Those wintery mornings, not sure how much I learnt physics (well, I managed to pass, so that's something) but I indeed learnt to ride a cycle. And I think that's one of the best things I did for myself. In the last twenty years or so, cycling is one of the activities that has come to my aid in many different ways.
My cycle became my friend when I needed to cry and sing at the same time during heartaches. I would ride up to long distances, let the tears flow and be wiped up immediately with the wind. On my happy days, I would again ride up to long distances and sing all the happy songs, smile at everything that would pass by. When I had to clear my head, want to feel alive or just be by myself but also be in motion, I jump on my cycle and pedal.
My cycle has been my teacher too. I have mostly loved geography and sociology. It really intrigues me how social and ecological spaces interact with each other. The way I got to learn about the places I have lived in would not have been possible without my cycle. In Ballia, I would just wake up early mornings and pick up any road or gully, many times leading into nearby villages, loitering around. That gave me perspectives on how spaces were structured in the city. Why did my family, the upper-but-not-so-upper-caste Baniyas, lived where we lived and why did Dalit communities live where they did. The hyper-masculinity of the city public spaces and the shared workspace of the rural fields were so apparent.
When I moved to Allahabad, I insisted on taking my cycle with me. My family asked, why do you need it there, you will have the college bus? I couldn't clearly say why. But I insisted and gave them multiple safe plans of how I will take it on the train. They were worried I might injure myself by cycling in a big city. But they gave in. To my credit, not once did I get into a cycling accident in Allahabad (if you don't consider the time when a dog went all indecisive in front of my cycle on a highway-ish road). My cycle created access to knowing the city in the ways I know it. be it going to busy Mutthiganj street for my Hawaiian guitar tuitions, going to another part of the city to hang out with my friends at their homes, or cycling around the Sangam, where Ganga and Yamuna rivers meet, with the songs in my head.
When I was moving to Kanpur, my father asked me to give my cycle to my cousin brother, whose sister's cycle I used. What you take, is what you gotta give, you see! "He needs it to go the tuitions. You are not going to need it in Kanpur. Your tuition class is walkable from your room." We didn't really get to argue with fathers in north India those days (ok, that's an easy generalisation, so skip that). So I went to maa and cried. She advocated for me but the decision was made.
So it was settled. I was going to hate my father that year. Well not just for the cycle, and mostly because I didn't know things better and was lost in my own world, but that was that. I only learnt later from maa that our family's financial situation was tight, and we couldn't afford things just for mazze ke liye (for fun). Anything that didn't serve its "core purpose" was to be reconsidered. And cycle's core purpose was to take us from one place to another, at least that's how my father tried to rationalise. The idea that one may use a cycle to, let's say, clear one's head, was too fancy, too luxurious. I made a decision (frankly it was less of a decision and more a reaction). The next cycle I will have will be from the money I earn. I lived three full years without a cycle. In the very first year of my job, the second thing I bought from my salary for myself was a cycle. The first was a mobile phone, me being the last person in my masters class to have a phone.
When my cycle was stolen from the stand of my Teachers Colony home, I decided a safer place for the next one - my drawing room! The next one was particularly light, for one, of course, it's fun to ride a light bicycle, but more because I had to climb up and down 4 floors with it every time I ride it in our building with no lift. My flatmate and friend, Abhishek was generous to let that be.
From riding my own, to looking out for everything-cycle all around me, became the thing. You know how it is when you are in love, right? So be it comic stripes, such as Calvin & Hobbes ( and they are my favourite, by the way), coffee mugs, to cafe-wall-arts, I see cycles all around me.
Today, looking at these young people, pedalling away their cycles, I am reminded of many such little moments of life. While I rarely enjoyed cycling with other folks - that's mostly because I fear I may actually bump into them, just looking at their joyous faces made me think what a lovely, little invention this thing is!
And I can never put in words - and this I say after having written this blog! - what does cycling mean to me. As I am writing this, I am reminded my current cycle, which you see in the picture below, has been with me since 2014. Now that's more than I have stayed in any relationship or a job! That says something about my love, no? :)
