Like a boy

There’s a part of me that stopped growing somewhere at adolescence.  That part emerged very strongly the other day when I visited a Park as part of the staff tour from school.  I found myself cycling round in the Park with the passion of a young boy.

I was touching a cycle after a gap of some three decades.  When I was an undergrad student at St Albert’s College in Kochi in the early eighties, I was an ardent cyclist.  I went to college by cycle.  Whenever there was free time in between due to the absence of a lecturer, I cycled to the Ernakulam Public Library which was over a kilometre away from college .  When college was over, my cycling came to an end.

Cycling has a unique gracefulness as I realised once again recently, decades after college.  The cycle needs very little space and you can manoeuvre it through almost anywhere.  It just swans along with an unassuming poise letting the breeze waft straight on your face.  It doesn’t pollute air with the exhaust of engines or sound of horns.  On the other hand, it invigorates you with renewed strength as you cross the milestones on the wayside.

It made me feel like a boy once again.  I don’t mind enjoying that feeling again and again.