Challenging Changes

Two newspaper  reports that invited my attention during the last were the south Korean experiment to run electrically run buses which would get charged wirelessly, from the cables laid underneath the road surface and the growing popularity of bicycles for transport in Europe.

I remember buying a Raleigh bicycle, the year I joined the medical school at Nagpur, (1967), which I used for about ten years. Some of us enjoyed long cycle journeys into the villages around Nagpur to orange and mango orchards to get our free supply of the fruits. Any visitor was allowed then to pick a handful of the fruits, or gather the ones fallen on the ground. We had regular picnics at the waterbodies around Nagpur. We visited some villages to spread health messages on Immunisation, safe water, hygiene, etc. There were times we went on cycling expeditions to discover the tribal habitat. For some of us cycling was both a sport and a break from our campus life. We bonded and grew up together through our cycling journeys. The roads were less congested then and we had safe access to all the arterial roads of the city. There were regular cyclists on short and long distance travel those days, when scooters or cars were a luxury.

About fifty years later, I am most fascinated by the return of cycling as a mode of  travel in many places in the developed countries. This brings to focus a human phenomenon: we are likely to return to some good  habits which we abandon due to short sight. Cycling is becoming popular because it is a means for physical exercise and helps to reduce consumption of fuel and carbon emission. The green earth needs attention for its survival, which is a message constantly in the media.

The three shops which used to lend bicycles in my village, fifty years back disappeared sometime back. Since returning to my village ten months back, I am yet to see regular cyclists. 

Life style has changed and affluence and material prospects have dulled our inner sensitivity to age old truths. Humans are resilient and would return to embrace truth after wandering for a while.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)