Feeling old!

Feeling old - just exchanged my motorcycle for a gear-less scooter - also known as a scooty in my country.
I still remember that day when I bought it - thirteen years back it was a frigid Sunday of December when I brought it home. Rajesh rode it back as I didn't know how to ride it. Friends asked for a party - announced to bring your bikes yourself to a McD nearby, and as a result I had to learn riding it on the same day!  It looks like just a day of last week when I was scouting all the bike showrooms around my office - with Tarique taking a test-ride on my behalf! I can clearly remember Naveen telling me not to buy a smaller bike but a bigger one, because I would look smart on that! Dad told me not to buy a motorcycle, whereas Mom simply laughed it off, and told me to buy a black one instead of a red motorcycle. Countless rides - alone, and with friends; in hot-as-hell Noida, and in chilly Shimla; short ones to bring milk, and the longer ones to travel across the city - there are too many to write about it!

Time flies, we get old - move from one phase of life to the other one, and as Goppal Sir puts it - we keep on getting upgrades!

You are not stuck in traffic, but you are traffic yourself.

As a cyclist I don't need music to keep me interested...the mystery that the SUV next to me can turn either side any moment without indicating may even kill me! But still it was fun yesterday when NH2 was blocked by the protesters. Although the traffic was being diverted, but it did create a jam, a pile up of all the vehicles trying to take to the bypass road. So, what did I do - just got down from the bus, unfolded my colourful "tern" and rode on it. It was not exactly a zipping between cars-n-bus due to close extent people like to drive their vehicle to the next one, but still I was moving. The sheer joy of reaching home on time beats everything else.

Got a lot of thumbs up when I was sliding past the cars, some were curious, some were dismissive, some were plain jealous, but I do home that I must have inspired a few more to ride. As they say, you are not stuck in traffic, but you are traffic yourself; so come out and break this deadlock, be free!

That question on dinosaurs!

"You must have seen dinosaur when you were young like me...?" - chirped my li'le-one yesterday. She was watching TV - yes, we've got it now, where it was being explained that these species used to exist long back and are extinct now. 

My reply was an affirmative one - told her that we had a pet one too - a small one, that it  "might" still be around there in the jungle next the little village where I grew up.  Now she's eagerly looking forward to visit that place in her summer holidays.