Mahalingam annan [ work­ing in my uncle’s work­shop ] was my senior rel­a­tive who taught me cycling. It was a bit tough learn­ing cycling with­out dash­ing on the wall or run­ning into the houses. I never liked mon­key ped­alling [ arai ped­alling ] — the ugly way of cycling. So we tried our classes with the small cycles and bribe as much as pos­si­ble to Mahalingam to get the trick of cycling. I won­der how Mahalingam could ride a cycle hands free. That was the high­est trick I could imag­ine. Days passed by and I was on the same stage. Mahalingam scolded me heav­ily on one new moon day and i was very upset. He laughed at me stat­ing that I never can learn cycling. With that dis­ap­point­ment, the same day I tried mul­ti­ple times and finally rode it well. I man­aged to stop and get down too. But I noted that remarks of Mahalingam deeply.

Then I skipped vis­it­ing my tutor and started cycling on my own. Mahalingam didn’t worry about that. He con­tin­ued his work and dreams with cut­ting metal sheets and join­ing them. I was a great fan of comics [ Muthu, Lion and Rani comics too ]. We the chil­dren gang, used to search for some­thing always and I am fond of read­ing the bit pieces of paper. One fine day, I found a let­ter writ­ten by Mahalingam and about kid­nap­ping my aunt’s daugh­ter and set­tling with his own work­shop in Kallaku­ruchi. We can­not expect much from a per­son whose life was just made up of metal sheets. My cousin [ அத்தை பொண்ணும் க‌ஸின் தானே [ பின்ன‌ என்ன‌ அஸின்னா இருக்கும் ]] started cry­ing that some­body really would kid­nap her and marry. To con­vince her and Keep­ing my vengeance in mind, I have handed over the let­ter to my uncle directly. I never knew the consequences.

It was as good as inform­ing about Aiswarya [ Pechiyam­mal ] and Mechanic Muru­gan to the Din­du­gal wine shop owner Rajendi­ran [ காத‌ல் ப‌ட‌ம் பார்க்க‌லையா ??!! ]. My uncle smashed Mahalingam in pieces. He begged that he comit­ted a mis­take. For a work­shop owner with a sin­gle daugh­ter, that let­ter looked like a life time crime. They hit him heav­ily and packed him back to Kallaku­ruchi. Every­body started call­ing me as a CID. By the time, I realised my mis­take, much dam­ages has hap­pened to Mahalingam already. I never met him in life, again.

Few years later, in my 10th std my father bought me a BSA deluxe cycle with white washed tyres. The very first day we did some rit­u­als to the cycle and dec­o­rated. I couldn’t even sleep that day out of joy. For me, it was a life time dream com­ing true and for other school mates it’s just a cycle. Mad­han already owned a BSA Mach then [ அதை ஓட்ற‌துக்கு விர‌ல் தெரிய‌ற‌ க்ள‌வுஸ் வேற‌ :) ]. The next morn­ing, I went to my early morn­ing maths tuition. One the way back, in a junc­tion sud­denly, I felt a inter­rup­tion in the flow and fell down [ முனி அடிச்சிருக்குமோ ??!! ]. I checked rid­ing the cycle repeat­edly and fell down fewer times. As Sujatha said in “Arisi” short story my “thi­nai arivu” was dif­fer­ent from cycle mech­a­nism [ அவ‌ர் திணை ப‌த்தி பேச‌லாம்.. நீ ?! ]. I took the cycle to “Jamaal” and explained. He laughed at me say­ing that I was not eli­gi­ble to own a cycle. He went out for a ride and while com­ing back he was strolling the cycle with a mark in his knee. I laughed back at him.

The tech­nol­ogy with BSA deluxe cycle was that it had a spe­cial fea­ture called fore­lock [ பெரிய‌ ABS break sys­tem ]. The fore­lock was open and in react­ing to any jerk, the fore­lock auto­mat­i­cally gets locked. That’s the rea­son for the sud­den stop­page [ முனிக்கு வேற‌ வேலை இல்லை ?! ]. This is what explained by our cycle GDNaidu Jamaal. Due to his anger, he per­ma­nently broke the forelock.

I returned back home and said this to my mother. While I was wash­ing the face, my mother asked me whether Mahalingam might have thought about me and my new cycle. After wash­ing my face [ I can­not open eyes with froth in face — my cousin does :) ], I said ‘Cer­tainly not’. I know my cycle guru very much — he was a very good person.