BackThoughts after a few days of cycling
The oddity of being a middle-aged middle-class man on a bicycle in India (and with no help from spandex)
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V.S. Naipaul recorded his observations while walking in his neighbourhood in the book The Enigma Of Arrival. A sharp observer of detail, as those who have read him will testify, Naipaul notices the peculiarities of people and landscape. And how the earth is formed and shaped by nature and man.
He is able to penetrate the everyday in a way most writers cannot. Small things. For example, walking up a slight slope he notices that the tilt gives him a view of the early evening stars and of the horizon in a way that he otherwise wouldn’t get. If you are in the market for this kind of thing, and I am, it is truly sublime.
Let us then turn to the ridiculous.
I have begun cycling to work—a distance of 6km each way—and am recording my observations based on a few days’ worth of pedalling. I should explain that after years of working from home (assuming writing for about an hour and then pottering about for the rest of the day constitutes work), I have taken up a job. Alert readers will have already noticed the line now appearing at the end of this column.
Anyway, the first thing to say is that a middle-aged man on a cycle is an oddity in India. I mean from the middle class. Of course, watchman, milkman, carpenter and old Muslim man (what is it about old Muslim men and bicycles?) all labour beside me on the side of the road. It is the well-off who are absent. Except, that is, the occasional “cyclists", i.e. those wearing those helmets, glasses and spandex shorts and the lot. You know who I mean.
This, a large man in his mid-40s on a cycle, being unique, I often am chatted up by people who are curious about me but are polite and so ask about something else (“how much is this cycle for, uncle?").
This is different from other places. London’s mayor Boris Johnson, also a large and middle-aged columnist, rides regularly, but isn’t an oddity.
Cycling makes one aware of the land in a way that even walking doesn’t. For instance, I did not know that from my house in Bengaluru down a few kilometres to Ulsoor lake (home to the Madras Sappers, formed 1780) was one long slope. It is so pronounced that one doesn’t even need to pedal, though I had not noticed that feature when driving or running down that road. The fact that the lake was where it was, constructed by centuries of rain water running down that gradient, made sense immediately.
Naturally that also means a constant climb when I return.
The cycle is not one with multiple gear combinations but what is called a “fixie", an old-style one with a single setting. Gears confuse me and I like to keep a particular cadence.
One small problem of a no-frills cycle is not having a rear-view mirror and so having to crane one’s neck back each turn across the road.
As you will imagine, it is not a particularly pleasant ride for the following obvious reasons.
The road is cratered and often filthy. The traffic is loud and aggressive.
The gap between vehicles is insufficient to squeeze through and escape jams. These forced stops are a relief, I admit, especially on the ride back.
The cacophony I have long been troubled by, and have found solutions for.
I have for some time been using a pair of earplugs made by Howard Leight to block the noise when I run. Used mostly by shooters on the range, the set is light but efficient enough to soften the report of a rifle, so it is good for Indian roads. On other days I listen to music, even though this may be dangerous. My age and eccentricity reveal themselves in the playlist (Abba, Dr Dre, Level 42, R.D. Burman).
Taking a cycle gives me the excuse (mainly to myself) to dress in more relaxed fashion than I would otherwise. In one of my jobs I went to work every day in a suit and tie till I realized after two weeks what a total jackass I was being. These days even shorts and track pants are acceptable. I have to thank the cycle for that.
Which brings me to why I am cycling in the first place. I have begun to think about physical types and nations. In what way we are different from those to the west and the east and what that says about us. We are of course different in many ways, some good and many not so good, but one clear separator is the bodily one. The world’s elite is thin and fit. Business-class lounges tend to be dominated, no matter in what part of the world and no matter how old the occupants, by a certain type of people who are aware of themselves physically.
India’s elite is tubby and unaware and there is no real difference between our well-fed middle class and the very wealthy.
So what, if anything, does this mean?
I believe it influences the relationship between alertness and agility—I mean mentally—and fitness. I am convinced there is a straight line connecting the two.
An unfit Indian middle-class style body is one reason, perhaps the main one, between our lack of inventiveness, and our passive acceptance of things (more romantically called tolerance in these parts).
I am going to try and be different. It is easy because I think I am very Indian (which should scare the heck out of other Indians). But middle-age is the last chance to change. Old age falls on us desis frighteningly quickly. So if I want to experiment with some change it has to come now. I wonder if the fitter me will be more inventive, more productive and less tolerant of the nonsense around me. How wonderful if that were to be. If I fail, of course, I can blame the culture.
Aakar Patel is executive director of Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are personal.
Read Aakar Patel’s previous Lounge columns here.
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