The Disrespected Cyclist

My friend had gone to Bengaluru for an internship a few months ago. When she was conversing on infrastructure arteries on Bengaluru she told me that Chennai’s traffic was bearable. I personally cannot vouch for this opinion as I have not been to the cosmopolitan city. But there is certainly one thing I could, as one who uses a cycle to commute in Chennai.  Indian metropolitan cities are unfit for bicycle transport. I do realize that I am not stating a Nobel-worthy scientific fact but having experienced instances of ‘road-bullying’ I am forced to repeat it.

I believe I was gifted my first bicycle when I was 10. I vaguely recall it being fitted with miniature supporting wheels for balance which my parents did not have (kudos to capitalism). After I grew up, I got a new cycle which I used for several years in school and college. Having found employment I bought my third one to commute to my workplace. Though I have used a bicycle for several years for commuting to school in a Tier II city like Coimbatore I have never felt small on the road. Either the urban environment has changed or my understanding of ‘commuter-verbal-horn-communication’ as a 25-year-old has improved or both has happened between the times I used the two bicycles.

There is at least one instance in the span of 12 minutes I shuttle between my home and workplace where you wish you hadn’t ridden, that you should have confronted, that you should get a bike and so many flooding emotions which ebb as I slowly tread the staircase in both my house and the office.

Roads do not have parking places which necessitate performing an eagle-eyeing-owl-neck-turn every time you ride past a parked car. The absence of gears does not enable you to race from zero to sixty in 3.2 seconds. This gets dreadful when you are holding the guard in signals. Consider this instance when I was peddling with all my might on the signal turning green. The biker south-west of me shouted Ada Po Pa (Get on with it boy) with such exasperation and loudness. I sincerely turned to give him a stare but his four-stroke engine was too fast.

Photo Courtesy: Lakshman Anand

The cars are the most impatient with you when you cross heavy roads. A few days back the hulky Skoda behind hurled horn bouncers at my ears when I was struggling to figure a gap to nudge myself to cross the road. The Skoda genius should have given me cover to cross the road (well, this is an Indian convention in places where there are no signals to cross roads). But the disappointment did not arise from him not helping me, but horn-doing.

But isn’t the beloved disrespected cyclist and the roads in which he rides a metaphorical depiction of the Indian social class? The public transport and services which ought to serve the people are in a poor condition unlike the private ones and hence the wealthy reach their destination while the poor lag. There might be areas ‘reserved’ for pedestrians but can never be used for the actual purpose to which it was laid. The kind of reservation exists in practice but doesn’t serve its purpose.

Road reservation for cycles is a policy which exists on paper in India. But for the multiple benefits it brings to the society maybe policymakers should seriously consider implementing it. I save thirty minutes of my morning exercise time ever since I started commuting to work with the motor-less vahanam. I am not to further disrespect your knowledge by quoting air pollution indices further. No matter the challenges the cyclist is to exist on the Indian roads. At times out of choice for few including me, but for most of India’s poor it is the only way.

The writer lives in Anna Nagar, Chennai

Photo Courtesy: (External Link)

Lakshman Anand