The paddyfield in all its misty, blurry, newness. This is around 8–8:30 in the morning—people are already on their way to office-jobs, cows are already in their designated field-slots, etcetera. A beautiful (odd) thing about Wayanad is how cool (cold, even) the shades are while the rest of it gets superhot by 9:30–10. The lines on the road (in the first photo) are from tractors/tillers exiting the fields. The ride was uneventful; met a few regular dogs. Not Tiger. Tiger lives at the house next to the three-roads-intersection, down the hill. He’s mastered the art of sitting still outside his gate. We mistook him for a gunny bag once. He’s actively angry. The ones I met today were more shy than suspicious. The three puppies are gone. One of them had whined when Chellam gave him/her a nosing-exam last time. They’d looked well-fed so that is a relief.

The mist veils more cows—grazing between paddy-plots in the distance. You can—kind-of—see a black-and-white one to the right, facing away from the camera. Beyond that coconut-tree-line is where we live, atop a small-ish hill. A new paddy crop has come up in most of the fields, with plantain and spinach and weeds peppered in between.

The mounds of hay look like alien-movie monsters against the haze and the general people-less-ness of the field. Chellam keeps trying to find evidence of something around this particular one whenever she’s around. R thinks it must be rats. Or, less endearingly, snakes. Or both. Things are wild around these parts. (Last month we saw a bear along the road to Muthanga; it was a mostly casual encounter—for the bear. We freaked.)

Today, walking out to the butcher’s after the ride, we met so many (overwhelmingly large enough number; five) neighbours and folks we only sort-of know but everyone spoke to us as if we have been here for longer than a year.

The side-road parallel to the one with fancier government offices is busy with undergrowth and vines nobody cared to watch. I haven’t been outside much since the testing-positive-and-then-negative ordeal. (It was hell and then it was okay.) These short morning rides are a good respite from sitting on a work-chair all-day. Things that were easy are hard again; climbing a short (tiny) hill steals all the energy and breath and replaces them with aches and a wheeze audible through the mask-layers.

I can smell the flowers again. (And there are many!)

This not-meant-to-be cycle path joins the main road beside the BSNL office (roam). The short detour is well-worth the scratches and true-random spider-web installations.

The difference between flying in an airplane, walking, and riding a bicycle is the same as that between looking through a telescope, a microscope, and a movie camera. Each allows for a particular way of seeing. From an airplane, the world is a distant representation of itself. On two legs, we are condemned to a plethora of microscopic detail. But the person suspended over two wheels, a meter above the ground, can see things as if through the lens of a movie camera: he can linger on minutiae and choose to pass over what is unnecessary.

— Valeria Luiselli, Sidewalks

Rode up some hills instead of rolling into the beach (the heat here is tiring). Climbed a tiny rock outcrop to wait till the foxes came out. Climbed quickly down once the pack arrived far enough. Major MagentaRiddim vibes off that abandoned cigarette-lighter. The shoes are well-worn; Decathlon has stopped making these ultrapackable, ultrabreathing lightweight walking shoes in favour of some chunky grey plastic. The socks are snowflakey thanks to R.

This:

The need for unequal privilege in an industrial society is generally advocated by means of an argument with two sides. The hypocrisy of this argument is clearly betrayed by acceleration. Privilege is accepted as the necessary precondition for improving the lot of a growing total population, or it is advertised as the instrument for raising the standards of a deprived minority. In the long run, accelerating transportation does neither. It only creates a universal demand for motorized conveyance and puts previously unimaginable distances between the various layers of privilege. Beyond a certain point, more energy means less equity.

And this:

Participatory democracy demands low-energy technology, and free people must travel the road to productive social relations at the speed of a bicycle.

From Ivan Illich’s Energy and Equity. Thanks to short nights at the W Library.

The picture is from a bridge on the way to Kappad. It is artlessly out of focus and I was probably breaking more serious rules stopping over the bridge and taking a picture (than the rule-of-thirds-and-tilted-horizons). All I can tell you is (that) the gradients were as insane as expected.

The evening tints itself into the night sooner these days and I start late at 5:30; the ride is an hour (or sixteen buttery smooth kilometers) long, in good (as in almost no-) traffic and when the sun sets around 6:15 on regular days. By the time I get to this (picture-situation-above) it is already ISO60000 lighting and getting noisier and I resort to sunken-cost-thinking to keep pedalling. The beach is empty (save for a couple of couples and a late-evening-gathering-of-bros and the volunteer lifeguards inspecting the groynes for traces of selfie-takers-with-good-night-mode-endowed-cameras and alcohol-related intentions [deadly combination, that, on an artificial wall extending a good length into the evening retreat-monsoon sea]) and not many engines are running to pepper an otherwise good sea-wave-static with misfiring pistons. I record some sea-silence then give up when the bros decide to walk past discussing relationship troubles. (I have nothing against relationship troubles; ninety-nine-problems, etc. But that over sea-noise makes for a shoddy ASMR bit after.)

The sky is clearer and starrier than (even) my nostalgia-tinted-recollection of how clear and starry the night sky in remote (-ish) parts of Kozhikode is. It isn’t an average kinda clarity—the sky is clear and tinted green-to-orange in colours that would be illegal in a design foundation course from this end to that end and all around. Whatever is left of the moon is bright enough to drain the few solar-street-lights trying hard to keep up with the falling light. The edges of the sea glisten in silvery reflected moonlight bits. I move closer to the edge to double-check if it is a school of fish taking diving lessons. I think of taking a picture to show off later, and I do, only to realise night-mode on the phone means other unspeakable things. (Despite the inherent snobbery, I catch myself in the act of taking phone-pictures—panoramas of square subjects even—too often these days.) Lying down with the new aggressive™ helmet[1] on, I count the same stars many times over and decide it is better just to watch out for stray crabs trying to burrow new bases into my Kurta-folds. A couple of confused-crabs-crawling-over—you down, this whole lying-on-the-beach-looking-up-at-the-sky business starts to lose its charm.

The ride home is mostly eventless. It is a night so low on traffic, cresting a granny-gear-climb (there are at least three on the route, depending on how out-of-breath you are and how thicc the tyres) almost always rewards one with a kilometer long stretch where it is nice to coast and let the bicycle take you wherever it takes you. I think I understand some of the Punjabi kids in Gurgaon at some meta level now, zigzagging over asphalt on a Friday night in their open-top Audis. (Part of the fun in coasting over a low gradient is in going even more aero and pretending you have TT bars on.) Portions on the way back are so silent (shout out to ULCCS!) the Schwalbe Silentos are the only sources of notable noise over crickets and freewheel. Their naming is a road-stud-faced lie. The one-minute (more like thirty seconds) stretch through the banana orchard is not in season and is an eerie wasteland of free-standing plantain-support-poles.

Rides alone in the night—not solely because I prefer it that way; because I have no friends… to ride with—are a mix of tension, eerie clarity on life etcetera, worrying when the headlight[2] is going to run out of juice because you failed at adulting and recharging stuff when stuff needed recharging, wondering where you left the Staedtler mechanical pencil, etc. It is problematic when you’re riding to get away from too much clarity, etc.

—

1: I got this one because the other, more sedate commuter helmet gets too hot riding to work. Because the aggro™ makes me go faster even when presiding over a traffucked junction. Because it is way more noticeable and aero unlike the last one (a brick, a sizeable one, sideways, with a huge sail to top things off, in comparison). I keep wearing it lying down because I have no clue where I can prop it up without getting sand allover places where sand has no business getting allover. Because it was awkward to lie down and hug the helmet on my chest and look like a confused sea otter in action.

2: NiteRider replaced my Swift-450 with a -500 no-questions-asked. I love how this unfolded: the USB bit inside failed in an year-and-then-some; I read their lifetime replacement policy and left the thing with BoatRider; they replace it a couple of weeks later and call me up to go collect the new one. (Would I have preferred repairing this? Did I have the tiny soldering apparatus even if I could manage the tutorial-watching? Yes, and No.) The 500 is bright-as-hell and warms your hands when pretend-riding TT-style over the bars.

Dried moss (lichen) on the rock makes it super-grippy[1]. The climb up is easy, in-spite of the fixed-gear ride leading up to it and my being out of breath (not planned) and water (planned cockiness I now regret). Lying down on the pockmarked summit (it isn’t a sizeable climb; just a sizeable climb right after a ride and unfortunate decisions) rewards one with a breathtaking third-floor-terrace-view framed for the most part by coconut groves long overdue their general grooming. (That does remind me of the aerodynamics of riding a bicycle while bearded but that tigress we shall address later.) It is near-silent, except for the faraway beats of a song being played at some wedding reception (today is one of those weekends after an astrologically well-endowed week and it shows) and the odd Bullt misfiring in the distance. (You are never far from a motorcycle in these parts, remote as the parts are.) I can hear the birds—most are crows heading home, some bats waking up—flap their wings. It is an odd sound; something you don’t want to expect as BGM while attempting to contemplate life, the multiverse, rising price of gold, etc. I grew up in a house near this rock and was denied late-evening visits till I was old enough to ride a bicycle without people waiting along the road as if it was leTour. It was a fuller rock-formation ‘back in the days;’ many homes got built over solid foundations since then and what is left of the quarry is a cricket-badminton-coconut-drying field in the non-rainy months. The niches left in the rock-face where boulders were blasted out make for a gallery worthy of ticketed entry. Some brilliant, harmless village-funds-redirection makes for ample lighting post sundown—when someone decides to get the Panchayath to fix the LD-Resistors on the electric-pole LEDs. The LEDs are not in the mood to work today. The scene is hiplessly un-lit. The only shop (down the rock along the gravel road; the blue tarpaulin in the photograph) in these parts is shut (the shopkeeper is a shout away, and it isn’t like there are no motorcycles around for a trip to the town). My new-old phone—after seven years of missed application updates and broken glass—is good at stitching panoramas. I remind myself throwing away the little green paper pieces was worth the effort and then quickly re-seal the waterproof pouch.

It starts to drizzle. Spray-and-pray in terms of hitting crucial electronics. Dried moss assumes oil-slick-consistency when wet. It glistens in rainbow colours. It starts redefining slippery. I think up scenarios where I am variously stuck on top for the night (no big deal, apart from it not being voluntary and my having heard foxes on other nights), slide down the rock-face face down (big-deal), run down yelling nothing (big-if-true-deal), etc. The clouds pass and the rain fades, not before my khakis burst into irregular polka dots of cold and start speaking clingon. There are many things worse than a shower that prematurely drops the mic, including having to slide down a rock-face, face down, etc. I am thankful of the polka dots and the added motorcycle-silence the rain brings with it. The bird-wings flap louder and the sound echoes against the concave rock-face. Ungroomed coconut trees let go of some leaves and coconuts in the wind. There is enlightenment in the air.

The ride home is slower, for there are no fenders on the #F00 and for the NR450 is awaiting its warrantied fate at the bicycle shop. (They haven’t called yet, despite the enthusiaashaan and promises to transcend customer-support timezones.) The motorcycles are out again and drain the puny backup front-light on the #F00 in their holier-than-thou beams.

1: Grippy, unlike the Supacaz tape that left me 5x poorer than the normal ones. Consider this my official review and stay away from them if you are hovering over an add-to-cart button somewhere on the internets.

On-camera oversaturation—with the Vivid Velvia film simulation mode—on top of a by-monsoon oversaturation. Shot on the battered Fuji X20; there is some poetic justice left in that.

I overestimated how much reach the calipers needed and wore the decals before moving back to the one-brake-life. The (geared and adequately clad in brakes) FC sees more of the road these days, yet it is so much nicer to break into a sprint on the #F00 when all you have to worry about is how far it will take for the braking to kick in.

Last week, my favourite word was ‘affectation.’ I liked how it bounced off the tongue coupled with a self-serving sentence used sans-prompt, erupting in a vulgar display of itself. (Having a favourite word-per-week is definitely not a thing.) I was using the word in real- (spoken) and imaginary- (also spoken) -life situations with no rhyme and/or reason.

(Riding) Fenderless in the Rain

Clad in inappropriate (not!) flannel, head held at a specific angle w.r.t the nose-bridge, the posture helps signal smugness at riding fenderless mid-monsoon and/or slows down the ingestion of bugs past the great moustache-beard barrier reef. It is practically wind-tunnel-level aerodynamics. It also sends a steady, thin stream of superfine dirt—that the front tyre (all insignificant 25x700cs of it) picks up—deep into your nostrils. The flannel isn’t absolutely necessary, but why be reasonable now? The bits of dirt that miss the target are finer than the bits that do, obviously, and make a beeline (because it stings; not because beeline sounds better) for your eyes as if adding insult to injury is the only thing that makes a fenderless ride in the rain capital F Fun. It is like asking a good-looking, well-dressed person to shovel dirt onto your face with a shovel designed to be laughably narrow and ineffective otherwise. Picturesque in its absurdity, the whole gymnastics unfolds as if it is being captured in a non-existing live-feed tethered to some fancy art-gallery along the beach. The spectacle is indeed sublime.

A bus speeding over a small stream (that was by then flowing over one side of the road and into the paddy field on the other side [only to cross right back, meeting up with a culvert ahead; talk about picturesque v/s pointless]) washed me thoroughly to kick things off. Impromptu road-showers thanks to speeding automobiles are alright as long as they wash off and don’t leave oddly coloured testaments to the state of state-PWD ten minutes past the event; indignation one can take, as long as it doesn’t permanently (for the day) scar. I don’t really blame the driver much; I would do the same weaving dangerously (as opposed to slowing down like sensible folks) past people—too caught up in their heads to realise a speeding bicycle can join them disastrously on their leisurely diagonal strolls to cross the road; it is the only way to conserve precious momentum on morning commutes. I have had people look at me riding straight ahead on an otherwise clear road, decide there was no way a bicycle was going as fast as it obviously was, and proceed to leisurely start crossing the road. Much indignant grabbing of the brake levers ensues, followed by a round of what Gurgaon has taught me by way of the language of righteous road rage.

The bus driver was perhaps simply done with downshifts for the day. He was—perhaps—saying things like “ride off the road, scum” or “weeeeee…” with that perfect splashy arc he delivered. Emboldened by the free shower (and after spitting out as much of the mud and water as I could) I continued the (by then) already ill-fated ride to see where the rain had performed a great unification of the football field, the paddy fields lining it on two sides, the road along the field(s) and the stream flowing—also along the field(s)—across the said road. The water had receded thanks to breaks in the rain, leaving a ruptured water pipeline sprinkling its innards into the the stream, a sorry bunch of plastic water bottles caught in the branches doing their to-fro dance on the surface and puddles pockmarking the field in parts where hopeful driving school students would otherwise practice fine automobile calligraphy (H-s and eights in endless practice loops). I’d noticed the evening-out of geographies the day before on a trip to a relative’s place. It was too late to stop and smell the hibiscus then. It (the smelling) was now fully on, through dirt-clogged nostrils that made no difference to the overall experience.

The plan thus gloriously beaten up and trashed (by the free shower and puddles), I propped the bike up (drive-side) against a boulder and sauntered along the stream, upstream, till it was not fun anymore. The local bottle-openers had gathered beyond a bend in the trail and if there is a group that gives r/privacy a run for their money… The paddy fields—beautiful in the setting sun over a layer of rain—trick you into believing there is plenty of light left in the day when it takes much less dirt-painted eyes to see pothole shaped objects on the road and elsewhere. The ride back was full of surprises. By the time I turned into the newly resurfaced road linking our friendly neighbourhood ‘tourist’ route with the one that I commute on, there was no way to tell if a bump travelling up the wheels meant I was riding over a snake or a fallen twig. (There was one way which I wasn’t too keen on following through.) This road was what I used to bomb on less worthy bicycles before people built houses at either ends and fixed whatever was left after rocks and chasms and fallen overripe jackfruits were erased. Unaccompanied by an adult, those ‘sessions’ passed for major adventure in the days before successful BSNL recharges, Bult trips to Ladakh and blogging on weekends. On a less rainy day, I would’ve picked the longer, traffucked route via the town center over this steep (both ways) one but it wasn’t a less rainy day.

Riding (fenderless) in the rain is Fun.~ Do not let me tell you otherwise.