For some of the migrants, their bicycles have proved their saviour. They used it to cycle all the way home hundreds of kilometres away. The author recalls her own carefree cycling days back in the ‘70s in the context of World Bicycle Day, observed today, June 3.
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 growing up in a boarding school in Pondicherry, it literally felt that way. Confined within four boulevards, this little French town, until the eighties, merely covered an area of one square kilometre. 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 monsoon downpour simply sucked me in…and the immense joy of wedging through big puddles, watching the waterlogged stretch part on both sides, was irresistible. 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 leisure time 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 many more decades before it actually became operational. So, racing down the runway became a sought-after holiday activity. After a bout of furious pedalling, we could rest our feet on the pedals, and keep going forever and ever, till the very end. I cherish that exhilarating experience even now, three decades later.
In the seventies, my dad, a senior scientist back then in the defence department, would cycle to office. We lived close to his workplace, the cycle was looked upon as a simple, non-expensive, convenient mode of transport. And for us kids, it served as a recreational pursuit.
But now, for many migrant workers in this Covid-19 era, it has become a symbol of their battle, as they ride for days together, through treacherous weather, on 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. That of 20-year-old Mahesh Jena who cycled 1,700 km 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 1,300 km from Delhi to Bihar, carrying her injured father on the backseat. And, who can forget 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 3), 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.
