Parts One - The Rickshaw Riders and two - The Pallavan Years.
When I finished class X, we moved schools. We joined VanaVani, located inside the verdant IIT-M campus. It was a great school - although, so was the one that we were previously attending - and was close to our home. Oh and also the small matter of it being a co-educational institution which meant that about one half of the student population were, wait for this, I'm giddy, girls. Remember, I was in class XI. But most importantly, we were freed from the evil clutches of the Pallavan Transport Corp.
Cycling to school is freedom. Only someone who has been taking the bus to and from school for many years will fully understand the freedom that comes from being fully in charge of your commute. The shackles had been broken free. Tied no longer to the schedule of the bus, no more vitriolic comments of fellow commuters and not having to struggle for that elusive vacant seat. There was something powerful about having the keys to a set of wheels in your pocket. Even though the set of wheels may be a touch bent out of shape and the tyres are crying out for some more air. But imagine stepping out of the house, unlocking the bicycle and being on your way. To the school and not to the bus stand! Freedom indeed.
Having spent the early years of boyhood in T Nagar, cycling was limited to when we were visiting our cousins in (rural?) Virugambakkam or when our dad used to take me and my brother to the YMCA grounds on a few Sunday mornings. He would take us to the hockey - or was it soccer, I forget now - grounds, find himself a spot under the many trees and start reading The Hindu while we would knock ourselves out riding our red BSA SLR around the campus. So the idea of cycling to school was nothing short of exhilarating. Mind you, by the time I actually started taking cycles to school, I had learnt to drive bikes and even cars. Yet muscle power lured me more than horsepower.
Soon we were cycling everywhere. To school, to friends' places - with the new school, there were new friends to be made, to the beach - to shoot the breeze with the new friends, to the grocery store, to coaching classes. On the way to school, we would make a detour to the Jalagandeshwarar temple inside the IIT campus on test days and circumambulate the temple by cycle. We could decide to take either Delhi Avenue or Bonn Avenue (IIT-M was funded by Germany), hold impromptu races, travel the road less taken, stop by friend's places within the campus. In other words, this was a whole different world as compared to standing pressed between armpits, carrying a heavy bag and accepting curses flung our way five days a week.
It must also be mentioned that all this happened at a time when Chennai's roads were far less crowded and cyclists could venture out with the hope that they could actually return home in one piece - hell, Sardar Patel Road had a dedicated bicycle lane believe it or not - without (too much) fear of being run over by automobiles or mowed down by the collective indifference of motorists. Here is a piece of fact marinated in nostalgia: once you turned into Sardar Patel Road at the Raj Bhavan road junction, one could actually perceive a drop in temperature and a slight improvement in the air quality.
There were the usual troubles of course, with cycles, especially old, creaky ones. Flat tires, slipped chains and the occasional falls. One of my friends, V, used to routinely show up in class with a cycle chain in hand for effect. Needless to say, he was waved in without much fuss even by our Chemistry teacher Mr. G - a stickler for punctuality. We also did some very smart things - riding cross armed (which left a friend of mine with a broken arm), slow cycling (collected a few scraped knees as prizes), getting towed by friends that had started using mopeds and scooters/bikes - that led to a few injuries and/or reprimands. On one such towed trips, I was going so fast holding on to a friend that was riding pillion on my other friend's Bajaj Chetak that I didn't even realize that my bag had fallen off the carrier that had the weakest spring known to mankind. I must have been doing a good 40kmph and the loud rattles that my ancient bicycle was making by way of protests against the abuse that it was enduring must have drowned out the thud. Anyways, the bag got picked up by some good Samaritan who turned it in to the IIT office as opposed to my school's office. The IIT security who lost no time in getting in touch with my school who in turn informed my father about the situation - the bag and its missing owner. The missing owner, meanwhile, reached home in record time just as my father stood there with a you-better-have-a-good-explanation-son expression on his otherwise friendly face. A joint parent-teacher investigation ascertained how I got separated from the bag, how the bag ended up where it ended up and the most awkward question of them all: why? But you live and learn.
The red BSA SLR got stolen one night from right in front of our house and after a few cycle less months, we got a replacement one provided by the diligent and entrepreneurial cops of the Kotturpuram police station. They came up with the idea of making a neat sum from the many stolen bikes that lay unclaimed in their station. One afternoon, after paying whatever was the going amount of bribes for a cycle return, we came home with a beat up blue SLR whose good days were in the distant past. Then there came bicycle number two: a really dilapidated Hercules that got a new lease of life for Rs. 200 that I used for the 2 years that I attended Vanavani. Then when I joined college, my dad got me a brand new Hercules for Rs. 1,300. If you think I'm disappointed that he didn't get me a motorcycle - like many of my friends - you are wrong. Neither did I feel the need for a motorized means of transport nor was one offered by my parents.
The Hercules - which still stands under the staircase of our home in Chennai - served all my needs through the four years of college. Computer classes - 6 km one way, 3 days a week for 2 years. Collecting notes and photocopying them around semester exams - 8 exams over 4 years. Then the many trips to the IIT-M library during those exams. And then collecting signatures from the faculty members while applying for US Universities. Oh and the cricket matches across Adyar and Besant Nagar every weekend over those 4 years. No to mention the many Saturday evenings by the beach.
By the time we finally bought a bike - exactly 3 months before I left for the US - I must have clocked at least 5000 kms on the Hercules which, I reckon, would have easily paid for itself a few times over even at those petrol prices.
Next up: The Jeppiaar bus service
When I finished class X, we moved schools. We joined VanaVani, located inside the verdant IIT-M campus. It was a great school - although, so was the one that we were previously attending - and was close to our home. Oh and also the small matter of it being a co-educational institution which meant that about one half of the student population were, wait for this, I'm giddy, girls. Remember, I was in class XI. But most importantly, we were freed from the evil clutches of the Pallavan Transport Corp.
Cycling to school is freedom. Only someone who has been taking the bus to and from school for many years will fully understand the freedom that comes from being fully in charge of your commute. The shackles had been broken free. Tied no longer to the schedule of the bus, no more vitriolic comments of fellow commuters and not having to struggle for that elusive vacant seat. There was something powerful about having the keys to a set of wheels in your pocket. Even though the set of wheels may be a touch bent out of shape and the tyres are crying out for some more air. But imagine stepping out of the house, unlocking the bicycle and being on your way. To the school and not to the bus stand! Freedom indeed.
Having spent the early years of boyhood in T Nagar, cycling was limited to when we were visiting our cousins in (rural?) Virugambakkam or when our dad used to take me and my brother to the YMCA grounds on a few Sunday mornings. He would take us to the hockey - or was it soccer, I forget now - grounds, find himself a spot under the many trees and start reading The Hindu while we would knock ourselves out riding our red BSA SLR around the campus. So the idea of cycling to school was nothing short of exhilarating. Mind you, by the time I actually started taking cycles to school, I had learnt to drive bikes and even cars. Yet muscle power lured me more than horsepower.
Soon we were cycling everywhere. To school, to friends' places - with the new school, there were new friends to be made, to the beach - to shoot the breeze with the new friends, to the grocery store, to coaching classes. On the way to school, we would make a detour to the Jalagandeshwarar temple inside the IIT campus on test days and circumambulate the temple by cycle. We could decide to take either Delhi Avenue or Bonn Avenue (IIT-M was funded by Germany), hold impromptu races, travel the road less taken, stop by friend's places within the campus. In other words, this was a whole different world as compared to standing pressed between armpits, carrying a heavy bag and accepting curses flung our way five days a week.
It must also be mentioned that all this happened at a time when Chennai's roads were far less crowded and cyclists could venture out with the hope that they could actually return home in one piece - hell, Sardar Patel Road had a dedicated bicycle lane believe it or not - without (too much) fear of being run over by automobiles or mowed down by the collective indifference of motorists. Here is a piece of fact marinated in nostalgia: once you turned into Sardar Patel Road at the Raj Bhavan road junction, one could actually perceive a drop in temperature and a slight improvement in the air quality.
There were the usual troubles of course, with cycles, especially old, creaky ones. Flat tires, slipped chains and the occasional falls. One of my friends, V, used to routinely show up in class with a cycle chain in hand for effect. Needless to say, he was waved in without much fuss even by our Chemistry teacher Mr. G - a stickler for punctuality. We also did some very smart things - riding cross armed (which left a friend of mine with a broken arm), slow cycling (collected a few scraped knees as prizes), getting towed by friends that had started using mopeds and scooters/bikes - that led to a few injuries and/or reprimands. On one such towed trips, I was going so fast holding on to a friend that was riding pillion on my other friend's Bajaj Chetak that I didn't even realize that my bag had fallen off the carrier that had the weakest spring known to mankind. I must have been doing a good 40kmph and the loud rattles that my ancient bicycle was making by way of protests against the abuse that it was enduring must have drowned out the thud. Anyways, the bag got picked up by some good Samaritan who turned it in to the IIT office as opposed to my school's office. The IIT security who lost no time in getting in touch with my school who in turn informed my father about the situation - the bag and its missing owner. The missing owner, meanwhile, reached home in record time just as my father stood there with a you-better-have-a-good-explanation-son expression on his otherwise friendly face. A joint parent-teacher investigation ascertained how I got separated from the bag, how the bag ended up where it ended up and the most awkward question of them all: why? But you live and learn.
The red BSA SLR got stolen one night from right in front of our house and after a few cycle less months, we got a replacement one provided by the diligent and entrepreneurial cops of the Kotturpuram police station. They came up with the idea of making a neat sum from the many stolen bikes that lay unclaimed in their station. One afternoon, after paying whatever was the going amount of bribes for a cycle return, we came home with a beat up blue SLR whose good days were in the distant past. Then there came bicycle number two: a really dilapidated Hercules that got a new lease of life for Rs. 200 that I used for the 2 years that I attended Vanavani. Then when I joined college, my dad got me a brand new Hercules for Rs. 1,300. If you think I'm disappointed that he didn't get me a motorcycle - like many of my friends - you are wrong. Neither did I feel the need for a motorized means of transport nor was one offered by my parents.
The Hercules - which still stands under the staircase of our home in Chennai - served all my needs through the four years of college. Computer classes - 6 km one way, 3 days a week for 2 years. Collecting notes and photocopying them around semester exams - 8 exams over 4 years. Then the many trips to the IIT-M library during those exams. And then collecting signatures from the faculty members while applying for US Universities. Oh and the cricket matches across Adyar and Besant Nagar every weekend over those 4 years. No to mention the many Saturday evenings by the beach.
By the time we finally bought a bike - exactly 3 months before I left for the US - I must have clocked at least 5000 kms on the Hercules which, I reckon, would have easily paid for itself a few times over even at those petrol prices.
Next up: The Jeppiaar bus service
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