It is in no way embarrassing for me to state that when I got married, my wife and I moved around on cycles. It was later that I obtained a moped, a motorcycle and then a second hand car. Now that I am a senior citizen, I still cycle 5 kms in the mornings on my exerciser. It keeps me fit and tension free.
As I sat to write this piece, past cycling memories came flooding back; impelling me to dig into old family albums for cycling photographs. The first heroic and truly brave heart cyclists that I recalled to mind were Antoinette and Trudy, two young ladies from Holland. They were cycling all the way from Indonesia (once a Dutch colony) to their homeland. They had embarked on this venture to raise funds for disabled children. Since my wife, Meera, is working for differently abled children she met them and invited them over (see pic). I was over awed at their courage. At that time (circa 1991) I was the President of the All India Catholic Union, so I gave them a letter of introduction, requesting any Catholic Church/ institution on their route to assist them if so required, and it came in handy.
Six years later, in December 1997, we had another surprise visit from European cyclists – this time men. They were Simon from England and Bojan from Yugoslavia (see pic). They were cycling through Asia and Europe when they passed through Kanpur. It was a cold night just after Christmas, when our house was fully lit up (see pic). Mistaking it for a church the cyclists approached me, asking if they could pitch their tent for the night.
Since part of the building was used as a guest house, we made them comfortable, and gave them a Christmas treat of roast chicken/ pork, plum pudding and apple cider. Those guys just freaked out. The next morning we offered to make omelettes for breakfast, but they pleaded for fried eggs, as they always got omelettes on the road. They devoured 4 eggs each, accompanied by bacon and sausages. I was still finding it difficult to understand how young people from the West just take off for the unknown. Here in India youngsters are so career conscious and seeking job security.
A few years later, in 2006, we had gone on a family vacation in the Kumaon hills. My old lady (the car, not my wife silly) was struggling up the steep gradient to Binsar (altitude 8500 ft). What do we see? A young man, all alone – pushing his cycle up the steep ascent! My eyes almost popped out. Later, at the rest house where we were staying, we got acquainted. His name was Arif, an architect from Delhi. Being a family man, and gregarious by nature, I could not fathom why a guy should choose to travel solo. It made no sense to me. What was he trying to achieve? Little did I know what impact Arif was having on my son Avinash, then all of 19 years.
Both our children, Mariam and Avinash, cycled to school (see pic) right till they passed out. But years later the “solo bug” bit my son. First he embarked on a solo 7000 km ride on his Pulsar 220 motorcycle from Kanpur to Kanyakumari and back, that too in the monsoons. For him it was a voyage of self-discovery. It did not stop there. He then bought a second hand Trek MTB 4300 mountain bike and began dry runs of 100 kms on Sunday mornings. Finally he took off for the Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, cycling solo for over 1000 km in what is described as a frozen desert, devoid of human habitation, flora or fauna. He crossed the Kumzum La pass, altitude over 15,000 ft (see pic), and reached the highest snow fed lake at Chandra Tal.
How dangerous a trip he had undertaken dawned on me only when he returned, and I saw the photographs of the terrain he had negotiated. He had worn a small torch and whistle around his neck – just in case! Thank God he did not have to take recourse to his emergency kit. I no longer question the soloists. I simply salute them.
Recently Pope Francis appealed to seminarians, and novices to use cycles. This is what he said. “I think that bicycles are necessary because there’s a lot of work to do, and you have to move around….Bikes are nice …. I’m telling you, truly it hurts me when I see a priest or a sister with a brand new car. You can’t do that”. Would that more religious leaders and opinion makers could impact society, to eschew ostentatious living and opt for a simpler lifestyle.
My brother-in-law, Larry, sent me this photograph of a cyclist in San Francisco, USA (see pic). Again, a telling message to mankind. How wonderful it would be if Americans, the biggest gas guzzlers, could switch to cycling. What a message Obama would give to the world if he cycled, instead of playing golf. His wife Michelle is concerned about obese American kids. Cycle, M’am. How much safer and pollution free this world would be if the Americans, and the rest of us, could overcome our obsession with petro driven cars; and the resultant petro-dollars, terrorism, fundamentalism, etc.
It is not utopian to expect people to cycle. Lt. Gen Z.U. Shah (Retd), 2 years my senior in school, and elder brother of actor Naseeruddin, was recently appointed as Vice –Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University. He cycles to work. Bp Patrick Nair, former bishop of Meerut, wrote to me recently that he still cycles around, even though he is in his eighties. Here in Kanpur, the IIT Campus is flooded with cycles. They prefer to cycle around. Prof Raghunandan Sengupta says that the faculty prefer to cycle, more for ecological reasons, but also for health. He said that cycling is common to all the IIT campuses in India. My query though is, what happens to these IITians when they migrate to America in pursuit of Nirvana?
Some years ago, when we went for a family vacation to the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in Rajasthan, cycles or cycle rickshaws were the only permitted forms of transport inside the sanctuary. For seven years I lived in an ashram in Bareilly. It was 7 kms out of town. Our only mode of transport was the ubiquitous bicycle, even for the ashram Acharya, Fr Augustine Deenabandhu Ofm Cap, who was 70 plus. So age or circumstance really is no bar to cycling.
But everything has a flip side. Gen Shah was attacked by disgruntled elements, while cycling on campus. A Swiss couple in Gwalior faced the ignominy of the wife being raped. Even Larry, a cycling enthusiast, had a cycling accident in Cincinnati Ohio, in 2004, while on a bike trail, an abandoned railway track. Despite wearing a helmet he suffered severe brain trauma. To remove the blood, ease the pain and reduce the swelling, a part of his skull was cut open, and replaced only 3 months later, after the swelling had subsided! Nothing risked, nothing gained.
The Samajwadi party, which rules Uttar Pradesh, has the cycle as its party symbol. It now flutters on the huge SUVs in which the party netas zip around. What hypocrisy. Maybe it is time for many more Indians to get out of their SUVs, couches or armchairs, and swing their leg over a cycle saddle. They, the country and world will be so much the better and fitter for it. Happy cycling.
September 2013
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