a nice mix

It’s a bloody mela. Summer follows winter. And if you are the person swimming in winter then you tend to look at all the others who come in summer with a little disdain. They are not real swimmers. I dont see them when the water is cold. Real swimmers come and swim even in winter. They swim even when its 10 degrees. They don’t crib about the cold. I swam thru the coldest winter we ever had in Mumbai. But it’s also true that the only reason I swam was -circumstances. First reason - I had to come to the club in any case. My daughter had her swimming at 545 am. Second reason - I twisted my knee - that meant no squash no treadmill. Only option - swimming. But I can take credit - I decided to brave the water instead of lying around on my butt, waiting for Jispa to finish swimming. So I have some moral ground to stand on :-) even if it is a bit wobbly. Of all the things in the world, I never imagined I would be swimming alongside my daughter. I dreamt of other stuff. Like trekking, camping, cycling. Yes cycling.
V-nu gifted us a cycle of his. A nice expensive light cycle. Jispa had hers and we bought one more Jasmine. This was a few years ago. In our enthusiasm we dreamt of a family cycling together. We put a hook in the garage to chain the cycles to and we cycled a few days. Then the cycles just lay there securely chained. They stayed unused gathering lots of dust. Neighborhood construction ensured enough cement layers formed on the cycle. We got Jispa’s cycle up and kept it outside our door which meant it was relatively dust free. She cycled a bit. But for two years or more our adult cycles just sat and withered away.
A year back we sold one cycle to one of the maids working in the building. Her kid goes to school on a cycle and his cycle just got robbed. I had great intentions of fixing and servicing the V-nu’s cycle. Those intentions finally materialized last month. V-nu was in town and we hauled the cycle on a truck and took it to the repair guy for a complete overhaul. This was at Dadar. The day I had to collect it back from work, I decided to cycle back the 6 odd kms. I would assume that would not be too difficult. But I had never cycled on congested Mumbai roads in peak rush hour. Collecting the cycle I set off. At first out of sheer habit I hit the traffic and was waiting behind the car in front of me. It then suddenly struck me that I was on a cycle and waiting like this in a traffic jam is what you do in a car. A cycle would weave its way through the traffic between the cars. Whoops. I set off between the cars. The last time I saw a cyclist waiting patiently behind a car at a signal was at Geneva. He was taking the same amount of space as a car would, maintaining distance. This is crazy thing to do in Mumbai. I guess I would have been run over. I enjoyed weaving between the cars, going uphill then downhill. The cars I thought were pretty ok; the problem I faced was from the motorcycles. We were fighting for the same aisles between the traffic. I, with pedal power and them on their powerful motors. I had to cut lanes and out of sheer habit again, I found myself looking towards the imaginary rear view mirrors on the right. I really don’t understand how cyclists twist backwards in their attempt to see what’s behind. But on the whole I thought the experience was pretty much nice. I avoided the roads where one normally saw truck traffic and weaved through the bylanes. The greatest fun was crossing signals as a pedestrian and taking shortcuts through the wrong way. A cycle has many advantages in Mumbai.
Now with the cycle home and happily serviced, I could take Jispa to the garden cycling. With the long summer days I could cycle till late and enjoy. The first day Jispa went cycling, in some time she soon complained about her calves. Calves hurting? That too for Jispa. Thanks to swimming, Jispa has a very well toned body. She has a six pack stomach, muscular legs and a gazelle like structure. He calves paining sounded very funny. We realised that she does a lot of swimming. A WHOLE LOT OF SWIMMING. She has swimming muscles in her calves and they are different from cycling muscles or even walking or climbing muscles. The coach has given strict instructions not to swim on weekends and give the muscles some rest. So cycling muscles are different. So Jasmine and I decided to get her to cycle on weekends. Nothing as strenuous as her swimming but a bit of light cycling in the garden on weekends might do her good. Over the next three weekends, her cycling calves seemed to loosen up and she could cycle with ease without complaint. It’s probably a good thing. We really don’t know for sure, but we guess that a little bit of all round muscle development is good. I read once about Armstong (the champion long distance cyclist) complain that cyclists hate taking stairs. Its hurts them. I saw a variation happening at home. So light cycling is a nice thing, we assume.
This weekend, Jasmine packed some fries with mayo and ketchup along with some water and we took the hamper for a picnic. We cycled a bit. Now Jispa cycle a bit more on her own, take sa few rounds and then we sat down to enjoy our picnic. Just daddy and kid. Here…



I loved the time we spent. Just cycling away and then lazing around. A couple came in with their dogs with which Jispa played a bit. A nice way to spend your Sunday evening. Time well spent.