The caste of wheels

A few summers ago, my brother met with an accident. He was thrown off the road by a speeding car while going to work. Though he got away with only a few bruises, it rattled us all quite a bit. Being a journalist, he would regularly cycle back home after the graveyard shift on a road that would turn into a highway by night with ominous-looking trucks zooming past.

“I love cycling. This is something I have been doing since childhood, but the whole pleasure is taken away by the stress of reaching home safely. The lack of dedicated cycling tracks makes it scary to cycle on city roads,” he rues.

“The problem is the attitude of road users towards cyclists. They act as if they are doing cyclists a favour by letting them exist in the same space as their cars. We need a strong government policy to encourage people to cycle short distances,” says Sunita Narian, DG, Centre for Science and Environment. She herself got a taste of the apathy when she had to be hospitalised after being hit by a car while cycling on a Delhi road.

A caste system of sorts seems to play out on the roads. The road hierarchy prioritises cars, followed by two-wheelers, and bicycles and pedestrians are pushed to the brink, literally.

They come last in the pecking order. Rampant encroachments on the pavements meant for walkers don’t help matters either. “Hardly any space is left for cyclists on the road. We have to brave the maddening traffic and risk our lives and limbs if we dare venture out,” complain cycling enthusiasts. I couldn’t agree more.

While urban development bodies, from Delhi to Bengaluru, promote cycling and even give them a place of pride, in reality, it takes cyclists a little madness and a lot of courage to navigate through the killer traffic. When you can’t change them, join them seems to be the motto as inadequate cycling infrastructure is pushing people to use motorised vehicles.

City roads are synonymous with traffic snarls, but hit the road on your bike in the wee hours when it is empty and take in the sights and smells. An alternate world awaits you. The city looks beautiful.
Take an unplanned detour and you may stumble upon a utopian village... it may offer you facets you didn’t know existed. The various nooks and corners have a story to tell. My brother enthuses, “It satisfies my wanderlust.” Who can disagree?

Drifters seeking out such serendipitous moments, or people with modest means who cycle their way to work, have one simple wish: “I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like,” as the legendary Freddie Mercury crooned rather prophetically decades ago.