Sometimes it is nice to take life in the slow lane (quite literally, although no pun intended) and take time to smell the roses so to say. I have found that there are a number of side benefits to cycling and I have discussed them (will discuss in future) elsewhere. One of the things I enjoy is the exposure to elements. These are both natural elements – rain, sun, elevation etc… and artificial – interaction with traffic, observing human behavior, sights, smells etc…

Riding an hour to and from work not only gets me to my destination in convenience but I also get to indulge in exposing myself to the elements. For instance, I have been observing the construction of the F1 Pit garage and the circuit over the past few months and have witnessed the changes to the asphalt being laid out on the circuit. The lighting systems are being put in place to ensure ‘bright as day’ lights over the circuit when race heads to Singapore in September. While I observe this, I see hundreds of people in cars consumed in their own world and not aware of small changes happening around them on a daily basis. A small but none the less nice incentive.

I also happened to see the lady on the red vespa the other day. What struck me was the lovely colors and since I had my camera handy, I snapped a picture. Imagine my surprise when I saw the same lady a week later in the same spot. I was lucky to shoot her the second time. I did see her a third time but this time I was riding in a busy part of my route and could not whip out my camera for a shot. I am sure I would bump into the red vespa again and will be ready with my camera. Deja vu is fun

Cycling can be a sustainable form of transport. It has been so for centuries on and currently is going through a renaissance of sorts with emphasis for cycling for commuting in major cities in Europe and the US of A. Even in sunny Singapore, there are social experiments being conducted to see if Cycling can be included as an alternate mode of transportation**.

Over the past few decades however, as we witness, cycling has been relegated to two different groups in the society. Cycling for sport and recreation (typically involving light weight and expensive machines) and transport for low income people. the bicycle companies seem to have found a perfect middle ground – They can sell expensive high end bicycles to people who do not need them and constantly crave better (and they can afford it) and at the same time do not antagonize the rich oil companies and car manufacturers. At the same time, extremely cheap and crappy bikes flooded the market and were consumed by the masses which further made commuting by bicycle less glamorous.

The renaissance that we are experiencing now is putting emphasis on utility bikes that people use. There are a number of reasons why people do not want to ride and if you start to cycle, you will find that every reason is pretty much senseless. I have been trying my hand at riding to work and have been pretty happy with my progress and my choice of lifestyle. I want to actually move further and experiment with cycling as a sustainable mode of transportation for most needs. With that in mind, I took my bike out when I wanted to pick come stuff up from a nearby bike shop. Well it was about 10 km from home and rides through traffic free roads. I did make it in one piece and learnt a couple of things. The ride back with load was not too bad given that the load is heavy and unwieldy and it save me at least about 20 bucks on the round trip. Not bad for a start eh.

to bring emotions back to normal, let me relate this story of another set of entertainers conducting business at the same place and time as the ones in the previous post.

The day was bright as it was hot. if you observe the picture herein, the ground is washed out primarily due to the intemsely bright sunlight. The place in ahobilam, a small town in andhra pradesh. Ahobilam is an important religious place but it does not seem to get the attention or oney as other famous temples in India. The place is unique since the temples are dedicated to narasimha, an embodiment of god in a half beast – half human form. You can read the mythology some day here. The trouble is that the place has numerous temples and they are situated in different, not-so-easily-accessible locations. One can drive to some places but a few require strenuous climbs.

It is known that often the temperatures in the deccan plateau sore above 45 deg C. This day when we reached there was also hot but bearably so. While doing a couple of sorties of the ‘base camp’ (a more traditional temple setup on ground level), I could catch up on photographing some of the people around here. One of them was this old couple singing devotional songs. Though they were not the best of singers, one really has to appreciate their will to work for a living. Along with them was this cute little kid (guess is their grandson) who has joined them in their business today. If one looks closely, he is wearing a framed painting of Narasimha – in the hope of wooing pilgrims passing by.

But in true kiddie fashion, this feller is oblivious to the business he is attracting but is more interested in the sweet guava he is munching on.