Wish you all a very Happy New Year 2011.
The thought of writing the following contents spawned while cycling back home two days ago. About writing they say that people do so when they're a moment of revelation, a situation that stands out like a beacon, something that shocks you, something that attracts you intensely, something that you hear, see or feel that relegates the surrounding to a fuzzy backdrop even if for a very short while.
It’s been a long time since I’ve commuted on a bicycle and it seemed all the more difficult to do so after getting habituated to riding a motorcycle (a Royal Enfield 350) that I bought almost three years ago. The time that the latter takes to get you from A to B is addictive.
The advantage of a two wheeler in on these clogged roads is immense, at times I feel, even greater than that of travelling in a cozy shielded box. It’s maneuverable and swift. Of course on the other hand, a bicycle, although maneuverable doesn’t come close to a mobike in terms of speed and this is no esoteric knowledge. The advantage that the humble cycle is sublime, the piston and conrods are your legs and the pedal and you can go only as fast as your legs will allow. As in a mobike, the rpm is not just limited by the gears but also by the power of your legs. The disadvantages are many and it is unsafe to ride a cycle in a city obsessed with its newly acquired money. As a cyclist you need to watch out for all kinds of dangers posed by motorists who give a shit about anybody else on the road, let alone a poor cyclist.
Chandigarh was an awesome city, still known as the city beautiful for it's design and layout which was the work of a celebrated French architect Le Corbusier. In his time I believe almost everyone commuted through the then tiny city on a bicycle barring maybe a motorized two wheelers, a handful of cars and maybe the odd bus. Time has changed since then, in fact it has changed drastically since my childhood days, the 1980s and the 1990s.
Owing to the growing traffic congestion, a decade odd ago, the administration constructed cycle tracks next to the main-roads to make it safer for cyclists. The administration meant well but the only problem was that when on the on hand they were doing this good deed, on the other, they were carelessly issuing driver’s licences to careless people without ensuring that the receivers learnt the rules well enough to follow them. Surely the roads in Chandigarh are filled mostly with unruly, ill-bred drivers with no respect for anything smaller than their vehicle.
