2 Ways Of Looking At A Cycle With A Basket

Which are random thoughts inspired by morning bike rides

Eos rhododactylos (this be new favourite expression) had barely shrugged off the stifling embrace of a very warm night and started to do her dance in the sky when we dittoed off the dittoed ditto of a very ditto ditto ourselves and careened about the silent (except for 3 million trucks and 17.74 million call center cabs) roads of Hyderabad.

We were on our way to a 5:30 a.m. at rendezvous for a run around/near KBR Park in Banjara Hills. It struck us that

(a) We hadn't showed people the cycle before
(b) We hadn't ever taken the bugger out this far before

Those who know will tell you that the road from Nagarjuna Circle to KBR Parks is a long and relentless climb, with a pause at the mosque near Q Mart where the load revels out a bit and lets you catch your breath. All the months of wondering why the thing had 15 gears came to an end when we hit this stretch. They are necessary, friends, necessary. Age doth wither and custom stales the dainty feet and legs and they need the help of mechanical advantage...

Parked at KBR, drank half of water supply (bad move), duly put one horrendously exhausting wheezifying perambulation of the thing, and then wheeeeee.... Slipped into top gear and screamed down the hill at a terrifying clip.

Now a salient feature of this hill is that while coming down, right near the bottom, there stands a superior eatery that rejoices in the name of Chutney's. Curiously, we'd somehow managed to slip in a Rs. 100 note into the shorts pocket, so we were able to stop off at said establishment and order a steamed dosa parcel thing. This we slipped into basket, and furiously pedaled home because eos rhododactylos had hurried away with alacrity, and was replaced by solaris iwillgiveyousunstrokus which wasn't very pleasant.

dosa was had, coffee was drunk, Sunday papers, etc. etc. A parallel thread of thought was running all this while, prompted partly by an incident a couple of weeks back where a bunch of young boys advised the Nitwit (who owns the same bike) to get rid of the basket, and the carrier and hey presto, "masth poriilu ostaaru anna, impress aitaaru!" (trans: "hot chicks will come and fall for you!").

So what's to be done about the basket? Thesis and antithesis:

I
A grown man cycles by,
Puffing and panting,
With basket attached.
Sissy.

II
Cycle with basket attached.
Steamed dosa. MLA pesarattu.
mmm

mmm...
The possibilities.

So far we're leaning towards letting the basket stay. Apart from this unexpected bonus of being able to carry tiffin home, it helps with groceries, Xeroxing and so on.

Vaahanam:


This was from a few days back, breakfast at chez Ludwig, mit pesarattu, dosa podi, allam pacchadi und filter coffee.

Note (12-May-2008): Certain person has been going around acting all snooty in the comments section that we don't make pesarattu from f'(x) = lim Δx -> 0 [f(x + Δx) - f(x)]/Δx type principles. Let all be notified by these presents that the pesarattu was indeed made via standard operating procedures (soaking overnight, grinding etc.) So was the podi (but by the maternal unit). The coffee is filter coffee (Mr. Bean brand from Tata) percolated by yours truly, with water fetched in earthen pots from the village well by yours truly (yes, it's quite a sight), and the milk was from our own pet bovine Kamu (short for Ms. Kamadhenu Gomaata) freshly extracted that very morning (by yours truly). The ginger pickle is out of a bottle. So there.



Bad pictures courtesy of phone. Camera ist kaput.