Moment: August 20th, 2019 at 4:27 PM
”I lost the key to my bike lock so now I’m a PEDESTRIAN!”
Let’s just say that over that last few years, my interest in bike riding has severely declined. I used to LOVE riding my pink bike with streamers, feeling the wind in my hair and ringing my bell to let all the neighbors know that these were MY streets and they were just living on ‘em. It’s not that I don’t like riding them now, because I still enjoy riding them when it’s on the safe and quiet streets of my neighborhood, but on the busy streets of Hyderabad (or Aggieland for that matter) where people are zipping by in all directions? I’ll pass.
I thought that mentality would fly here at the University of Hyderabad as well, because there’s a bus system, and I’m a pro at buses after relying solely on the Aggie Spirit buses (and my friends’ cars, let’s be honest) for the entirety of my freshman year. But after I realized that no one really uses the bus system, mostly because no one knows exactly when they’re going where, I decided I would just leave my hostel an extra 15 minutes early and walk everywhere. That turned out to be a not-so-feasible plan either, because the roads are always wet because of the monsoon rains, so if I walked, I was bound to get my feet soaked by the time I got to class, which is the definite opposite of professionalism. Enter: the bicycle.
Okay, I have to make a slight clarification, because a bicycle is actually called a cycle here. A bike means a motorcycle/moped, and a motorcycle means a Harley-Davidson or other similar flex. We have to be pretty careful when referring to our bikes, because if we don’t call them cycles, someone will almost always ask for a ride. This campus is HUGE. People go back and forth from north to south campus all the time, so the bus stands have turned into unofficial stops to get lifts. Students will wait under the bus stand awnings, and other students who are on bikes will just stop and pick up the first person that approaches them. It’s a nice, wholesome interaction that really exemplifies the camaraderie between the 5000 students on this campus.
The ride from south to north campus is divine. My class is at 9 am, so I cycle to the Social Sciences building in the cool of the morning, just coasting downhill. There’s no traffic except for the occasional professor on a bike or an auto taking kids to school. I’ve even seen a peacock crossing the road, which I wanted to take a picture of, but I’m not enough of a pro cyclist yet to whip out my phone while pedaling. It’s a great start to my day.
But everything that goes up must come down. The ride back in the afternoon is hot, rainy, and almost entirely uphill. I get passed by basically all of the motor vehicles, and literally the first time I rode my cycle, a blaring car horn right next to me caught me so off guard that I swerved straight into the side of the road and flew over the curb. Luckily, a kind soul on a bike across the street decided to stop...and yell “BE CAREFUL“ before carrying on his merry way. It seems to have worked though, because I haven’t run into any curbs or other obstacles since, so overall I’ve enjoyed getting out of my comfort zone while I’m here, even if it’s as simple as navigating traffic on a bike. I mean cycle. I’ll get it eventually.
