I now have a bicycle, so I can avoid rickshaws and buses and get some exercise. On my first night here I was told Pune is a two-wheeled city, and it is. In a city which has recently seen massive growth but little change in its public transport system, motorbikes and scooters are the vehicles of choice of middle-class youth, and bicycles transport [a statistic I couldn't find, and who cares anyway] people to work each day. No helmets. When I told them of my plans to get a bike, Sid asked if I knew the rules of the road in India. We drive on the left here, he began. I asked him if he’d seen how people drive in Pune. People do drive on the left here – when it suits them. And while one or two cyclists in London sometimes jump traffic lights (no names mentioned), here the hordes of motorbikes and scooters commonly jump them too. But don’t worry too much mum, the traffic in Pune moves only marginally faster than Bombay’s snail pace and a lot slower than in London. And knocking off cyclists doesn’t appear to be a sport here, as I sometimes suspected it was in London. Still, I’ll try and introduce Critical Mass if I can.
Bombay, unlike Pune, is a city of trains. Two north-south lines connect the tip of the peninsula in the south with the mainland in the north. I love Bombay trains. I seriously think British theme parks should consider developing a ride that simulates the experience. At the least, London Underground could install some mechanical device at tube stations to lift passengers on and off trains in a fashion similar to the way a crowd of commuters lifts passengers on and off Bombay trains. And the simple genius of obviating the need for A/C by having no doors on carriages never ceases to amaze me. Several people die as a result of falling from the trains each year, usually during rush hour. Rush hour on a Bombay train really has to be seen to be believed. Long before the train comes to a halt, people are jumping in and out of carriages that quite obviously have less than no space in them. I grit my teeth and ready my elbows for action. A million armpits now.
2 comments:
Your bike looks very elegant, like you my friend. Can you not cycle to Bombai so that you don't have to take those scary trains? xx
Actually I catch air-conditioned coaches to Bombay, mainly because this is an effective way to watch a random selection of Bollywood films I otherwise wouldn't get around to watching. On a recent early morning coach I was privy to the delights of the rather violent Shootout At Lokhandwala, one plus point of which was that I didn't need to understand the dialogue to follow the story.
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