This is a two part narrative account of my experience with bicycle for 55 years. My bicycle experience can be divided into three historical periods: 1.1956 -2000; 2. 2000- 2017; 3. 2017 – to present. In the first period it is mainly lived experience with cycles in small towns in India. In the second period I linked the bicycle to environment and resource depletion. In the third period I became critically aware of the contradiction in the bicycle scene – between the roadster and the fancy bicycles. We cover the period 1956 -2000 in Part I of this article and the period 2000 -2024 in the Part II of this article.
Introduction
I was born in Mysore in 1943. My father was in Indore and I moved to Indore around 1945 after the war. So today I am 81 year old. I learned cycling around 1956-57 and could cycle till 2013 or so. After that my arthritis and living in a big city made it difficult. So I have cycling experience of around 55 years mainly in various small cities in India.
My bicycle experience can be divided into three historical periods: 1.1956 -2000; 2. 2000- 2017; 3. 2017 – to present. In the first period it is mainly lived experience with cycles in small towns in India. In the second period I linked the bicycle to environment and resource depletion. In the third period I became critically aware of the contradiction in the bicycle scene – between the roadster and the fancy bicycles.
Period I: 1956 – 2000
Indore (1956 – 1961)
I was the youngest among 5 siblings. The eldest among us was my brother, Raghavendra, and then there were three elder sisters. My brother had an imported bicycle – Humber from England. Of course it was actually made by Raleigh. Humber sold out a long time ago but the brand name remained important.
Anyway, my brother taught me how to ride a bicycle when I was around 12 year old. His method was unique and I have not seen anyone using it. He made me walk the cycle like a horse. As is well known in the early days the bicycle was known as ‘Iron Horse’! By ‘walking’ it you start getting used to it as an extension of your body. Then he made me move faster and faster. Then he asked me to ride it, staying only on one side, without actually getting on to the seat. Then getting on to the seat was just a formality. I was already confident. I never fell down while learning to ride a bicycle. Also I rarely had a fall during most of my cycling life.
In 1957 my elder sister, Saroj acquired a Sen Raleigh Ladies bicycle to go to her M. A. Classes. I had access to her bicycle in the evening after I came back from school. It became ‘mine’ after she finished her M. A. in 1959. Also I had just joined college which was a few kilometres away. So it was useful. I took the bicycle to IIT Kharagpur in 1962 after my sister got married. So I used a ladies roadster as ‘my’ cycle for many years.
Indore in the 50s had a population of around 300,000. It was a small town and the traffic was basically pedestrian and bicycle. Most journeys were around 3Km. It was an industrial town (it had seven textile mills) and a commercial centre. The population was mainly working class and shopkeepers and some white collared jobs of teachers, office clerks etc.
Picnics
A special feature of the town was bicycle based picnics. The commonest was the trips to orchards – mango and guava during their season. A group of children go to these orchards. The traditional fee was a quarter of a rupee for entrance and we were allowed to climb trees and eat as much as we wanted. Then coming out there would be ripe fruits piled on a sheet in front of the garden. We could pick 5 kilos for a rupee. Everyone was happy! At home they were happy to get ripe fruits straight from the trees. In those days it was all organic!
An annual night picnic was on the full moon night in autumn called ‘Sharad Poornima’. The picnic was held in a huge park around a lake outside the town and around hundred groups came for it. The belief was that milk heated exposed to the moon was very medicinal and healthy. For us it was a night picnic with hot sweet milk with cardamom etc. along with hot samosas cooked in the picnic spot. All the stuff was carried on bicycles.
Bicycle Mechanics
Indore had bicycle repair shops in almost every locality. Because it was a working class town, the bicycles were well maintained by the owners and the mechanics were also good. We children could watch them for hours with utter fascination and thereby learned a lot. Thus we learned that before you check for puncture, check for the possible leak in the valve tube and change it. It saves a lot of hassle of going through the elaborate procedure of removing the air from the tube, loosening the tyre, removing the tube and so on.
However the most fascinating thing was the ‘overhauling’ of the bicycle. We watched the special spanner for tightening the replaced spokes, the removal of the ball bearing cup, examining each ball bearing and replacing them with fresh ones. I learned early on the importance of the ball bearing and periodic overhauling of the bicycle.
It seems today the valve tube has become outdated and in the new fancy cycles you cannot access the ball bearings. That reduces the life of the cycle to a few years instead of some 50 years of a well maintained roadster! This is progress! It is the built in obsolescence of machines in modern capitalism. The use and throw culture!
Kharagpur (1961-68)
Indore and Kharagpur were small towns in the 50s and 60s. Kharagpur had a population of less than 20,000. Walking and cycling was the norm for most people. Two wheelers were practically non-existent. There were very few cars. At IIT Kharagpur, I recall only the Director’s official car! So bicycles were a prize possession and many of us were particularly careful that they are always in good shape. Even in Kharagpur I don’t recall any one having a bicycle with gears. All the cycles were roadsters.
My fondest memory of cycling was a night ride from Kharagpur to Calcutta in 1966 October. It was about 140 kilometres and today I realise it was quite impressive on a roadster. However, in the 60s when I became part of the left wing movement I realised that I witnessed a historical event!
In the middle of night for several hours we saw rural women walking with head loads and crossing the district borders avoiding the police check posts. They were smuggling about ten kilograms of rice each! The inter district movement of rice was banned because of the famine. Later in an enquiry report, Justice Lahiri wrote that the government overnight converted the whole rural population of Bengal into criminals! That gave rise to the famous food movement which ultimately defeated the Congress government and brought in United Front first and later CPI (M) to power. Also during the Food Movement the ‘Under Ground’ tradition of the left movement was revived which benefited the Naxalite revolutionaries.
Later I did many trips to the neighbouring Santhal tribal settlement around the IIT campus. My strongest recommendation to youths is to make a weekend trip to the nearest village on a roadster. You will learn a lot and make new friends. Please do not use fancy bicycles or fancy gears of helmets and clothes with reflectors. If you do that you will be treated as a foreigner!
Bicycle and the Left Wing Political Movement (1968 – 1979)
I was at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics during 1967-68. On May 27 the Naxalbari revolutionary movement began. The whole city, particularly the University and the youth were aflame. In Calcutta the government had CPI (M) home minister and he had ordered firing at the peasants in Naxalbari! But also in the same year the centre dismissed the state government and the city again was aflame. Coming from a small town and without a left wing background at home (though there was anti colonial and pro Soviet bias) I was profoundly influenced by these events and got drawn into left wing politics. Also at the Institute I came across The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and learned about Einstein (who was one of the founders of the Bulletin), who publicly admitted his mistake of helping make the nuclear bomb and his subsequent role in the anti nuclear and peace movement. Also the nuclear energy programme and the weapon programme are closely related. So that was the push factor for me to leave the Mainstream.
In the movement I worked with trade unions starting from the informal sector of book binding workers, Bidi workers, and shoe makers to coal workers and steel workers. I also had a small stint with the rural bidi workers in Bihar. During this period I lived in industrial areas and small towns and used the roadster bicycle. My old ladies bicycle was with me part of the time and then I switched on to ‘gents’ roadsters. I lived in Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Durgapur, and Patna. I also visited Banaras several times to print journals. All these are medium level industrial towns with bicycle and cycle rickshaw as principal modes of transport. For the workers the bicycle was and even today is the most important possession.
In many of these cities the landscape is undulating. For the riders of the motorised vehicle the world is flat. For the cyclist up hills and down hills are there. Often workers have pillion riders – a friend or spouse. On the up hail portion the pillion rider gets off and walks and the main rider waits at the top. Often it results in funny situations. The main rider forgets and keeps on riding even after reaching the top. After some time he remembers and comes back. Meanwhile the pillion rider is waiting – unhappy and grumpy. What follows is a lot of mock fights and much laughter!
In Durgapur I was cycling and saw a crowd. So I casually stopped to see what was happening. Two of my comrades were arrested at the centre of the crowd by police. I caught my friend’s eye and then causally moved away. A little later I moved fast and alerted the circuit, including a small letter to the editor of Frontier magazine and quietly took a train to Calcutta. That episode saved my comrades from torture at the hands of the special branch!
Throughout the world the bicycle has been the most effective mode of transport for revolutionaries. It is mundane, unobtrusive, colourless, silent and fairly fast! For all practical purposes it is invisible!
Cycle Rickshaws
Here a word about the cycle rickshaw is in order. The bicycle should be defined as ‘human powered wheel based transport’. This will include the cycle rickshaw in its various forms including cargo tricycles and four wheeled push carts.
Throughout Eastern India the cycle rickshaw is an important complement to the bicycle. It is the principle mode from the bus stand or railway station to home for old people or if you have luggage. It provides the first job to a migrant from the villages to the cities. The maintenance infrastructure is the same as the bicycle – air, puncture, brake shoes, oiling cleaning and so on which is the daily bread and butter for the bicycle mechanic. Any replacement – spare parts, tubes and tyres are additional income.
Today the fossil fuel community looks down upon it and criticises it for human exploitation. But it is far more environmentally friendly. Of course better designed cycle rickshaws are the need of the day and the poor rickshaw pullers need to be supported to acquire them.
Pune (1975)
During 1972 – 74 I was involved in bringing out a left wing bi-monthly journal in Hindi from Patna. It had a good reputation and was well known. In 1974 the JP movement began and fearing police repression I closed the journal and began to bring out a daily journal with a different name every day. It could not last too long. Comrades advised me to leave the town. So I first went to Honnali, my hometown in Karnataka. The plan was to go to Pune and work there. However, within days the infamous ‘emergency’ was imposed and I was again advised to delay. Eventually I took my brother’s bicycle (the old reliable Humber) and cycled to Harihar some 40 Kms. away. There I sent the bicycle to Pune by transport and took a train. In Pune I went to collect my bicycle from the transport office. It was several kilometres outside town on the Pune Bombay Highway. After collecting the bicycle I took it to a bicycle mechanic who had a shop nearby. We got to talking. He was a Muslim from North Karnataka and so we talked in Kannada. Eventually he offered to share his room for a very small rent in a very poor slum called Phugewadi. His sister who lived nearby offered to pack lunch for me again for a very small sum. Thus the old bicycle helped me to find a safe place to stay within a few days of arriving in Pune! I used to cycle from Phugewadi to Pune city, through the back gate of the University, to the Gokhale Institute in Deccan Gymkhana. I had comrades everywhere. I cycled more in Pune than in any other town in India. The roads also had lots of uphill and downhill sections. I came to know the city well within a very short period.
Bhopal (1985)
Bhopal is not particularly important for bicycles. But for me it was an important milestone in the development of environmental consciousness. In 1985 I spent a year as a volunteer to help the people’s movement in the wake of the Bhopal Gas Leak accident. It has been the world’s biggest industrial accident! It brought together an international pro people expertise on occupational health, legal battles on environmental issues, journalism and communication and non political party led people’s movement. Except a tiny left wing party no political party came forward to help the people. So we saw the mighty collusion between the big bourgeoisie, the state and political parties!
For me personally it changed my perspective from ‘equity’ to ‘equity and sustainability’. It was instrumental to change all my political activity in the 21st century including my heavy involvement with the bicycle as a component of sustainability. I also got involved in organic farming and in the 90s onwards I began to visit organic farms for short periods. I also wrote and published booklets on occupational health for workers in Hindi.
Bidar
In the 90s I moved to Bidar, a small town in North Karnataka, 120 Km. from Hyderabad. In Bidar we ran a children’s bookshop. So once a week we had to go to the post office on a bicycle to mail parcels and once a week we went to the bank to buy Demand Drafts to order books from the publishers.
Bidar is a living small medieval town. It is full of monuments and a tourists’ treasure trove. Many of our friends came and we used to hire bicycles for them and showed them the town and its monuments. Bidar is often cited as one of the best examples of preserving monuments. The heritage people consider Bidar to be an ideal heritage place because people are involved in using the heritage structures as part of their daily lives.I found many Sufi Majars being maintained on a daily basis by individuals. Many old monuments are used by young people for recreation and study. All these places are surrounded by parked cycles. Young people go on bicycle almost every day to visit monuments and structures which are outside the town. I would say that the bicycle culture of Bidar plays an important role in these public heritage places being used and hence preserved.
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Hyderabad
During the late 90s I moved to Hyderabad and my physical cycling began to decline. On the other hand my involvement in the environment issue kept my interest in the bicycle alive and in fact even increased!
Between Hyderabad and Bidar there is a small town called Zaheerabad. It is the headquarters of the Deccan Development Society. Near their office, in a village called Pastapur Venkat developed India’s first permaculture development farm. I was closely associated with Venkat till his death. Like me Venkat also never drove a motorised vehicle and travelled all over Hyderabad on his bicycle.
About The Author
T. Vijayendra (1943- ) was born in Mysore, grew up in Indore and went to IIT Kharagpur to get a B. Tech. in Electronics (1966). After a year’s stint at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, he got drawn into the whirlwind times of the late 60s. Since then, he has always been some kind of political-social activist. His brief for himself is the education of Left wing cadres, so he almost exclusively publishes in the Left wing journal Frontier, published from Kolkata. For the last few years, he also has been publishing in online journals like, Countercurrents and Mainstream. For the last twelve years, he has been active in the field of ‘Peak Oil’ and is a founder member of Peak Oil India and Ecologise. Since 2015, he has been involved in Ecologise Camps.
In 2016, he initiated Ecologise Hyderabad. Vijayendra has been a ‘dedicated’ cyclist all his life, meaning that he has never taken a driving license, nor driven a fossil fuel-based vehicle. 2017, was the Bicentenary year of the Bicycle and Ecologise Hyderabad, decided to celebrate it in a big way. They had a film show, bicycle rallies and meetings. They also ran a Face book page and published four books. Since then, he has been writing regularly about the bicycle in several journals and posting on bicycle Face book pages. The bicycle again got a boost during the pandemic and he wrote a series of articles for Countercurrents, Frontier Magazine and Mainstream Magazine.
Today, he divides his time between an organic farm at the foothills of the Western Ghats where he watches birds and writes fiction, and Hyderabad. He has published a book dealing with resource depletions, three books of essays, three collections of short stories, a novella, an autobiography and a book on the Transition Town Movement (with co-authors: Usha Rao and Shreekumar).
