I did it! I did it!

After a lot of plans and postponing of those plans, I finally did it today!

I rode my shiny red bike to work today. Oh boy, it was SO much fun! Started around 0750 at home (right behind the Banaswadi Railway Station) and touch down at M G Road happened at 0820. 30 minutes. Considering the auto meter generally reads 5.4 kms, that is 10.8 kmph which is not bad for me at all (all you Speedy Gonzales' out there, stop rolling your eyes).

I had bought a red shiny "Hercules Apex MTB" (nothing fancy, just plain vanilla bike with no gears too) from CMH Road a while ago for general sauntering around purposes and was busy stuffing myself on visions of the 6'o clock early morning riding around when my mother promptly pricked that lovely bubble by exclaiming, "How wonderful! So now you can bike to work". As the standard reaction to parental expectations, I promptly vowed to do everything but that.

A month went by and the everyday morning ride became a once a week morning ride and slowly, the bike started looking like a dust covered thing chained to the grill cover of the water pump.But that was not to be. At least, not for long!

The autowallas, that nasty breed, decided to go back to being nasty to me and after tolerating it for a long while, I finally snapped when yesterday, 16 autowallas refused to take me to M G Road.

The situation was not that bad while coming back though (only 4 refused hee hee) but that was enough to say no to the auto torture everyday. The first thing I did after arriving home was to check my bike and then noticed to my dismay that it had a flat. The 'puncher' guy told me that somebody had stolen my tire valves! Got that set and finally vowed to bike to work morrow, helmet or no helmet (the lack of a helmet what was I quoting to those nasty questions in that drawl, "Sooooooooooooooooooo, have you started biking to work yet?", by friends who I had gloated to about it in one of my stupid moments).

Woke up today at 0600, finished cooking and eating by 0700 and left home by 0750. Nice ride and all till I met my first obstacle - a HUGE black and white cow, which was headed straight towards me! (all cows, always, always head towards me. Them nasty things with all that horns and all. Not my fault if I am terrified of them). Had to swerve and almost caused a 14 yr old pedaling furiously on his bike to ram into me from behind. He first gave me a dirty look but after taking in the cow and the look on my face, he kind of forgave me with a knowing smile and went on his way. I almost fell off my bike though when I braked in terror on seeing that cow and got my scratch for the day.

Even the Bengaluru traffic which I cuss under normal circumstances gave way to me today when they saw me, which I guess was more from the shock factor on seeing a female in nice Blackberry clothes with red lipstick, pedaling away on a bike and quite happily too. And oh yeah, it would be a wise idea to take your heels in your backpack and change after reaching work than riding your bike while wearing them. I wore my turquoise Crocs for the ride which was a good idea as if I had been wearing my funky heels, I am sure that cow would have given me a broken ankle instead of the small scratch I escaped with.

Finally made it to M G Road after panting my way through Kamaraj Road and wooshed into the parking lot out of which the guard promptly threw me out with a "no parking for your firm madam"! So I had to chain my bike to a handy rail erected by the benevolent Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and bribed a nearby juice kiosk guy by buying a pack of juice from him into keeping an eye on it.

Shall now have to see how the ride back home will be.

One handy lesson learnt for the day: Always carry a bottle of water in your backpack