Sykal

Shashidhar Reddy came to school on a Sykal that day. It was a BSA-SLR - Ladies' model .I could never really understand the funda behind the basic difference between the mens' sykal and ladies' sykal then. (Its altogether a different matter that I still don’t quite get it ). So I didn’t laugh at him then. That doesn’t mean that I'm laughing at him now. But anyways it was a chick bike ( well, it was enough to satiate our bloated egoz) with a sleek frame, a side stand(which was a revolutionary concept in the post hero cycle era) and a bell that made a deep resonant ear breaking sound. It didn’t have a wire mesh basket in the front though( which again I don’t understand why the architects of mens sykal decided to do away with. And moreover the absence of this wire mesh basket created problems for me later when my mom decided that I have become mature enough and periodically sent me to the market to get vegetables ! ( sympathies accepted ). And since I hated carrying an uncle-style thaila to the market for the sole reason of avoiding some exasperated glances and embarrassing questions from my neighbouring aunties, uncles and "well wishers" of my family ( They couldn’t digest the fact that my family could actually survive on stuff that was picked up by me ) , I had a really bad time trying to pick up cauliflower and cabbage kinda things. I didn’t have that big pockets and it would be even more embarassing to carry these in my shirt.) Anyways coming back to Mr Shash's (He insists on addressing him as Mr Shash ever since he has joined IIMC…stupid fellow ) bicycle, it made all of us green with envy. The next necessary step that day was to go home and explain my mom how good a boy I had been that year and pester her for a new sykal. (ladies or gents I didn’t care.)

And the next few days were spent on my parents contemplating the consequences of buying me a sykal. Finally they yielded to my constant pestering on a condition that I would not engage in any stunts especially after being influenced by countless Balakrishna starrers in which the "hero" avoids head-on collisions with trucks by sliding underneath them.(smooth naa….). This was something that I didn’t really appreciate as I was pretty skeptical of actually following these rules .But still ,something was better than nothing at all and I immediately accepted my parents' terms and conditions. That evening my Dad and I went to a sykal shop and I hooked on to a maroon colored hero ranger (yes, it is the same sykal which Salman Khan rode in maine pyar kiyaa and subsequently became a super star :) The price quoted was 1350 Rs and my dad wasn’t trained in the art of bargaining though he had been with my mom for such a long time. If my mom had come with us, she would have asked the shopkeeper to give it for 350 Rs And if my grandmother had come along she would quote 135 Rs. But as these two stalwarts wernt around , my dad was stripped of his hard earned 1350 Rs and more importantly peace and tranquility for dayz to come.

Yes, I was now a proud owner of an effervescent hero ranger - mens model without a wire mesh basket in the front. As soon as I came home, I tested if I could pull the chain ( Remember Nagarjuna in Shiva ? ) so that I could teach the eve teasers of Hyderabad a lesson whenever required .But on learning that pulling a chain is actually tougher than mugging up Sumitranandan Pant's love poems I decided to give it up completely. And so I was restricted to plain riding in the hilly slopes of Banjara hills and occasional racing in the colony with kids from down the lane ( the bet being pani puris , singal (don’t ask me what it means, you need to eat it to believe it) , Mirchi bajji with onions. (More about the pani puri bandi in my colony in my future posts). Occasionally my cousin who we regarded as the greatest cycler in the world would come and teach us killer physical manoevres which none of us could even think of replicating ( And still his girlfriend ditched him. Probably there is something more to relationships than lifting the back tyre of your sykals in front of your girlfriends, I thought.) Thanks to my cycle I had become an expert in southern Hyderabadi gallis. I was familiar with each and every galli and little kids used to stare in sheer amazement with I zoomed past them and I would be puffed up with pure ecstasy.Mikalal Schumacher would also have had similar feelings I believe.As days progressed it became more and more acquainted with my man machine and I devised nearly fifteen to twenty ways of handling the handle :) Life moved on, days progressed into months, biology became even more boring, chicken started becoming more and more delicious, facial hair started appearing on Adithya's face and my cycle was still in a hale, healthy condition. A dedicated companion until class X after which it was time to move on. A time for something more powerful. You see Shashidhar Reddy now had a kinetic honda with him …….