A steel contraption
Our quarters at 4/7 Tagore Place, had an “I” shape, the vertical body of the “I”
being a corridor, connecting
the two bedrooms in the back with the living room and kitchen up in the front.
Nothing spectacular about the design. All quarters till the fourth street, were
the exact same. That corridor, was open to a small courtyard per the original
design, which in turn was bounded by a high wall in an attempt to provide a
little more security. That security remained as elusive as my wild dreams of
hiking the Serengeti. In fact tales of outrageous thievery are abundant in that
part of town; one can dispute the exaggeration that automatically happens when
information travels via a hundred mouths, but in the end, the thefts did happen
repeatedly, unabated and unabashed at times.
That tiny
corridor, which in our case had its own wall with a door and a small window
creating an enclosure, somehow managed to house a moped (later on replaced by a
scooter), my father’s old bicycle, a really huge dining table that we still
have adorning my Dad’s dining area in Bidhan Nagar, four chairs meant for each
of us, a shoe rack, that was made almost as an afterthought, with rough pieces
of wood, the electrical main switch box and its fuses, Jhumpu’s little three
wheeled bicycle when he was that little, frequently a steel bucket with clothes
submerged in soap water waiting to be washed the next day. And I am still not
very sure, if I have exhausted the list. To top that, Jhumpu, my cousin Mezda
as we still call him today, and I managed to eke out a strip where we could
play cricket.
The object of my
attention today, is that bicycle. I believe it was procured by my father in
1962, amidst loud protests from my grandfather, who was genuinely concerned
about his son’s capability of riding, and my uncles, some of whom considered it
to be a piece of luxury that the Rays of Agarpara could ill afford.
Notwithstanding the the protests, that Rover cycle, got to stay owing its new
found residence to the staunch support of my old man. I have spent many hours
with my father recounting his early days. I believe that cycle did make its way
to Hazaribagh where he worked as an overseer, during the nascent days of his
career. Then it made its way back to Agarpara, when he started working as a
demonstrator/lecturer at the Belghoria polytechnic. Predictably enough, it
managed to make its way to Durgapur, when he took up a position as a lecturer
at the (now defunct) B-Zone school’s technical college. There it stayed, till
my father graduated to a scooter. It stayed on as a faithful servant, ignored
by the glitz of its motorized brother for a while. Those days of desolation did
not last long; with the accident the scooter found a new owner and the Rover
was back ferrying Baba.
Its uneventful
life came to a halt when I on my eighth or ninth year, discovered the fun of
getting up on the cycle while it rested on its stand with the hind wheels up,
and pedaling half way through because my legs weren’t long enough to complete a
full cycle. The hind wheel rotated furiously and the cycle did not budge an
inch and I kept making weird noises with my mouth imitating the sound of a
bike. I thought it was cool, and of course, I did it in the absence of Baba. In
the process the springs that held on to the stand slowly gave in. To cap it,
one side of the stand twisted itself and decided to stay that way, making
things wobbly. I half-panicked; if Baba noticed it I was certainly in trouble.
But chances were he wouldn’t at least at first sight. When he did not notice it
the first day, I took another standing ride the next day and worsened the
wobble a bit more. And I did the same thing the next day till the wobble got so
bad, that the cycle could hardly stand on its own. And still Baba either did
not notice or decided to ignore or assumed that age was finally catching up on
his trusted Rover. In those days, he used to wake up very early and then walk
half a mile to take the factory bus to the Steel Plant; the ugly looking, navy
blue colored, made in the 60s buses usually struck terror in kids like us with
stories of their brash driving and their unfortunate victims circulating
everywhere.
Once he was gone,
and I was back from school, the cycle was all mine. At this juncture let me
introduce our neighbor living exact opposite to our quarters, the Sinha family.
In today’s world it would be difficult to find another set of such gentle,
loving, caring and supportive set of people. The Late Mr. Sinha, Mrs. Sinha and
their five daughters. The youngest, Bulan di, was probably ten years older to
me. Bulan di had a bicycle of her own and she encouraged me to start learning
how to ride one. So my first adventure out with the Rover came in the form of
half-pedal ride, mainly because my legs were not that big. Thus began endless
number of afternoons, hot or humid or both, cold, pleasant and not-so-pleasant,
when a good part of 4th street became my kingdom. Usually without a
shirt to make way for profuse perspiration, a pair of shorts and the cycle. No
footwear. It was the first taste of freedom in a sense. If one can ignore the
comical appearance of an 8 year old, with a third of his body tucked in the
triangular space between the seat, the handle and the pedal joint and his butts
hanging out on the left side, it was pure bliss. The gyrations required to
pedal in that position, can appear even more hilarious; a simple harmonic
motion being executed through strange contortions of a little human body, over
a machine 3 times his size.
Jhumpu was a one
year old, and stayed indoors mostly. Ma used to take an afternoon nap; or tried
to would be a better description. She used to have constant headaches; later on
a diagnosis of high blood pressure explained that. And during that time, I came
to be known as the spoilt little kid of the block, who did not have the
slightest sense of cultured living in an officers’ locality, lacked finesse and
etiquette all because he half-pedaled a disintegrating bicycle, half naked when
the good kids were inside, studying and behaving and learning to become decent,
civilized citizens of the country. At that point, when some of my acquaintances
pointed out such conjectures about my upbringing, casting aspersions on the
quality of parenting I was receiving, it did make me upset. Very upset. In
their mind, there was no doubt as to my failure as a student. All I heard was
how much of a miserable failure I was; because all around, the genteel society
kids were excelling in their schools, studying while I spent countless hours on
unproductive stuff like riding a cycle in half-pedal, with my butts hanging out
of one side. Some of the parents decided that I was so far of a threat to the
upbringing of their children, that they let me know on my face that I was
certainly not welcome to play with their kids. The unkindest cut of all, I will
not mention.
It is said that embarrassment
and humiliation are the strongest of all memories. Sure enough after thirty
plus years, I have not forgotten. Yet, I kept cycling in half-pedal with my
butts hanging out, for a long time after all the sleights from different
people. I could be a fighter pilot speeding down the slope of fourth street
with all the strength my little legs could muster one day, or be a lazy turtle
the next; all the time experimenting how I could master Rover through sand and
stones. Its chains scraped the chain guard and parts of it vibrated loudly,
protesting the strains I put it through in its old age. I fell, I got up and
rode on. That, was freedom, something as intangible and abstract as can be – it
raced past the cynics, in a half-pedaled cycle, with the butts of an eight year
old, hanging out the side.
Knowledge, in all
its forms must be a cherished and coveted dream– freedom of imagination, in my
humble opinion, is priceless.
