Having your own wheels
Tatiana, a colleague from Bulgaria, said to me last week that she did not know how to ride a bicycle. Did not know how to ride a bike! That amazed me since I thought it was a basic skill that everyone learned, like walking. I don’t remember when or how I learned, but I always knew it. I just assumed that I was born with bike riding skills.
I recall running down the street in Nehru Nagar teaching Dasharath how to ride a bike. (So he probably now thinks he was born with it.) But Dasharath also got his own set of wheels very early. Usha decided to buy him a tricycle as a gift on one of her visits from Calcutta. Off they went to Mint Street in Parry’s corner which was THE place to buy bicycles. A number of big shops there offered a lot of choice. Not that it mattered. Dasharath sat on the first tricycle he saw in the first shop they entered, and refused to get off. After the bill was paid, Rajan, the driver, had to carry him with the bike and put him in the car in the back seat and he came home riding his trike in the car.
Bharadwaj was truly amazing in how rapidly he picked up bike riding. I was giving him the heave ho in the parking lot of the apartment complex at Sunderland, where we were in 1986. He did a few rounds with me alternatively holding and letting go from the rear when I heard the phone ring. I ran back into the apartment. As I was answering the call standing near the window and looking out, I saw Bharadwaj hoist himself up the little bike using the entrance steps of the apartment and doing his own round of the parking lot! That’s it. Lessons over.
But knowing bike riding is not the same as owning a bike. And that took a long time for me. There was a bicycle rental place on Royapettah High Road near the Edward Elliots Road (now Radhakrishnan Salai) intersection, and next to a barber shop (Muthu, M. A. Hair Dressers. MA were his initials, not his qualification.) One could rent by the hour and so rental bikes were called ‘hour bike,’ or pronounced ‘avar bike’ in Tamil.)
I never even thought I would get a bike when, in 1961 or so, the door bell rang late in the evening. We were at Kandaswami Gramani Street apartment. Out stood Chellaswami’s butler (yes, he really did have a 60 or so year old butler whom he called ‘boy’!) with a brand new bicycle, saying it was a present from Chellaswami for my birthday.
We need a sidebar here. Now Chellaswami was a well to do barrister from London (‘Inner Temple. Same as Gandhi and Nehru’, he would say) who lived down the street. He seemed to have plenty of money, was single (‘my wife left me’ he once said), and had few clients (‘family property’ was whispered behind his back) , and so had plenty of time to stand in the balcony of his apartment watching me and my friends playing in the street. We would all occasionally visit him too and get some snacks and lemonade, served by the butler. Earlier that evening, I had celebrated my birthday with him, complete with a cake and candles to boot. Now it seems odd, but I never thought of it at that time. My friendship with him, needless to say, provided no end of merriment for the rest of the family that I had learned to ignore.
Anna was flabbergasted by the bicycle. It was truly over and beyond the norm for gifts and he asked the butler to take it back. I don’t recall what happened after that, I must have (at least hope I did) thrown a tantrum, but there was an exchange of messages between Anna and Chellaswamy and I got to keep the bike.
The feeling of freedom that comes from owning your own set of wheels is impossible to explain. From then on, I was on the bicycle every waking and non-school moment. I was not allowed to go to school on the bike, school being about 7 kms away. As a compromise, I was allowed to ride it till the school bus stop at the Music Academy intersection where I would park the bike in the house of ‘George’ Ramanujam, Anna’s colleague at the office. By the time I came to high school, I was allowed to ride it to school on Saturdays, when the NCC drill took place. Final year of school I graduated to riding it to school during weekdays too.
Ah, the freedom! One could stay back late, playing games, joining clubs, and not having to rush to catch the school bus! It came in handy for all the shopping that was to be done, buying vegetables from Thannithuravu market, going to TUCS on Royapettah High Road, going to Ajanta Hotel for dosais on a Sunday afternoon to serve as tiffin for all at home.
Now, Prem had a bike too, at that time. He would ride it to Guindy Engineering College (now Anna University), and take it across on the ferry boat while crossing Adyar river. See, I’m not the only crazy one.
When I joined Vivekananda College, it was the same bike that was the preferred means of transport for four years. When I went to Delhi for my Masters, I saw how it would fit the bill quite nicely. I was in Jubilee Hall, a University graduate students’ hostel, just a bike ride away from Delhi School of Economics. When I returned to Delhi after the first term vacation in Madras, it came with me on the train. From the station, it rode with me that foggy January morning, in the autorickshaw all the way to north Delhi where the University was located. It came back with me to Madras in 1972 and then I upgraded to a Yezdi 250cc motorcycle. (I did grow up.)
It was with me for a long time after that. I don’t recall if I gave it away or sold it, but I wish I had kept it. Last summer (2006), I went looking for a bike to rent in Adyar. I thought a bike a more pleasurable alternative to arguing rates with the autorickshaw drivers. I could not find a single one. I went searching down Guindy Road for the bike shop that I knew used to be there, but the new generation of shopkeepers around there looked at me like I was an alien. Chennai-ites had moved on to other forms of transportation.
தாய் மண்ணே வணக்கம்
6 years ago
6 comments:
So would you say I was better at riding a bike than Dada?
Reminds me of the story of the second bike you got me ... the one I had at Lincoln Apartments in Amherst. If I remember correctly it was brown and had one of those long banana seats.
We explored the world with those bikes, or at least the world that is Amherst, Massachuetts: the candy store at the University, the comic book shop, the library, the big outdoor maze near the football stadium.
When we moved away I reluctantly gave it away to one of my friends in the apartment complex. He let us play with his Atari, I figured I owed him ...
Years later on a visit to Amherst we drove through the complex and I remember seeing the bike leaning against the building in which my friend lived. He was long gone and the bike was incredibly rusted and showing evidence of years of neglect.
A part of me died that day ... the part that liked my friend.
Yea, that was Rigoberto from Honduras who had an Atari game!
I have scattered memories of learning to ride a bike. I remember heading to an empty parking lot behind a local hospital with my appa, the same location I received my first driving lessons years later. I remember my bike; black with yellow highlights, with a name that somewhat generically tried to capture the promise of new freedom (something like “Freestyle 500”). I also remember repeatedly falling onto that unforgiving concrete (apparently, I was a slower learner than Bharadwaj), and while the burning of my scraped knee was bearable, it paled in comparison to the sting of the yellow-red iodine used liberally to treat it.
But I am not sure if it is still considered routine for children to want to learn to ride a bike. As I’m currently in the middle of my pediatrics rotation, I’ve gained a newfound appreciation that it is hard to get kids to do things when they are adamantly against them.
Here’s a link I found interesting – data from the national sporting goods association that, while admittedly not detailed, at least implies that biking may be on the decline.
http://www.nsga.org/files/public/2006
YouthParticipationInSelectedSports
WithComparisons.pdf
http://www.nsga.org/files/public/Ten-YearHistoryofSportsParticipation4web080313.pdf
Appa did all the running around with Sresh and me! Memories of going on Sunday mornings (when Amma prepared some amazing food for us!) to a lane parallel to our Coles road house, to learn to cycle still remain.
Well my first cycle (if I am not wrong), was I think a blue one picked up at an auction by Amma and Appa. Every time Appa would let go, I would go straight into....well there were two options.....either the dust bin, or the rain water drain!!
But then I did graduate from scraping my knees to taking Sreshta(a little 5yr. old)to his drawing classes!
Then I did get another cycle when I was in high school, and we had shifted into Manasarovar (Sanjaya Nagar). I used to ride to Jr. college-all the way to Bishop Cotton..quite a distance...maybe about 8kms. I could'nt dream of doing that anymore - B'lore is so crowded and the traffic..quite scary.
I think Appa gave away my cycle within a year after I joined Medical School-cant quite remember who got it!
I am contemplating getting myself a cycle now-but then umesh says the traffic here is too dangerous, so lets see!!
Hmmm...how did I learn to bike... I recall the Car driver, Venu, we had in Secunderbad and he took me to the top of the high incline road and made me sit on it and pushed me down....that is how I learned to bike and many times crashed into walls, trees and so on.It was rough. If you look at the scars on my legs, it brings back memories...I used to ride the bike for groceries/vegetables and got pretty good and riding without holding on to the handle bars!!!
How can you ignore your motorbike! We kids used to climb on it in the afternoon when all the adults were asleep.
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