In my schooldays in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, bicycles were the prime
mode of transport for the middle-class. The affluent among my
class-mates came to school in own bikes. My parents didn’t get me one
till I joined college in New Delhi. By which time (this, in late 50s)
bicycling went out of fashion.
With aggressive marketing of Luna, scooty, and other two-wheelers
bicycles became a poor man’s vehicle. We, who considered ourselves
better-off on the social scale, preferred the rush, long wait and
uncertainty of public transport to a bicycle for travelling to work.
