The Day I Learnt Cycling… and Nearly Unstitched a Stranger’s Dhoti

Nothing prepares you for the moment your cycle wheel goes cleanly between a stranger’s legs, and he goes up on his toes like a startled Bharatanatyam dancer.

Learning to Cycle, Bengaluru-Style

In my school days, I began learning to cycle on my father’s big, sturdy machine, available only on Sundays, the one sacred day when he didn’t need it for his office commute. It was a cycle built like a railway engine: heavy, unshakeable, and absolutely incompatible with my height. Riding it the normal way, with both legs politely in place, was a distant dream.

In lower-middle-class homes back then, “kids' cycles” didn’t exist. You simply adjusted your body, your ego, and sometimes your destiny around whatever cycle the house owned. Thus began my initiation into the classic “Kathri” style, where you push your right leg through the triangular frame gap, twist your body like an Olympic pretzel, and pedal purely on faith.

Ridiculous to look at. Surprisingly effective.

The Sunday of All Sundays

Within 45 minutes, I learnt balancing. In another couple of hours, and several wipeouts that polished my elbows and knees, I was confidently encircling the house through neighbouring streets. Like every freshly minted cyclist, I felt I had conquered the world.

Naturally, I now had to show off.  Audience: Hari, my best friend and lifetime chaddi-dost.

But Hari had recently shifted from our lane near Malleswaram Station to their own house in Mariyappanpalya, about two kilometres away. For a one-day cyclist, this was a pilgrimage.

I pleaded with my father for permission. He said I needed more practice before touching the main roads. But I argued that if I waited till next Sunday, all the excitement would leak out like air from a punctured tyre. Reluctantly, he agreed, with detailed instructions on when to walk with the cycle and when not to trust my overconfidence. I nodded to everything without hearing anything.

The Downhill of Doom: Devaiah Park to Harishchandra Ghat

I pedalled off proudly, until I met the mighty slope at Devaiah Park leading down towards Harishchandra Ghat. This slope deserves its own chapter in geography textbooks.

The moment I hit it, the cycle took control.

I pressed the brakes.  The brakes… didn’t care.

I remembered Appa’s golden rule:  “Never use only the front brake, you’ll somersault.”

My interpretation as a one-day cyclist?  “Don’t use the front brake at all.”

So down I flew, powered purely by gravity and panic. At that precise life-flashing moment, my grandmother’s divine road-crossing mantra floated into my head:

“Eshwaro Rakshito.”

She used to chant it and cross roads without checking left or right. I chanted it with the devotion of someone who wasn’t sure if God was taking calls on Sundays.

Miraculously, it worked. The slope eased, the cycle slowed, and I reached flat land without becoming a cautionary tale.

The Dhoti Disaster at Mariyappanpalya

A little later, I entered the lanes near Hari’s home. That’s when destiny placed a man, around 50, dhoti folded up, fully unsuspecting, directly in my path.

My brakes, still recovering from the Himalayan descent, refused to participate in this emergency.

Before I could react, my front wheel slid neatly between the man’s legs and through his dhoti, with the precision of a circus act choreographed by Chaos himself.

The man rose on his toes in sheer shock, half Bharatanatyam, half electrocuted flamingo. When the cycle frame brushed him, he spun around prepared to scold, slap, confront, and question humanity.

Then he saw me.

A tiny boy, hanging in Kathri style, pedalling purely on hope and confusion.

His anger melted instantly. He muttered a few scoldings, but mostly to recover from the trauma of discovering unexpected front-wheel activity between his legs.

A Friend, Some Coffee, and a Lesson in Braking

I finally reached Hari’s home and narrated everything, from slope to dhoti, still trembling with leftover adrenaline. His mother rewarded me with perfect filter coffee. His father examined the cycle, tightened every bolt that dated back to independence, oiled the brakes, and restored their faith in work ethic.

Hari delivered a lecture on how to use brakes properly, because all friends believe they are experts when they’ve been cycling for a week longer than you.

It’s been decades, but I still remember the slope, the fear, the prayer, and the expression of the man who discovered that a cycle wheel has absolutely no respect for personal boundaries.

Growing up in Bangalore meant learning life skills the hard way, the funny way, and often the Kathri way. And each episode, painful as it was then, returns today as laughter.

Stories, not instructions. Experiences, not advice—medical or otherwise. Data, only what the internet quietly gathers anyway. Proceed with equal parts curiosity and common sense.