I’m a girl and I ride like a lunatic

I took my sister on a ride yesterday on my Scooty Pep+. It was the usual ride from my house to hers – one kilometre long. We’d done this ride a thousand times.

This time, however, she suddenly exclaimed at my riding. “Why you riding like a lunatic? I’m in no hurry and I don’t want to die. Ride slowly. I hate people who ride like this,” she said.

In another 30 seconds, while still in motion, I took off my helmet and kept it at my feet. Again, she showered me with some cuss words. “This is how people have accidents. Continue doing all these antics while riding and go crash into a tree!”

That’s when I realised I had started riding like a boy.

I’ve been riding in Bangalore for the past 10 years. Malleswaram, Vasanth Nagar, MG Road, Koramangala, Jayanagar, JP Nagar, Kanakapura Road, Bannerghatta Road, Bellandur, Hebbal, name it, I’ve been there on my 85 cc bike. I’ve mastered the art of weaving in and out of traffic. All this with zero accidents. (Yes, touch wood.)

On my Scooty Pep +. Picture courtesy: Komalaaa :)

I’ve been jeered at, that women can’t ride, I’ve been angered by that comment, then gotten over the anger and have eventually seen a few girls behind the wheel and thought, “Ok I guess women really can’t drive.”

Now, I’ve reached a been-there-done-that phase, where I couldn’t care less about what people think of my riding skills.

The thing is, even though I know that I’m awesome at riding, people on the road look at me, a girl, and think, “Oh there’s a girl riding. Surely, she’ll do something ridiculous on the road.” No matter what I do, they’re going to think it’s ridiculous simply because I’m a girl. So I take that as a license to ride however I want – whether I want to ride really slow on the right lane or whether I want to zip past vehicles by cutting across them rudely – because hey, I’m a girl and I ride like a lunatic!

Well, I could do all that, but I don’t have a general disregard for rules. So, right now, all I do is overtake vehicles, be it in slow moving traffic or fast traffic. I glide smoothly from the right side to the left and overtake trucks, cars and buses alike. I ride like most of those boys that sit on the back seat of a Dio or Activa and stretch their legs in front of them.

It’s actually very liberating to do that and to get told that I ride like a boy. To stand out of the stereotype that girls can’t ride. In fact, I’ve been told that before too. When I used to play football in college, my coach once told me, “You play football like a boy!” I beamed at him. In fact, I was so happy that I came back home that very day, opened my diary and made a note of his compliment.

Now, I’m not saying that girls suck at riding or at playing football. I’ve seen girl footballers that can run circles around defenders or execute neat freestyle moves. I’ve also seen girls who can pull off some wicked stunts while driving (only in videos). But these girls are rare to find. Anyway, I’m sure all girls who have been riding for years in India will relate to this.

The thing is, I’ve always battled with myself about whether I should feel happy about being told I’m like a guy or whether I should be all feminist and get pissed about it. But no matter how much I try to get pissed at the statement, I don’t. Well, it depends on what the compliment is for. If someone tells a guy that he multi-tasks like a girl, then he should be very proud. On the other hand, if someone told me that I carry myself like a guy, I’d be very sad. So, that’s kind of what I’m talking about.

Being classy on an RX-100

I like being told I ride like a guy. Since I apparently have the skill, I have now started riding an RX-100, my dad’s newest buy. Well, it isn’t a new bike, obviously. I’m sure it has been owned by at least six people before. My dad is the master of buying second, third, fourth, fifth-hand things. After buying them, he repairs them, paints them, modifies them and makes them as good as new.

And guess what! It took me just 90 seconds to learn how to ride the motorbike. It’s so simple! Even my friend, Nisha, took 30 seconds to learn to ride a Bullet!

So, once I figured out the bike, my first question to my dad was why girls don’t ride motorbikes. Just why?

It’s so liberating! That krranng sound when you kick-start the bike, the smoothness you experience when you shift to third gear, the idea of laughing at lameass guys who ride dabba motorbikes, it’s amazing!

I really think girls should start riding like guys, and start riding motorcycles too. I want them to be revolutionary, so much so that a few generations later, men should be complimented that they ride like women. (Actually, if someone told a guy, “Dude you ride like Swathi,” then it’s already a compliment. Haha!) I wish there are more girls who’ll take that extra step and be awesome at this seemingly male-dominated skill.

Nothing can make you feel more independent and awesome. Trust me.

So, come on girls! Time to be badass!

Horn OK Please – 13 honks you’ll hear in India

As a person living in India, you will know how much noise there is on the streets. Even if you’re not in India, you’re likely to have heard a lot about how loud the country is, about how the country is polluted with noises you’ve never heard before. I commute to work by a two-wheeler. An hour to and an hour fro. And I have discovered a pattern in all the honks bouncing off of all surfaces. Here are a few kinds of honks I have noticed.

1. The Watch-out-I’m-coming honk: This is the most normal of them all. If you have to overtake someone, you honk. This is basically to say, “don’t change your lane, I’m about to be beside you for a second and you don’t know on which side.” This is mostly because there is no lane discipline and I don’t think having lane discipline is quite possible in India. You’d have still vehicles lined up on all roads and there won’t be anywhere to go. This honk goes the standard beep beep. 

2. The aggressive honk: This is most common in the evening when everyone is tired and irritable after work. This kind of honking is occasionally justified when there is a douche answering a call while riding in the middle lane or when a bone head stops at a junction, unable to decide which turn he needs to take. This honk is a blaring beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppp!! 

3. The impatient honk: At every signal is an idiot who starts honking fifteen seconds before the green light. He also honks mindlessly when an auto has broken down in front of him and the old man driving the auto is helpless. The idiot is inevitably subjected to rude stares by me. This honk doesn’t stop until the purpose is served or is hushed by the rude stare. It goes beeep beeep beeep beeep beeep…

4. The Signal-is-green honk: Also at every signal is a person starting intently at his phone screen. Or at airplanes. Or at pretty girls. He/she needs a signal apart from the green signal to step on it and move. This is usually just a single beep. 

5. The apologetic honk: This is the honk I have been subjected to the most. See, I believe I ride fairly well. I haven’t been in any accident (except when I crashed into a little girl and she fell. No harm done. She got up crying and ran to her father who had stupidly let her run free and from behind parked card onto the main road) or I haven’t been given the finger by anyone so far. But I ride a Scooty Pep+. It has the combined horse power of a baby horse and a tortoise. So I get the occasional apologetic honk, which just means to say “hey I’m sorry, but can you move a little? Just a little? Okthanksbye.” It goes beep bip, with the second beep almost inaudible.

6. The Get-out-of-my-way honk: There is always this idiot on the road who rides like his wife is about to deliver a baby in precisely thirty seconds. While the “Watch-out-I’m-coming” is a gentlemanly way of handling traffic on the road, there is this guy who just carelessly honks and barges into your lane without slowing down. This kind of honk is generally in a pattern like beep beepbeepbeep beep beep beepbeepbeep beep.

7. The asshole honk: This is the honk I hate the most. The guy sounding this honk rides with absolutely no concern for people’s ears. He isn’t fast, but he wants to get ahead. And all he does is honk. It annoys me so bad. It goes beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!! 

8. The give-it-back-to-the-asshole honk: When assholes sound honks like the one above, I let them pass and ride behind them sounding my honk exactly like that. Hope the deaf goofballs learn a lesson.

Artwork at the rear end of a truck

9. The I’m-Home! honk: I have heard this honk ever since I was a little girl. My dad always has had his signature way of announcing his arrival. It’s two beeps on the Kinetic Honda or a slightly long beep if it’s the Bullet. It is very convenient for me and my friends when we’re up to no good at home. So it’s one of my favourite honks.

10. The scary honk: Ever experienced this before? – You’re riding and there’s a bus behind you. You turn around for a second, give the gigantic four-wheeler an apprehensive look and carry on riding. And the driver gets cheap thrills out of sounding the madly loud honk and scaring the living hell out of you? The honks of buses and big SUVs make my ears bleed. They go BEEEEEEPPP!! 

11. Tune honk: If you’re riding in India, you’d have heard Truck and Lorry honks. Those ones that have an up-and-down tune. It’s so annoying, it’s almost like the driver is honking just to show off his obnoxious tune. It goes err.. NAnoNAnoNAno. 

12. The move-it-there-is-an-ambulance-behind-us honk: This is probably the honk that causes most unity on the road. It’s the best excuse to break and skip signals. It’s basically a lot of beeps going off together.

13. The ignored-honk: Of course, there is always the honk that goes unnoticed. I’m talking about the streets’ best friends – cows. No matter how much you honk, they won’t budge. All they care about is standing in the middle of the road, chewing cud, lifting their fat tails and peeing. Sigh.

Now imagine listening to ALL of them at once.

No matter what kind of a person you are, there is always a honk you can sound.