Cycle of Life

Last week soon after i updated my blog i got an opportunity — a rare one these days unlike in 2007/08 — to ride my new bike on potholed Kolkata roads. Practically, that day, July 14, bus and taxi owners under the once-omnipotent trade union called transport strike to protest against the hike in diesel price. Diesel, although costlier than petrol, is highly subsidized in India and even a 1-paisa raise in its price affects millions, if not billions!

My ride was not intended to reach my destination as fast as possible but it was more of an exploratory one as i started observing the condition of the road that is also a national highway, people by the side of the road, shopping complexes and bazaars, callous pedestrians suddenly obstructing your course of ride and you press on to your disc brake and s/he goes off without making any noise or saying sorry! What impressed me was a stream of cyclists finding their way amid speeding cars and trucks as the road is 20ft wide at some places! Although not a single accident was reported that day on the 22km stretch i covered but at times, i felt like ramming into a rickshaw-van or even a passer-by.

Another matter of great inconvenience was the condition of the road. While going back home every night i've seen the roads in the City of Joy have been rendered to death zones in the past one month where even a joyride can kill someone. As a cyclist, who doesn't have to pay a single paisa as road tax, i cannot expect roads to be, as Lalu Prasad once said, smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks! But i can hope for a better ride, isn't it? After the rains are over in September, or maybe October, i'm planning to take my bike to office and in a country where you are hardly encouraged like that in the UK and in other developed countries, uneven roads just kill my spirits to enjoy a smooth ride. As our government is all but ready to play spoilsport in allowing people to save greens and live on fossil fuel, i don't find it surprising anymore to be pressed into commuting within the city in vehicles that run only on petrol or diesel.

I mentioned in my last blog that i'm trying to devise a new way in commuting. As i don't have a petrol or diesel-guzzler unlike thousands of my fellow citizens, my carbon footprint is quite low than others. This is high time that India, as a rising economy, should rein in vehicles and industries that emit GHGs and promote green steps like offering more subsidy to electric cars than diesel or installing more solar panels in a tropical country than selling coal blocks to power behemoths. In Bangalore and in other metros that witness traffic snarls during the morning and evening rush hours, many people have now switched to bike-to-work mode than depending just on buses and other rapid transport systems. In Kolkata, why can't we develop a system that will allow conscious people to ride a bike to office?