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!

Bangalore, I hate you. Not-Yours Sincerely, a commuter

This incident occurred on St Marks road today, where half the road has been dug up and not been restored. Every evening, this road, which connected to the Cubbon Park Road gets impossibly blocked.

When I was coming back from work, there was a wailing ambulance caught in the mess. No, this is not a story of how the traffic magically created a path for the ambulance.

Vehicles swarmed in front of, behind, and beside the ambulance, using it as a bait to get through traffic quickly. Vehicles honked, the ambulance continued to scream and people yelled. It was chaos. The overlooking signal turned from green to yellow to red as usual, as if it didn’t care about a thing in the world.

All of a sudden, the wailing siren stopped. The red and blue lights of the ambulance went off. The honking stopped. People stopped shouting. There was an eerie one-minute silence.

The patient was dead.

Isn’t it sad?

Isn’t it sad that you’d completely believe it if such an event actually occurred? I highly doubt that a Bangalorean is going to read that and say, “No way! That’s impossible!” because, let’s face it, it’s not impossible.

You see, I’m a positive person most of the times. I try to see the bright side of things and would probably walk around whistling the tune of Don’t Worry, Be Happy. But traffic absolutely breaks me down. It’s not just traffic; it’s city life in general.

People skip signals, honk their arses off, ride on pavements, text while riding, throw garbage on the streets, spit out of buses/autos, speed and weave their way recklessly through traffic, don’t care about lane discipline, smoke in public giving innocent people cancer, illtreat stray animals and have a major disregard for others. The worst part is, it’s not some illiterate people who do all this. It’s well-educated people, much like you and me, who think they are too cool for rules. They have the “Everyone is spitting here. What difference does it make if I also spit here?” attitude, which I can’t stand. There are a million people in this city, who think they’re better than the rules, and if every one of those million people learns to co-operate, then this city would be a much better place to live in.

A few years ago, I couldn’t even have imagined myself saying this, but I hate Bangalore. There, I said it. The weather might be nice and everything, but there are other places with similar weather, maybe on the outskirts of Bangalore. But the main city part, I hate it. Every evening, when I ride, I wish I could borrow Shiva’s third eye and turn everyone into ash. I wish I could be evil and put all honkers in a gas chamber. Oh how I’d love to watch them burn! That’s how much the city infuriates me. I have to dodge spit, cigarette smoke, pee and poop from trains on railway bridges, and dark black smoke that comes from vehicles of those who have no concern for the environment or other peoples’ lungs. Even on cool days, one ride in traffic is enough to burn you with the chloro fluoro carbons coming out of AC cars. I was just thinking, some people thought Bangalore was hot, so they used AC. Now everyone uses AC, so Bangalore is hot. When I ride to work on Sundays, the temperature all around is at least five degrees cooler because there is no traffic.

Everything just sucks. People are not friendly. All they have to offer you is an annoyed frown. But maybe it isn’t just Bangalore. Maybe it’s all cities. I lived in Chennai for a year, but it wasn’t this bad. Maybe I lived on a highway and didn’t experience much city drama.

I have decided that I’m going to move out of the city soon. I want to live in the country side where there is peace, greenery, friendliness and silence. Precious silence. Until now, I’ve never had a bad experience with farmers or anyone on the country side. Every time we go on road trips, we stop where people are harvesting, or where sugar is being made, and the farmers there always invite us with broad smiles. I remember I went and helped some ladies harvest potatoes and they were so thrilled. They even gave me a bag of potatoes, despite their lack of resources. It’s so heart-warming. “There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor,” says Gregory David Roberts in Shantaram, which I find to be so true!

Even James Herriot has made me want to move to the country side. This is the line about him arriving in Darrowby – “There was a clarity in the air, a sense of space and airiness that made me feel I had shed something on the plain, twenty miles behind.  The confinement of the city, the grime, the smoke – already they seemed to be falling away from me.” 

Sigh…

I can’t wait to find my Darrowby.

Sorry about this negative post. Just had to vent it out.