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“Yes Ma, am sure about what am doing.”

“No! I haven’t lost my head and no am not doing it out of lack of money.”

“Arrey hell with what Menon Uncle will think. He ain’t the one who pays me at the end of the month!”

………………….

Welcome to the 23rd of September 2012, a day in my life. No, I am not going to join Al Qaeda or any such God forsaken organization. Its just a conversation between me and my mom moments after I declared I am going to buy a bike.

No. Not the one with a motor and a 150cc Engine and the one that draws a hole in the purse every two days. Am talking about a bicycle.

The hue and cry started days back. And it wasn’t just my parents, relatives, neighbours, friends, siblings, distant-relatives, cousins, cousin’s friends or people I have never even met over Facebook. It was almost everyone. “Almost”, because truth be said there were exceptions.

The moment I declared am going to buy a cycle, the first question everyone asked me was – “You are 22. Why don’t you buy a bike? That’s what everyone your age does.”
Arrey, everyone my age (read as almost everyone my age), has a job with a 5 figure salary, a girlfriend, a Samsung Galaxy Tab/ iPhone 5 and has dinner at KFC almost everyday! Does that mean I do the same?
P.S. Just for the record, I have only one of the above.

I don’t know about the rest of India but atleast where I live in, if you are a male above 20 years of age and still ride a bicycle other than something that costs 40-50k, then automatically you are considered either too immature to be trusted with a bike or just plain poor. Am neither.

I bought a cycle, for the love of it. I bought a cycle, for my love of nature. I bought a cycle, for the love of my health. For goodness sake, I bought a cycle because its my money and not something I stole from the Coal-gate Scam!! Why is it so very difficult to understand that.
(This paragraph is dedicated to all the uncle and aunties in my neighbourhood who still wonder why I bought a cycle 😐 ).

So now let me make things crystal clear. I decided to go ahead with the idea of buying a cycle, along with my friend Manu, for the most obvious reasons.

  1. We really wanted to cut down on the cost of petrol that was being spent over my Activa.
  2. Both of us have been trying to project our respective firms – IZE Creative and Day Scholars Innovations as an Eco-Friendly organization. We try our best to do all correspondence via mails and avoid printing.
  3. Sitting in and around our office the whole day, we really needed some exercise in our life. I for one, seriously don’t want to be a regular visitor to the Orthopedic Surgeon 15-20 years from now.
  4. We are entrepreneurs. We always think different.
  5. We love cycling.

I would have loved to explain each and every point I mentioned here, but then I want this to be a blog post. Not a 15 mark answer.

So then, if you out there have serious plans of buying a cycle, don’t give a darn to what that bald headed uncle next door or his 24 year old motorcycle-riding-petrol-drinking-purse-tearing son is going to think. Just go ahead. It’s the best gift you could give to yourself and to the nature.

P.S. Here’s a pic of my cycle 🙂