Friday, November 18, 2005

My Red Coloured Love

I guess the moral gurus teach us not to love material things. And yet here I am still in love with my first red bycycle. My uncle bought me my own peice of metal with two wheels when I was 10 and she (he if you prefer!) was my prized possesion. I use the term possesion losely here :) I suppose my uncle driven by the series of comic accidents that I caused with my borrowed cycles was almost forced to get me my own thing.

I was truly and deeply proud (again a virtue which is more of sin I suppose!). Proud of the fact that I could lift her up the stairways quite easily. Proud of the fact that she had the most shiniest steel handles ever. Proud more so that Monsoon after Monsoon left her unrusted!

Its funny how this pair of wheels gave me a feeling of independence. If am late coming home from a friend's place I just say " I'll be fine, I got my cycle today!." Distances or the word far were a thing of the past. In no way am I exagerrating here .

She was my friend for all the best decade of my life !! And then we had to part ways. My parents didn't think she ought to take the journey to Bangalore. So now she, ( I hope she still does) belongs to the Mess worker ( a very sweet young woman) from my hostel. I hope she still runs good and takes her owner places !!!

I tried to relive that life. Bought another cycle just like her. She was quite a beauty. Except how often does it happen that we take our most prized things for granted and one lax of attention leaves us cursing ourselves for lifelong. Having taken supreme care of my new bike (isn't that what Americans call it?) for about a year, I started taking her for granted. Forgot how pretty and shiny she looks and left her out to the mercy of bikenappers :(

I never got a chance to express my remorse and this little piece is to make my peace with her loss. And this blog is to remind me that there is no such thing as too much caution!

1 comment:

littlecow said...

I had a bike (Suzuki Samurai)- together, we ruled chennai for 3 years (we actually did - we were overtaken just about a couple of times in the entire 3 years)... I felt so senti about the bike that it still sits in chennai five years after I left the shores of Marina... I guess everyone has a vandi they are attached too...