By R. A. Rajeev
My friend Vijay Malhotra of Twitter handle @pedalandtringtring fame, is an avid cyclist and blogger. He has a large following in India as well as in bicycle friendly countries around the world. The other day he asked a question through his twitter handle, which provoked me to think about the right example and took me some 40 years back down memory lane. His question was:
“This question is for the global #twitter community, “What is your favourite cycling memory?”
After devoting good 15-20 minutes about different incidents related to bicycles from my childhood till today, I selected one incident of my Allahabad University days, where I did my graduation and postgraduation in late seventies and early eighties. During those days, as we all know, the main source of entertainment for students was to watch movies in cinema halls, apart from chatting with friends on tea stalls of University Road and visiting civil lines. Up to University Road, we used to walk from our hostels. As my hostel (Sir G. N. Jha Hostel) and University Campus had the common wall separating the campuses, it was easy to walk to departments and classes. When we had to go beyond University Road area, say to famous Civil Lines of Allahabad or to see movies, we needed transport of any type. Cars, motorcycles or scooters were beyond our reach during those days and public transport was almost absent. The only means of transport was either bicycles or manual rickshaws.
During those days, we used to get bicycles on rental basis on university road on hourly basis, which was in fact a boon for majority of students. If I remember correctly, we used to get these bicycles for less than a rupee per hour. For going to meet friends, relatives or Professors at their residences, I always used these bicycles. It made us mobile at a very reasonable price and gave us the freedom to move as we preferred. I realise that this type of liberty even public transport doesn’t provide, as one can’t change the route at will. Allahabad during those days was a quiet and laidback city, much suitable for academic and research activities. No one seemed to be in a hurry and rush at any given point of time in the day. Cycling on roads then never created any type of fear among our minds about moving traffic. Even car drivers respected cyclists on the roads.
There were around half a dozen such bicycle providers and their rates were almost uniform. They used to recognise regular students and even remembered our room numbers in the hostel. When we hired them for watching night shows in cinemas, we were supposed to keep cycles overnight at our hostels and returned them in the morning. These shops closed by 10 pm and started their business again at 9 am the next day. Initially, they even charged for the overnight hours also, but gradually, when they realised that cycles were not being used after 1230 am or so, they reduced their charges accordingly. It was a very informal system and based on trust, which during those days were available in plenty. We were still in ‘prehistoric’ period it appears, as there were no tracking system, no GPS, no internet, no mobile phones; so most of such businesses depended on trust and friendships. Now we have apps which are being used by modern day Public Bike Sharing companies like Yulu in Bangluru and Mumbai, Mybyke in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, and Smart bike in Chandigarh where you can pay and use these bicycles without any human interface. I recently visited Paris where I used bicycle for 24 hours by scanning QR code and paying through credit card. Very efficient system of getting mobile at the least cost and go wherever you want. This is going to be the future of sustainable mobility in cities where mass transit systems are in place and has the potential to make city dwellers give up cars for shorter distance travels. It goes without saying that this requires cities also to provide safe bicycle lanes for citizens to enjoy the city life better. Details about this sometime later in another blog. Till that time, let me conclude by saying that so much water has flown under the Daraganj Bridge in the Ganges, but when I remember our cycling days in Allahabad University, I become nostalgic.
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R A Rajeev is the Director at Urban World Consulting.