Me & My Cycle Chronicles

The Origin :
Yash Chopra through the character Rahul had once said … “Kahin na kahin, koi na koi mere liye banaya gaya hai … aur kabhi na kabhi main usse zaroor milongi” … I took it literally in my 7th standard and believed that for every crazy mind out there, there is an equally crazy mind that accepts and understands the craziness … but afsos, zindagi me Yash Chopra aur Karan Johar jo sapne dikhate hai, wo sapne hi reh jate hai aur sach Anurag Kashyap aur Ram Gopal Varma ki kahaniya hi nikalti hai…
Anyways, I thought, why invest emotions in people, when they are susceptible to suspense reactions, instead why not invest my alter ego (which has a word rate of 60/min) in the only thing in life that will give me a chance to leave it first, and so I started looking at my cycle from a more humane perspective.
With some luck and some manipulation, I convinced my PhD guide that I was worthy of an internship. Unfortunately, the office he got me into was 15 kms away from where I lived and after trying Bangalore’s ricktey buses and over-priced rickshwas I decided to ride my cycle to work, in sickness and in health, in sunshine and in rain, till an accident do us part…and so the story begins. I’ll try and post quirky incidents and “eureka” thoughts that come to me while talking to my alter ego residing in my brilliantly clean, upright and tall, metallic blue and white shaded cycle…

That’s me and my cycle … And you will get us if you have experienced cycling in the city of Bangalore. Also, our grammar is quite compromised here as our stories are what we want to get across.

I wish bitwin and hercules and all the overpriced cycle makers out there would make a metalic hand-shaped you know which finger raised accessory, fittable and hand operated like a bell and gears. I am sure, on my route I will use that more than the brakes and bell combined, mostly for the benefit of the rear-view mirrors and occasionally for the poorer than thous pedestrian who, while crossing the road, decides I do not exist.[If anyone decides to patent this, do not forget to count me in on the royalties :)]
Every brilliant cyclist, who defies the red light from 500 mts away on a jam packed road, should sit down and write a parallel of Dijiktra’s shortest path algorithm, might get them a nobel some day. [seriously, it requires brains to get past those super awesome mercedes, audis and bullets]
BBMP/BDA I don’t know who is responsible, but now that monsoons have arrived,my cycle noticed that the million XXL/XL/L/M/S (all sizes) pot holes are strategically placed at all road turns to bring two wheelers closer (I’d appreciate them, but the only two wheelers I get close to are driven by white haired men with wide eyed aunties as pillion) 😦
My cycle has declared that the worst danger on roads, universally is “Aunties behind wheels” , they are color blind for signals and when they get into their driver seats all they can see are clear wide empty roads with potholes that should be avoided lest their new kurtas, or cars would get splashed with mud. They have absolutely no other concern in the world [No, I am not anti or pro feminist and this is definitely NOT gender biasing, its a fact]
Today, while passing a turn on the road, a phenomenally handsome white mercedes CD1 – E350D almost brushed my cycle, and for the remaining 10 kms, my cycle just day-dreamed, all my efforts to make her notice the number-plate, which was yellow and not white, failed. After all, why would my cycle bother about the owner, that would be solely a human interest.
It seems the only test to get a Drivers License in this city must be to honk. If you honk loud enough and long enough !! BINGO !! you can drive anything from a three-wheeler to a multi-axle volvo. Because that is all the respect my cycle gets. Inadvertent honking. From four sides. Its almost like the driver saying, “Hey I have a vehicle with 2+ wheels and an engine, means I paid the tax, and you’re without an engine – so obviously you didn’t” Ye rasta mere baap ka hai!! (Believe me, it WAS written on a bike’s mudguard.
Today my cycle is very upset and jealous… I haven’t washed or cleaned her in some time, hoping for the non-ceasing drizzle to do my job… the fact is, my institute gets tonnes of new students this day each year and these tonnes of new students buy colorful tonnes of new cycles that glitter and gleam, and so do their drivers… well me and my cycle don’t glitter and gleam..specially when I realize that yet another year has sadly passed without me having a problem statement to solve for the universe … and so she’s upset (not by my inadequate progress in research, but the fact that there are gleaming glittering colorful cycles out there, and she’s standing muddy and glum and feeling old)
My cycle lost a very crucial limb, sadly, the mud-guard fractured it’s rubber connection and the moronic cycle-shop bhaiya, when asked if it is repairable, tore it off and threw it aside, saying “come on Monday” . 😦 Yes, it was my fault, I let her get hit by a luckily slowly moving car, while trying to illegally change tracks… well, nothing is illegal for a cyclist actually, because in the (in)human world, we don’t exist on roads, but the extremely handsome car-driver did point it out to me in extremely polite English, and so I moved on without giving him his due set of expletives.
Today I realized my cycle indeed has capacity of having crushes, she literally “hit on” the left rear view mirrors of a spectacular white audi and a handsome grey mercedes. I didn’t know her intentions till I realized I “brushed” past them with the intention of breaking a red-light.
Dr. Arjun Shetty’s law : Every vehicle at a red light WILL move as fast as the vehicle ahead, when the red changes, and cannot move faster, and the vehicle with space ahead (leading i mean) will move its fastest (obvious, that’s why its there, to GO somewhere) : Corollary , Honking at signals is a proof of insanity.
Yesterday evening, after a very long time, my cycle got a dusk ride. And here’s what the setting sun does to her spirit, you all know that the cycle lights have a blinking mode, and I, poor as all research scholars are, have only one, the headlight, with two tiny white bulbs mounted on a fluorescent green (yes!! i was getting it at 90% discount so the color), rubber apparatus. Extremely near to my institute, there is this dark patch of road where the lights actually can be seen, and after 40 days, finally an extremely cute biker was just ahead of me, with a red back light, also blinking. Here’s what my cycle did, being a yo yo honey singh fan, she started singing ” red eyes hypnotize teri karti hai menu…” .. How?? In morse code of-course. That is when I realized honey singh’s popularity!!
Yesterday my cycle had the time of her life, my extremely generous and prosperous employer decided to have a cycle trip down one of the many beautiful roads surrounding Bangalore. To reach that road, all cycles were packed in a truck, and she found herself among the elite in her community, bitwin rock riders, schwinns and other high-end hercules, gorgeous models indeed. And then, when we were riding down the roads, passing through villages, kids were jumping up and down saying “auntie cycle, auntie cycle “(she wasn’t very pleased about this as she’s only a year and a half old) once we even got an “akka cycle” (that was better) …, she got stared at and commented on every second km, and then we finished fourth, leaving a lot of the elite slim models behind… Indeed, she now feels I should find a more appropriate stand for her, and not park her among the lowly lady-birds and gearless purple heros.
A messgage for all enfields, pulsars and hondas out there, from my cycle “When the game is over the king and the pawns go into the same box” – Translation – “When our riders get a new piece, you and I will go in the same metal scrap yard”
These days my cycle has been staring at the “hire a new boss” bill-boards launched by some recruiting company, for unusually long times. She says no other cycle in the parking has to work from 9 to 5 everyday. They only work on weekends, and that too they get to move on brilliant countryside, pot-holes and traffic free, surrounded by nature, roads. Plus they get washed and oiled regularly. 😦 .She refuses to understand that she is serving her existence more fruitfully than others. Alas!!
I don’t know if this is a common problem, but my cycle complains about it a lot, in Bangalore, Trucks and the KIA volvos have horn sounding like kids’ tricycles and bikes and activas have these horns that sound like battle calls… So we (me and my cycle) have totally no judgement of what lies behind, and now, she is demanding for a rearview mirror… isn’t that ridiculous?
Today my cycle shocked me by stopping right outside the Bharatinagar police station and wanting me to lodge an ‘Attempt at murder’ charge on myself… the reason, well, her brakes are a little ill because of the weather, and in my attempt to show off in front of a fellow foreigner cyclist on the road, we(me and my cycle) absent mindedly found ourselves abreast with the elephantile blue and white painted excuse of a bmtc bus and a yellow and orange painted ‘Horn – Ok – Please’, rhino truck. How is that my fault? I mean… the cute foreigners’ cycle was equally cute.
I realized my cycle was not only a yo yo honey singh fan but also an ardent rohit shetty believer. Here’s what happened today, as I had mentioned before, the ever damp, depressing and dementors filled Bangalore weather had made her brakes ill, but with my super busy schedule of watching my latest favorite american series “Castle”, I didn’t have the time to get her to her doctor and so, furious, today morning she greeted me with the chennai express inspired lines “Don’t underestimate the power of an angry cycle” – and I said “Ya ryt” … she proved herself, by not allowing me to stop at any sudden bumps, squeezing me in between gigantic jeeps and trucks and finally, we hit a super cute motor-cyclist and landed on the driver door of another super cute driver-car. I apologized and apologized and apologized, and the super cute guys just smiled it off. I could see her smirking. After work, after two kilometers of dragging and huffing and puffing, I realized she had punctured her rear tire, right in the middle of no-puncture-repairer’s land. She made me walk two kilometers on strange roads guided by absolute strangers, finally to find a repair shop. Feeling one – upped, she let me reach campus without further hassles, only making me miss turns so that I’d land onto the longest possible, traffic packed route. After three whole hours of revenge, she let me enter campus, fatigued and defeated. Seriously, never underestimate the power of an angry cycle.
My friends love my cycle… on my birthday, they decided to gift my cycle with sparkling new expensive accessories.. she got a handsome flexible and adjustable yet powerful headlight and a honey singh songs singing red blinking tail light… she was ecstatic ….
“Zanjeer chahe sone ki ho ya lohe ki… azadi kharidi nai jati” – My cycle’s dialogue delivered in rakhi style (mere karan arjun ayenge), today when I apologized for the fluorescent red tubed cheap metal lock I got for her…. Ya right…a couple of days back, in the spirit of Navratri, she broke her exquisite black bodied shining iron headed extremely expensive (got for free) lock, one night, lockless in the parking, she got arrested by our superb hole-ly security and tied up with abandoned, dusty lady-birds. For immediate release, I had to get a new lock, and the only option was the red tube…anyways…in my society, anyone looking pretty is adorned with a kala tapka, to prevent buri nazar… that is how I convinced her to work… praising her elegant blue and white figure. Alas!! Vanity.
Me and my cycle – we hit the century in cycling.. To Nandi Hills and back.. I won’t be dishonest, she walked for the last 5 kms of the ghat, it was beyond both our capacities….But she now says, that she has served her purpose and wants to take Nirvana… Right, she doesn’t realize she came with a price tag.. But today, we beat loneliness, we conquered our fears, and we boasted to ourselves about our stamina…and we celebrated 🙂
My cycle saw a bike with a tiger’s face staring at her from the mud-guard. Since then she’s been eating my head with designs. The final order, seems quite patriotic and out of character. She wants the tri-color at the top and bottom, IISc logo below it followed by – yes, a lotus – no doubt she’s a BJP fan. Me – I would rather put the broom.
My cycle made an unsolicited(as usual) judgement ” Vehicles with parents desperate to get their kids to school in the 7.45 to 8.45 a.m. slot are way more reckless and senseless than the two-wheelers carrying blissfully unmarried/ not yet parents/ newly married and about to retire IT hordes and elephantile BMTC buses that swarm the Bangalore excuse for roads in the 9.30 to 10.30 a.m. slot ” – my conclusion : teachers are scarier than bosses at any age 🙂
My cycle has a very long story to narrate. She has been away from face book and me for over two months now and that seems to have driven her crazy. She first wants everyone to hear her lament (please sing in the aashiqui 2 tune) “Mujhko azadi de Shaadi ke waade de Meri nigahon ke ishaaron ko importance de Gear ko thikaane de Naya mudguard banane de Bangalore ki baarishon ko Wapas kuch invitation de Meri love life ki kar duaayein Fer de idhar se tu nigaahein Sun rahi hai naa tu Ro rahi hun main Sun rahi hai naa tu Kyun ro rahi hun main ” – My Cycle Well, this is the story. Somewhere around 1st December, I decided my weight had started increasing exponentially and I needed some exercise. As I am very busy in doing no constructive work in the entire day, the only option left was to use the travel time to and from lab and mess and room. So I forgot my cycle, and I also lost her key, leaving her unlocked in the basement parking lot of our hostel’s garage, which seemed a pretty safe place for sexy cycles. However, our extremely diligent security staff, who scan all 500 + cycles in the garage with a torch each night, saw the bright red rubber lock, unlocked and captured her. I forgot all about her for 3 weeks, after which I was assigned with a task of buying a cake for which I decided to use her. On finding her missing, I panicked and asked the security guard in my broken false english-hindi accent. Seeing my distress, he explained that any unlocked cycle goes to the boys hostel garage under very high security. To get her bailed out, I had to exercise my formal letter writing skills, acquired in 6th std English class, requesting her release. After some reprimands, I got her, dusty, scratched and somehow – different. That day, I used her to reach the cake shop. She seemed reluctant to go with me. Her gears went awry, her brakes screeched and her tires expressed un-physically more friction. I somehow managed a return bumpy trip on her screechy highness. But on the way, she tricked me into bumping in a trench and losing her only remaining key. I couldn’t do much, with my busy schedule, so I tried to hide her amongst the most dusty and ignored aged cycles in my garage. Three more weeks passed. And I realized the diligent security had secured her again in the basement of the boys hostel, chained, neck to neck with other discards and orphans. I fought tooth and nail and took the insult of being called “highly irresponsible” to have parked an unlocked cycle in a secure girls’ hostel garage. When she was finally released, and I dusted her off, apologizing, taking her to my room to give her a fresh new look, she broke down. After a lot of begging and flattering and petting, she told me her newly discovered love story. It seems, chained and inactive in the dusty, smelly boys hostel garage, she had found, bound to her, a bright red old discarded hero cycle, a 2010 model, once having belonged to a materials research PhD giant, who had with years, grown tired of his old model and shifted to a red “suzuki bike”. The old fellow, and my young hercules, began talking and sharing their masters’ ignorance and tyranny. She, the young petite had seen all of Bangalore in the glory of her youth and had a lot of stories to tell to the dusty red hero, who had not felt cold, heat or sunshine in a year. And his melancholy humor and her boisterous spirit created a love story. On asking her why she had not told this to me before, like today’s over grown teenagers, she replied, that that was only the “crush” phase and she wanted to get her distance and space and time to think. But one day away from him had convinced her of her feelings and now, after six weeks of companionship, she chose the dusty red hero over me. Well, I reminded her of the price she came with, and the bills so forth, for her maintenance, as a reply to which, she sang her lament. Nothing like Ankit Tiwari though. The message is pretty clear.
I was late for dinner tonight, and as I’ve said before, my cycle is on vacation while I’m on campus. There isn’t much for us to do here (Well technically, I should do research). So I had to search her out of the hundreds out there, dusty, bent, seatless and dejected. However, the reason I was unable to see her immediately was she was in colors (yes, not tears, that was last time). She is a drab blue and grey – by manufacture. But tonight, she was sparkling vermillion, bottle green and muddy brown. I rushed to her, scared, as to what got her into that state. She swayed out of the rows, dragged and hauled with difficulty. It took me some time and a pipe full of gushing water to make sense of what she was trinkling (that’s how she sounds, I never told you that?). It seems she likes Holi. Yes, she liked Navratri. Now she likes Holi and had set off, on the holiday less – Holi (we live in Bangalore 😦 ) to celebrate with people at the gymkhana. She did not want me to go – I am boring company. So she set of as a belonging of one of the other “cool” girls, who high on bhang did not realize her lavender lady bird was actually my precious blue hercules (HUH!). And there she played, rolled in mud, had some bhaang with oil and a lot of crazy fun. Thankfully she was back in the same garage- with some other girl on the way back. No one could identify anyone anyways that day. Since then, she has been in the set of the rejected and forgotten. Happily colored. She figured in some photographs also, that got ooos and aaas and likes on facebook – how does she know that? She saw herself on someone’s smart-big-screen-phone, with the tag – ‘colors in the rust’ -(lame if you ask me). Now, she has wished everyone a happy Ugadi – not knowing that she belongs to a Gujarati and our new year falls in October. Well, cycles without borders – is her way of explaining all festivals. I missed dinner, she got washed, and slept – seems the love lament was an unnecessary waste. Like girls – vanity gets her high – not red heros.
It was a long weekend and I wanted to go cycling on the Mangalore-Bangalore highway. Saturday morning, early, pre-dawn, I went to the garage to unlock my cycle. And the measly key wouldn’t turn. I kept trying, and on the fifty try, my cycle, in a whispering threatening trinkle started saying : My frame, my mind, my choice To wear the seat cover I like; even if my spirit roams naked My choice; to be a 4’10” or a 6’0″ They don’t have a size for my spirit, and never will To use plastic and rexine to trap my soul is to believe that you can cause the expansion of the Bangalore roads Or predict rain, before it does Your mind is caged, let it free My frame is not Let it be My choice To be ridden, or not to be ridden To race with gears, to race without gears, or to not race at all My choice To belong temporarily, or to switch masters forever My choice To love a bitwin, or a ladybird, or both Remember; you are my choice, I’m not your privilege The brakes on my handle, the mudguard on my rear wheel, accepting a version number, they’re all ornaments and can be replaced My loyalty for you cannot, so treasure that My choice; to come to the parking when I want Don’t be upset if I come to the garage at 4am Don’t be fooled if I come to the garage at 6pm, My choice; to have your weight over me or not To pick you from 7 billion choices or not So don’t get cocky My tightest gear might be your pain My bell tinkle, your noise My chaos, your anarchy Your speed, my virtue My choices are like my pedalprints They make me unique I am the hercules of the road bikes I am the natures’ friend not the foe You are the foe Wake up Get out of the “I am human” ego storm I choose to cycle in the 1st gear Or in the 6th, on a slope I choose to be different I am the traffic Infinite in every direction This is my choice Yes, the cycles have an uncanny ability to hide fallen objects and use them at will (Almost like Hogwarts’ Room of Requirement) – This poem came from a fallen micromax belonging to a spoilt 1st year, with the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtPv7IEhWRA) playing on repeat. Alas!!
I have a personal policy, DO NOT argue with a Bangalore rickshaw wala. They were born to be criminal lawyers, but ended up driving a rickshaw because of past karma (yes, I believe in karma). Couple of weeks back, my cycle and me, we were on a huge broad road, crowded, approaching a signal, where we clearly wanted to go left, and so we were changing tracks, and zooming with the attitude of a ferrari on a F1 track, came a (yes! not even a CNG) rickshaw, knocking us off (well! almost).. I went near the rickshaw, as usual wanting to glare at the driver, but not today! No, my cycle had had enough of rickshaw bullying, and clink blink BAM! she possessed me. And I shouted “Bhaiya chalana nai ata kya?” – yes, for meek me to raise my voice against the prototypical south indian mucchad tummied semi bald uncle, resembling the gundas in the 90’s film. It was pure possession. He started his reasoning in an even more threatining tone. Blaming my cycle, that she did not know the rules of cycling on roads and so on and so forth. Till red turned green and the glares burnt holes. She spoke, aloud and clear. My only wonder was, why on earth wasn’t it in Kannada. I mean, she’s been assembled and sold here, on this soil. Or perhaps, its because of the campus’s metro nature. Well, in that case, she should’ve spoken Bengali. Would suit her character too…
Last weekend, two great things happened… In my “guys only” friends zone, my cycle finally found a girl friend in a hercules WOW (yes, she is old and red, but she is owned by a girl – so she is a “girl” friend for my cycle). And we, all four of us, the girl, my cycle, her new friend and me, we went to my cycle’s paradise dream – Decathlon. My cycle, she stays in a daze for a month after visiting Decathlon. Well …., I just wish all price tags had one less zero… then it would truly be “Sports for everyone”.
Day before, I parked my cycle in the Lab parking and did not lock her. I mean, why waste calories? Its a building housing a bunch of nerds and their bosses. If they have a diamond staring in their face, they will start to find its material properties or characterize it or something. But surprise surprise!! In the night, she was gone. I didn’t worry. My labmates keep playing pranks. The next morning, no sign of her. I started exercising my Kannada and questioned the guards, who were clueless. I finally thought my fears had come true and she had left – forever! The one thing I loved. And so I rushed to the main security office, hostel office, all the endless gates of the institute and Zilch! Null! No one had seen her. It literally broke my heart. I decided to go to these offices every single day till I saw her again. And the next morning, i.e. today!! She was there. Lying nice and filthy with the guards. I signed for her and got her out and asked her what had happened! Seems she found some new intern interesting, who coincidentally, finding her unlocked, assumed, IISc is rich enough to keep geared sparkling cycles for free use on campus!! I mean, can you believe it. And off she went. She even convinced this intern to cut off her ugly black rubber lock… I mean really, when I asked WHY (It costs 80 bucks!) ?? She winked (yes, she can do that, remember the blinking backlight? One bulb goes PooF!) and said “Happy Independence Day”
For people, a vacation, with drizzling mornings, cloudy afternoons and wintery nights, is a rejuvenating time. For cycles, I’m learning otherwise. Because of the stormy weather my cycle got a couple of months in the garage, peace and rest. But when I went to take her out today, she seemed depressed and dejected. How do I know? Well, her usually shining spotless blue-grey-white metallic frame was covered in a double layer of dust, her mudguard kept drooping and bouncing on the rear tire, however tight the screws, her front lights’ glare was dim and flickery, the bell, rusted, rang a hoarse “twang” when nudged, the tires, even though filled with air, remained depressed (pun intended) and the gears would just skittle to the toughest combination at every speed-breaker, carelessly ignoring the lever settings. For an entire 800 meters of blissfully pothole-less road, she screeched and wheezed and threw a tantrum. Here’s what her speech translated into (She is quite a fan of our PM) “Bhaiyo aur Behno (intended for her engined siblings (2 and 4 wheelers) who cater to single drivers, ye jo hamari dharti mata ka tapman badh raha hai (global warming), uska mukhya karan aap ho. Aaj se krupya karke hafte me do din chutti le liya karo. Isse ye jo mausam ka vikop hamare paryavaran ko ast vyast kar raha hai, usse hum ‘control’ kar sakte hai. Hamare manushy ‘bosses’ toh pagla gaye hai aur unse paryavaran ki parvah ki umeed karna bewkoofi hai (yes, I was offended, but she’s right 😦 ), lekin aap, mere bhaiyo aur behno, aap to is desh k responsible vehizens ho, to aao, aaj ek faisla kare. Aur hafte me do din, apna petrol jalana roke. Aap hi is desh ka mantra-yantra ho. Sab ka sath sab ka vikas. Jai Hind, Jai Vahan” – Uff! That was quite a lot of hindi. Seems the forgotten smartphone in the garage is being put to full use by her highness.
The bizarre Bangalore summers have been testing our tolerance for long now. It seems my cycle is also quite sensitive to the heat. These days there wouldn’t be a visible/reparable puncture, but every morning her rear tire seems mildly deflated and she makes riding tedious. Also, her latest hero is none other than our Kanhaiya, and every time she sees one of our campus security uniforms, she starts rapping “Mai le ke rahungi! Azadi. Bhari bum se – Azadi! Kache raste se – Azadi! Videshi nivesh se – Azadi! Bikes ke adhinayktv se – Azadi! Yatayat ke sar dard se – Azadi! Tum kuch bhi kar lo, Hai hak mera – Azadi! Hai gear se pyari – Azadi”. Sometimes I wish, the heat would melt her, or atleast her twangy bell!

31. My cycle and I have shifted to the worst area in Bangalore and she has her hitlists ready in a month of exploring the new crowds and traffic of south East Bangalore.
‘Worst Living Things’
1. Humans
2. Cows
3. Dogs
4. Pigs
5. Cats (least harmful only because they’re cute)
‘Worst Vehicles’
1. Ola/Ubers
2. Water tankers
3. KIA buses
4. Enfields and Pulsars
5. Aunties on wheels
‘Worst Signals’
1. Sony world
2. Silk board
3 .KR Puram
4. Sarjapur ORR I tried reminding her that she has no ammunition and hit lists require something to hit with. But the angry young cycle keeps dreaming of one day possessing cannon like accessories jutting out from the center of the handle that aims and shoots water balloons on command.

32. I now know why we used to have those “Slow Cycling” races in all school sport’s day events. Seems our teachers and house captains were visionary. I can now slow cycle my way from Ecospace to Bellandur on the service road in peak traffic at a negative speed without letting my toes touch the ground. My cycle just boasts of having “Defied Physics”. I’d rather call it magic but she thinks it’s so non-millennial!

33. My cycle is demanding that I get her an organ donation card made. Why you ask? Well…with the perennial saas-bahu disconnect between BWSSB and BBMP, the roads we travel, me and my cycle, are no longer roads but piles of slush with jutting rocks and hidden drain holes. In spite of my excellent balance ( 😉 ) she has doubts about her immortality now and wants to live on through her expensive metal gears and frame. Alas, the narcissism of it all!!!

34. My cycle now insists on being called “Dr. Cycle”. She claims to have done a PhD in Chaos Theory in the past 12 months. Her dissertation is on the absolute chaos at Bellandur junction which has 3 ingress and 4 egress roads with one non-functional signal, 0 zebra crossings and perennially lost in conversations traffic police. We, me and my cycle cross this junction every day and she seems to have proven in her dissertation that there is more order in the natural chaos then when there is some police or signal working. Where can you find the dissertation you ask? Hmm….maybe in the MITs of cycles… I’m yet to discover that repository of the cycle world’s PhDs.

35. It’s been the end of yet another job and I recently moved back to my hometown. My cycle left in transit way before me. But thanks to the lockdown, she’s stuck somewhere in the reddest zones in some metro city for the last month. Thank God cycles don’t get Covid-19. But I miss her terribly. Her take on my hometown with the new challenges of cows, dogs, goats and donkeys instead of Bangalore’s mercedes and volvos would be quite interesting.

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