Peddling In Twilight

It was an everyday affair two years before, and then in suffered a two-year long hiatus. Now it’s back with a bang – the joy of riding on a bicycle in the morning.


The spirit is so refreshing when I start. It is a six-kilometer long ride from my home to the Chengalpattu Railway Station. My ride starts at around six-twenty in the morning when the sun is still a virgin, spreading its light in an aesthetically pleasing rate. The cold wind with its monsoon flavor and chilling touch caresses my face all over. A few more pedals and you are on the main road, flanked by green grass on either sides. The dew drops of the night sit and scintillate on the tiny blades of the grass, only to become traceless in a few hours. Just elevate your line of sight and you see the clouds scattered across the skies, giving a hazy-blue appearance. And in the middle of all this, little do you recognize that your feet are already in rhythm, and your body is contributing the grace too.


Then comes the most spectacular part – the lake, and it is a riders’ delight when the waters are full after the monsoons. A kachha road, with no tar, yet with mud as smooth as marbles, with palm trees on either sides and the leaves adding a crude phrase to the splashing water against the banks and the numerous birds that start their vocal exercises then – what more can you ask for?


And at the end of all this, I’ve a long, smooth road with nothing worth to be called traffic, all for me at that morning hour. The road is so free that you can, literally, ride your cycle with the hands off the bar. I feel like I am next to God, minus the responsibilities. It’s one abso-freakin’-lutely awesome hell of a ride on that road.


Remember how you felt when doing the first home-work out of fear when you joined your nursery or Kindergarten? And when you were three or four, you think of the days you spent in your freedom of being a child- no commitments and no problems, love, care and food, on-demand and in-excess. Perhaps, a human being’s first experience of work-related stress, and then Cartoon Network.


It’s almost a similar feeling in here. After enjoying this entire communion with nature and freedom like in the Garden of Eden, you enter in to the commuters’ chaos and a crowd like Eden Gardens. Welcome to the real Chengalpattu! It’s so congested with traffic which mainly comprises of vehicles driven by people who do not know what ‘considerate’ means. After battling your way on the road, you reach the railway station, where a different set of variables that define a pleasant ride enter to modify the equation of fun. (To know about train rides, visit my other blog at http://fizzyfootprints.wordpress.com )


Even when the traffic plays, and even when stress beckons, the joy of having experienced an unparalleled joy of a ride carries me further and keeps me moving. Though it is an everyday affair for me, it is still special. I think people who have been in a steady relationship for more than two years will be able to appreciate my feeling, and people who have had bitter moments and patched up later, will understand this even better.