Cycling In Delhi

By Rahul Banerjee, Indore A bald man in his sixties dressed in spotless white and starched khadi and kurta and pyjama riding a bicycle with a ramrod straight back - that was my first glimpse of Bohreji when I came to stay in the moribund Gramodyog Vidyalaya Ashram in Machla village thirteen kilometers from Indore in 1994. I had just come out of the deep jungles of Jhabua advised by my doctor to take time off from grassroots activism to get rid of the malarial parasites that had made my body their home.

Sometimes a particular image becomes so ordinary that you stop noticing it; until a set of eyes come along for whom that same image is not so common. Here is a picture by Cheeni I liked very much. An image like this would not have stood out for me, but for its suggestive title. Yes, this is the most reliable, widely used, labour intensive gas pipeline in India.

You can find a bicycle anywhere. Here is one giving good company to ancient history in the Patna Museum.