"I Dream on Two Wheels"...

When I inherited my older sister's hand-me-down gearless, heavy-weight, good old-fashioned 'Hero' bicycle, I thought I had the world in my hand. And, come to think of it, as a 13-year-old student growing up in a boarding school in Pondicherry, it literally felt that way. Confined within four boulevards, this little French town, until the eighties, totalled to a perimeter of 6 kms. So, equipped with a sturdy bicycle, which was always eager to roll, I could zoom around from one end to the other, and be anywhere within minutes. The east boulevard, also called the beach road was a free zone, and a desolate stretch. I remember flying down that road, without even my hands on the handle bar, feeling the sea breeze ruffle my hair. During the holidays, if I didn't go home to see my folks, it was because the lure of riding through the blustering downpours of monsoons simply sucked me in...and the immense joy of wedging through big puddles, watching the waterlogged stretch part on both sides, was irresistable. It felt akin to riding a chariot and the crowd parting humbly to let it pass. Yes, we were all kings and queens in our own right, and the roads were at our service, ready to take us wherever we wanted.  While the holidays allowed the leisure to venture out beyond the boulevards, to the paddies, to the lakes, to a forgotten temple at the outskirts of a village...it also brought to one's attention the need to service the bike, change the dynamo, repair the brakes, get an overhaul perhaps. 

Even though the airport in Pondicherry came up in the late eighties, it took two decades before it actually became operational. So, racing down the runway became a sought-after holiday activity. After a bout of furious pedaling, we could just rest our feet, and keep on going forever and ever, until the very end. It was the most exhilarating experience that I cherish even now, three decades later. 

In the seventies, my dad, a senior scientist then, in the defence department, used to cycle down to the office. Since we lived close to his workplace,  it was a simple non-expensive mode of transport, to get from point A to point B. However, in the early eighties, for us kids, it served more as a means to fulfill a recreational pursuit, than a necessity. And now, for many migrant workers in this Covid-19 era, it has become a symbol of their struggle, as they ride for days together, through treacherous weather, and unfriendly highways, in order to reach home. Three names stand out from the multitude of stories which have been broadcast by the media in recent weeks. 20-year-old Mahesh Jena cycled 1700 kms over a span of seven days, all the way from Maharashtra to Odisha, without any help from Google maps. Jyoti, the fifteen-year-old girl rode 1300 kms from Delhi to Bihar, carrying her injured father on the backseat. And, who can forget the 65-year-old Arivazhagan,  who covered 140 kms, cycling through the night, to bring his wife to the hospital for her third chemo session? 

On the eve of  World Bicycle Day (June 3rd), I salute these heroes and innumerable others who, despite being faced with adverse circumstances , wouldn't let the wheels come off. These brave souls might have never heard of Albert Einstein, but they perfectly encapsulate the advice he penned to his son in 1930: "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." 

And, that is what they  did.