Cycling in Chennai-5

Cycling keeps teaching me new lessons everyday about people and how we interact in the world. Last evening at work this girl asked me point blank “are you cycling for weight reduction?” she didn’t use the word fitness, she said weight reduction. I am quite heavy and chubby, but under all those layers of fat I am so sexy, the word sexy was invented to describe me. The reason then why I am angry about this is, since I am fat, that can be the only logical reason for me to cycle from home to work, a total of 11.1 kms (one way) is not something I expect from young people, I expect that from neighbor aunties and uncles who are taking your case because they finished all their household chores and they want some amusement. And the question ask-er is thin, tall and lanky and so she doesn’t need to cycle for weight loss. When she does it it will be for fitness or for time pass.

I was visibly angry, I didn’t want to be snappy but at the same time I didn’t want to let her know that I am accommodating of her comments. It is not okay for people to reason based on body types, it isn’t okay for me either. And whatever happened to keeping things to yourself, in the mind? So I stared at her, for a quite a long time, and said, “No”. Then came her next question, “so then why do you do it?” and I said, “why don’t you do it?”. She says, “well, I am from Mogappair (Which is really very far away from work to cycle).” And she laughed, as though that was the dumbest suggestion she had ever heard. So I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Well if you want to do something you will find a way to do it.” At this point she understood I wasn’t to be messed with and left.

This is not the first time people have tried to link my physical appearance to cycling. There have been times when people remark “oh, actually you are quite fast on a cycle.” The reason this is important is, these people are the ones who take up yoga for weight loss, do software engineering for money, go to malls over the weekend, spend money on worthless things because they think they need it.

One does not do things to derive something out of it, one simply does and if something comes out of it then alright and if something does not then that too is alright. There cannot be any reasoning for matters of the bicyclist’s heart.

“She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of a bicycle will gain the mastery of life.”- Susan B. Anthony