While President of the Republic of India, Smt Draupadi Murmu, was taking the grand salute from the podium on Kartavya Path in New Delhi on the 74th Republic Day (26 January, 2023), watched by millions on the television besides the dignitaries at the venue, braving the chilly wind and the…

“Meet Prakash Kulkjarni. My friend. From Pune,” is how recently retired Deputy Regional Transport Officer (DRTO) Sanjay Sasane from Mumbai was introduced as I shook hands with the 1958-born Puneikar (or is it Puneite?). Venue: AutoExpo2023, Greater Noida. My den. Sasane and I go back to 2012, when we first…

For 44 months, I rode a bicycle in Bangalore. Daily. For work. From home to office and back. At various time slots. From January 1997 to August 1980. From 11th Cross, Maleswaram, to Church Street, just behind the Deccan Herald office on M G Road. Macmillan India was my port…

When I bumped into Manish Mago, my neighbor and a cycle shop owner, to hire a bicycle for practice, he asked: “what about the cycling gear?” Does not the gear come as part of the cycle? I innocently asked. He laughed. He did not mean the cycle gears (He showed…

Cycling, the common mode of personal mobility, owes the Chinese premier Xi Peng a lot. Indirectly, of course. What am I talking? Before someone jumps to label me “anti-national,” let me clarify. The Chinese global release of Covid in end-2019 and the universal lockdown by every single nation on Planet…

Cycling means Vichu alias Vishwanathan to me. My childhood senior and the owner of a multi-tenanted one-room one-plus-two floor agraharam type (only brahmins!) in Mylapore (Madras). Why Vichu? Because I rode his bicycle more than him. When I cannot afford ten paise/hour rental, I will pick his non-motorized two-wheeler. Not…

“Are you sure?” “When was the last time you rode a bicycle?” “Do you have the requisite cycle gear for this 300km-over-3days trip?” “At this age?” Well, well. Friends and well-wishers bombard me with these queries. Not to discourage but concerned about my safety. I am truly touched. But, the…

When you knock on his castle-like 25th-floor residence in the farthest corner of the posh Hiranandani Estate, Thane, Mumbai overlooking the backwater flowing a few hundred meters away from his balcony on a leisurely Sunday evening, Amit Dhume is in his casuals and unshod. We knew each other for quite…

The past few weeks have directed me to the Seven Sisters once again. Before one rushes to conjecture all rasa leelas, let me hasten to add that my Seven Sisters are the northeastern states, viz., Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh. Barring Mizoram and Sikkim, I had…