After a very long time, I took out my old bicycle from a dusty corner of the house. The tyres had got cut from places, the pink colour was hardly visible, the brakes were not in working condition. I had to take it four storeys down to the road and I struggled with that. I had no stamina and eventually gave up on the third floor itself. Embarrassed, I called for help and someone came to lift my bicycle.
Thankfully, I had exhausted my energy, but not my will. Once on the road, I somehow managed to drag the bicycle for almost a kilometre to the repairing shop. The man over there asked for a hefty amount but promised to make it new. A few hours and ten cups of tea later, my old bicycle was like its heydays again.
But this is not the end of the story.
After so many years, I struggled to balance on my bicycle. I had forgotten which brake was for which tyre. I had to drag my feet on the road to stop. But the biggest problem was something weirdly different. I was confused between my bicycle and my car.
At every corner, I habitually gave the indicator and tried to push the right handle up and down. Every now and then, I looked into the rearview mirror and found myself gazing up in the sky. I pushed the right pedal extra hard at every speed breaker confusing it with the car's brakes, and obviously went jumping after that. I rode my little bicycle in the middle of the road like it was no one's business.
A few hiccups later, I was riding like my old self again.
And it was then that I felt the cool wind blowing on my face, a feeling lost in the AC of my office and the closed windows of my car. It seemed as if my eyes opened after a long time, strained with the computer and TV screens.
I heard some kids playing, I saw aunties chatting, I went to roads I had never been to before. These roads were in my locality itself, those aunties were always around, the kids had grown up in my area, yet I had never seen them in the past few years.
So engrossed was I in work that the sun always set inside office and always rose when I was still in my bed. I was appreciating the beauty caught on camera but I never took out time to step out and see the real beauty that lies abundantly in the world we live in.
Today when I rode through that breeze, the colours were again brighter, the sounds were again louder, the thoughts were again clearer, the world was again the same place I once loved.
As I lie on my bed writing this blog, my calf muscles hurt after being made to do some real exercise after such a long time. But this pain is truly worth it, because it gave me my lost feeling of freedom back today.
