A Beginner’s Guide To Cycling

In this article you will learn how to choose the right bike and accessories for maximum riding comfort and pleasure. To read my previous article, 'The Innocence Of Cycling', click HERE.

The cost of a decent bike

Certainly, a bike costs much less than a golf club membership. Swinging at golf balls will burn perhaps a hundred calories per session, and hurt your wrists and the back.

By contrast, a bike will make you burn nearly 700 calories per hour, get you to places, and greatly improve cardiovascular fitness. Cycling also beats pumping-iron at a gym to gain muscle mass.

A branded bike’s well-matched components will last much longer than unbranded cheap junk. Forget about bikes that cost $100 (Rs 15,000 in Pakistan). To know what I mean, read my article 'Refurbishing An Old Bicycle'.

The starting point is Rs 80,000 for a branded mountain bike (MTB), and Rs 120,000 for a road (‘race’) bike. Better bikes cost between three and twenty-five Lacs (only).

Over a dozen top brands dominate the global market. In Pakistan, Giant (Taiwan), and Bianchi (Italy) are available.

You might come across other brands but these ‘second-hand’ options are not recommend mainly because the any damaged or worn out parts will require repairs or costly replacement.

Availability of quality parts is an issue in Pakistan. Unless you personally know the previous owner or can thoroughly get the bike mechanically checked, DO NOT waste money on used machines.

Alternatively, you could borrow or rent a bike, try it out for a few rides, and then buy the best possible bike with as much money as you would spend on acquiring the latest ‘smart’ i-phone (‘i’ is for idiot)?

Right attitude, wrong bike

Years ago, browsing through bicycle magazines I would marvel at young riders having off-road fun in the dirt. I thought if they could do it, I too could.

I resisted buying a road bike during several trips to China and Europe, and ended up buying a mountain bike (MTB) which I rode on non-mountainous terrain.

Much later, in 2019, out of several top brands I purchased a Bianchi road bike. This Italian brand, being the world’s oldest manufacturer, has dominated the market since 1885. In retrospect, I should have bought a road bike much earlier.

Bop till you drop

Gym, jogging, swimming, cycling?

Jogging in middle age stresses the knees and hip joints.

When a friend died after having a cardiac arrest on a treadmill, I told my treadmill-brethren who usually poked fun at cycling, “At least my bike gets me to places; your treadmills get you nowhere!”

The gym-types need to understand that pumping iron in gyms rob you of two things: fresh air and vitamin-D. By contrast, both of these you will get for free and in abundance while cycling.

Dog-work at the gym

Swimming is problematic because of water contamination and COVID fears. Golf is for old folks, ex-servicemen, and desperate social-climbers. For more on golf, read my other two articles:

As The Crow Flies

Refurbishing An Old Bike

So, stop being a sad grownup, cycle to strengthen the lower body, and delay or prevent expensive hip or knee surgeries in old age. As a reward, Mother Earth will thank you for leaving zero CO2 footprint in her environment.

Meet my MTB

Mountain bikes come in three kinds of frames (there are actually several other variations too):

Rigid: without any shock absorbers, just like a normal street bike

Hard-tail: with a shock absorber only on the front wheel to dampen lighter jolts

Dual suspension: with shock absorbers on both wheels to dampen bigger jolts on rough terrain

During a visit to the humungous Giant showroom in China in 2003, I felt like a child in bicycle heaven. This Taiwanese brand remains the world’s top manufacturer.

Rigid

Looking at the road bikes with low handlebars and skinny tyres, I felt that riding one might turn me into a hunchback of the Notre Dame variety. I tried an MTB whose relaxed geometry felt better. A knowledgeable English-speaking wide-eyed Chinese salesgirl helped narrow down the unbelievable choices, and happily I paid for a Giant C-Rock 1 model.

This ‘dual-susser’ (dual suspension) came equipped with Shimano Alivio group-set, meaning, three sprockets on the front (at the pedal cranks’ position), and eight cogs on the rear wheel’s hub. The 3x8 configuration meant I had 24 gears to cater to varying riding conditions.

Hard-tail

All through my childhood I rode a fixie, meaning, a bike with only one gear. Suddenly having 24 on my MTB seemed like overkill, considering a car’s five gears. Soon I would get used to selecting gear combinations to generate decent pedalling power.

Out of China, I paid nothing extra as air freight charges, and the nice Pakistan Customs levied no duties on my purchase.

The bike’s assembly was DIY (do-it-yourself). After adjusting the handlebar, installing the pedals onto the cranks, and pumping up the tyres I hit the road.

Dual suspension mountain bike

Timings and places

The friends I asked to join me for cycling considered it ‘very dangerous’ because their mothers or the wives said so. Finding no manly company, I decided to soar alone like an eagle.

In the beginning, I rode close to home usually during late afternoons. When short distances and the sameness of scenery began to bore me, I switched to early morning rides. From 15 kilometres, I progressed to 25 and finally 32 per session.

Cycling enhanced my road sense, opened the eyes wider, improved the hearing, broadened the peripheral vision, greatly improved the metabolic system, had me eating healthy and drinking plenty of water, sleeping early, and rising before daybreak. It was goodbye to a sedentary lifestyle.

Triple chain-ring (front)

Company on the road

During the morning rides, the roads belonged to me, no pollution, no traffic mess, not even traffic lights would stop me.

Strange fans sometimes suddenly appeared during the rides. The poor, with their rickety bikes, were the silent admirers. When I sped past them, some attempted to chase after me but when I changed to high gear, they just could not compete. Their poorly-maintained machines and the drag-inducing apparel (shalwar qameez) always took a toll on power output and efficiency.

Motorbike riders or rickshaw drivers sometimes rode along, asked about my bike’s price, and then sped away. The ladies just looked on, and the school-going children giggled; perhaps they all dreamed of cycling.

Cogs (rear) 

Sometimes I ran into professional cycling teams of various government departments. To them I was a mountain-biker in his mid-40s, riding on paved roads while attired in apparel appropriate for road cycling. I would reach home by 7:30 a.m., by which time the school rush-hour hit its peak.

Until a decade ago, I mostly saw on the roads, poorer folks on ordinary bicycles. After 2017, recreational or fitness-oriented cycling in Lahore took off, and several clubs appeared on the scene to cater to different age groups and riding styles.

Helmet and gloves

All thinking heads require serious protection.

The first accessory I bought was a Bell helmet and which gave me greater confidence on the road.

Tyres

When the time came to accessorise and customise the bike, I replaced the original knobby 2.35-inch wide Kenda tyres on my 26-inch rims because these required considerable effort to pedal over paved roads.

I chose narrower 2-inch wide Geox tyres which sported plainer treads, produced less rolling resistance, and helped me ride faster to greater distances with much less fatigue.

Improving the wardrobe

Even if one is not a professional, it does not hurt to look so.

Increasing passion made me invest in padded shorts to protect the family jewels, a team-jersey that had three rear pockets for storing eatables, and a pair of summer gloves.

Pedals and shoes

The stock pedals of my MTB had plastic toe-covers on one side which allowed me to place the toes properly for firmer pedalling. Their plain reverse side was suitable for use with sneakers.

Pedals with toe-clips

There was more to pedalling then just moving the legs in circular motion. The next great improvement was buying Wellgo WPD-95B pedals.

The clipless side of these heavier diecast alum catered to special cycling shoes, while the reverse side was designed for ordinary foot wear.

Next, I bought Shimano’s MTB shoes which used 98A (SPD type) metal cleats under the soles. These kept them locked over the pedals in a perfect position so that while pedalling hard my feet did not slip off. This allowed maximum power transfer from the ball of each foot, and increased pedalling efficiency. I was catching up with science.

Special clipless pedals

There was one minor drawback in cycling with special shoes locked into such pedals: to unlock my feet I had to move the heels outwards. This required some practise, which meant experiencing a fall or two. The most memorable one was at a traffic light where I failed to disengage and fell sideways.

I waited for a worried damsel to rescue this knight in distress but nobody appeared exclaiming, “Hai Allah! Aap ko choat to nahi lagi?” (Oh, God! Hope you haven’t hurt yourself?). For some moments I remained an amusing sight for the male onlookers.

Cycling shoes with cleats

Cycling computer

The next upgrade became an essential training tool: Cateye Astrale-8 cycling computer.

This wired system came with two magnetic sensors: one I affixed to the inside of the left pedal crank to read the cadence (revolutions per minute of pedalling), and the other to one of the spokes of the front wheel to generate speed data. The 2”x2” screen also displayed distance covered, total distance, average speed, and ride time.

Cycling computer

Gear-wise, I usually used the largest front ring (42-tooth) with either the second smallest (13-tooth) or the third smallest (15-tooth) rear sprocket. It took time to understand how various combinations of front and rear gears worked.

Soon I stopped being a speedy Gonsalves distance-freak to concentrate on maintaining more efficient cadences (pedalling revolutions per minute).

I also discovered that professional road cyclists tended to maintain higher cadences because pedalling at a cadence of 60 was less efficient than going at 80. Faster pedalling also burned more fat and caused less muscle stress and damage.

With machine-like efficiency I went about cycling for up to ninety minutes with no breaks. Back then I started on an empty stomach, and took along only a 500 ml water bottle to quench thirst on the road. Years later I would correct these serious nutrition-related mistakes for improved performance.

Headlight

Head and taillights

Because sometimes I rode in the evenings, I invested in a Cateye headlight to light up the road, and a Smart safety taillight to warn traffic in the rear.

Puncture-repair kit

Safety taillight

Every cyclist gets tyre flats. Soon after I got my first one, I put together a repair kit that contained patches, adhesive, sandpaper, and tyre levers. It was not easy in the beginning but I learnt to repair punctures during rides. The most memorable one happened on Gulberg’s Ali Zeb Road (named after the famous acting film couple: Mohammad Ali and Zeba).

Pumps and pouch

Make-up kit

Initially, I only used a hand-pump to inflate the tyres at home but later purchased a floor-pump. A small pouch attached to the seat-post made it easier to carry the puncture kit, the hand pump and the cell-phone.

Other types of bikes

Apart from an MTB, you have other types of bike choices:

Road bikes: light-weight, built for speed and endurance

Road bike

Gravel bikes: with features borrowed from both road and MTB bikes for mixed terrain riding

Hybrid or fitness bikes: frame geometry that suits riding in the city

Cruiser bikes: for sandy terrain

Hybrid e-bike

E-bikes: with battery-assisted power for reasonably fast speeds. These are still quite expensive and neither environmentally-friendly nor maintenance-free.

My advice is: DO NOT succumb to expensive trends but rather save money by remaining traditional and mechanical. These days the bicycle manufacturers are forcing down several expensive choices down consumers’ throats; these are listed below:

Disc brakes

Traditional rim brakes use inexpensive rubber pads, and work beautifully under most conditions. Disc brakes are more efficient on downhills but are heavier and costlier.

Fat bike

Hydraulic brakes

With these the price and maintenance hassles go up. You will either have to learn to service them yourself or pay regular visits to a mechanic.
Click HERE for a comparison of mechanical versus hydraulic brakes.

‘Intelligent’ gear-shifting

Caliper brakes

If you are too lazy to even change gears, this bit of technology will decide which front gear will work best with which rear one. Wireless Blue Tooth will move both the gears and the brakes without mechanical wires.

To read more about this technology, click HERE

Let us now look at basic bike maintenance.

Assembly

Disc brakes

New bikes come 90% pre-assembled; the remaining 10% work—as I have already mentioned—is DIY. A bike provides years of trouble-free service if you keep it clean and lubricated.

Never go for bike repairs to a shoddy mechanic; instead prefer an able mechanic for jobs that you cannot handle yourself.

If you are a DIY handyman, invest in a few essential bike tools. God bless YouTube instructional videos; you too can become a decent repairperson if you do not mind dirtying the hands.

Grace under pressure

Schrader valve

Modern MTB tubes use Schrader (or American) valves which are the same as those found on cars. This means, you may visit the nearest tyre shop and use its air-system for inflation. However, road bikes use Presta valves which require a different pump nozzle.

Check the sidewalls of your tyres and note the minimum and maximum pressures in p.s.i (pounds per square inch) or bars (1 bar is 14.7 p.s.i).

Instead of pinching a tyre to check for inflation, buy a floor-pump with a built-in pressure gauge, and nozzles for Schrader and Presta valves.

Presta valve

Do not maintain equal pressure in both the tyres because about 60% of your body weight is on the rear wheel, with only 40% up front.

Neither fill the tyres to their minimum pressures nor to the maximum. Too much air pressure will make the bike feel jumpy with less road grip; too little pressure will slow you down and cause punctures.

Find the right pressures that suit your body weight, riding style, terrain and weather conditions. Check your tyres for proper inflation at least twice a week if you ride regularly.

Chain reaction

A bicycle’s chain has hundreds of moving parts, and these require regular de-greasing and oiling.A dirty dry chain will not only wear out fast, it will also shorten the life of other components being driven by it.

To obtain maximum pedalling power, DO NOT use grease or automobile engine oils to lubricate the chain. Instead buy special chain oils, de-greaser fluids, and a chain-cleaning tool for quality maintenance.

Hand pump

Brakes and gears

For rim brakes, keep the rims clean. For discs, keep the rotors spotless. Both types must be properly adjusted for free play, and their pads kept dirt-free.

Stopping in most situations will only require a mild application of the front brake. Since most of your weight is on the rear wheel, applying the rear brake will only wear it down faster but not slow you down faster. For sudden stops, apply both brakes together, giving more weightage to the front one.

Words of caution

The manufacturers are clever; they want cyclists to part with serious cash for gizmos that usually add more weight to the bike which wastes cycling power.

Chains

Having unnecessary electronics and Blue Tooth onboard causes distractions, increase maintenance, and seldom do little to increase riding pleasure.

Speaking of distractions, DO NOT take or make phone calls or read text messages while cycling. Tune your ears to the environment by NOT wearing earbuds. If you must listen to music, do it elsewhere.

DO NOT be tempted by ‘lighter’ carbon bike frames as these pretty things are expensive. While steel or aluminium frames can be repaired, if you ever crash a carbon bike, its hairline cracks will be impossible to mend. Aluminium frames remain the cheapest and the best choice for frames.

Chain-cleaning tool

Select a machine suitable for your body and riding style. Do your own research or ask a knowledgeable cyclist. Allocate a budget of at least 10%-20% of the bike’s cost for a helmet, clothing, tools, and other items.

Now what?

Well, put that silly cell-phone away, and get on a bicycle. Good luck with the rides.

Read my other related articles on cycling:

1. Refurbishing An Old Bicycle
2. The Innocence Of Cycling

© Tahir Gul Hasan, 2021

The Innocence Of Cycling

If you are considering taking up the extremely healthy activity of cycling, please carry on reading. For posterity’s sake, I shall start with reminiscing about cycling during my childhood. In the next article, I shall advise you on how to make correct technical choices in order to enjoy safe cycling.

Pre-historic times

My pre-kindergarten memories remain those of a colourful tricycle, and then a four-wheeled metal car that moved when I pushed two pedals under my feet. Both were made out of metal, as was the manufacturing norm in those days.

My parents dutifully purchased both of these items from Nila Gumbad—the bicycle market  outside Lahore’s Anarkali Bazar. 

I do not recall if my younger sister ever fought to pedal any of these beauties. I was happy to see her comb her dolls’ hairs, and she felt elated watching me crash the baby-car into various pieces of furniture, thus expending excess boy-energy.

I was born with a bronze spoon in my mouth, meaning, the parents exercised firm control over money. This quickly taught me to save in order to buy the objects of fetish and desire. My bank was always a clay money-box (ghalla) that I purchased from a potter (kumhaar) in Mozang bazar. Nobody I knew called them ‘piggy-banks’.

Although the age of unbreakable plastic was upon us, it was far more exhilarating to break open a clay money-box. Overcome by great ideas of self-financing certain plans, I spent many an afternoon counting coins if not counting crows. Somehow, the counting always stopped short of the desired target of a hundred rupees—the equivalent of ten thousand rupees today.

Seeing the shortfall, mother handed over the metallic treasure to father who opened his home-office cupboard, and magically turned the change into a crisp hundred-rupee ‘Qaid-e-Azam’ (slang for a hundred-rupee note because it sported the face of Pakistan’s founding father, Mr. Jinnah).

The boyish curiosity led me to discover that father trusted a dead Irish playwright with his stash of cash; the money was kept under lock and key, hidden behind ‘The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde’. Father was, therefore, not a magician but a maestro who made honest hard work look like child’s play.

Life, 1960s style

Pakistan’s bicycle manufacturing industry was at its peak back then, and produced BECO, Sohrab, Rustam and Eagle brands. Bicycles far outnumbered motorcycles in Lahore. People were healthier because they covered on foot considerable distances each day. That meant greater wear and tear on shoes and hence more cobblers around street corners.

At my school’s bicycle stand behind the canteen, it was hard to ignore hundreds of bicycles that both the students and the teachers used. My father too walked briskly between home and the High Court. As children we gladly used our legs, tongas or rickshaws for commuting; never throwing tantrums for a family car.

The decision to buy my first bicycle was sudden. It took the proceeds of two clay money-boxes to finance the purchase. The excitement was sky high; I was only eleven years old at the time.

At a shop in Nila Gumbad, my eyes ignored the dull black and the shocking red colours; instead I chose an olive-green 18-inch Sohrab. It cost Rs 250 which was enough money to take care of a year’s school-recess snacks, namely, two samosas and a bottle of Coca Cola worth one rupee.

Since so many decades, this samosa-Coke yardstick has helped me determine money’s value and inflation. Another very useful yardstick is the price of petrol in 1972, which was Rs 4.5 per gallon, or Rs 1 per litre. Fifty years later we are paying a hundred times that price. Now work out the inflation per annum.

First love

Taking my eyes off the new bike was impossible; she came fully clothed in protective corrugated paper covering. I brought the beauty into the bedroom and stood her on the rear-wheel stand. Intoxicated by the smell of rubber and painted metal, I let her stay right beside the bed to help me sleep better.

The next day, the neighbourhood boys dropped by to ogle at my shining Sohrab.

I normally cycled within the locality’s confines but when parents were oblivious, ventured to the nearby Regal Chowk to either snack on a plate of Aslam’s dahi-bhallay or Khan’s samosas and aloo ki tikki. The latter were fried in fragrant mustard oil which lent them great taste. We were several decades away from consuming obesity-inducing junk cooking oils such as palm, sunflower or Canola.

Cycling was a male-dominated activity, and only in posher localities did young girls pedal but with much less confidence and always within certain geographical limits.

Second love

The bike was a metal slave that served me well. Each year I raised the seat-post by an inch, and when it reached the limit after three years, the frame felt quite small. I again chose an olive-green beauty, a taller 22-inch Sohrab , whose twin top-tubes lent greater strength to the frame.

By this time, we had our first car: a 1300 c.c. model 1971 Ford Escort. It cost Rs 18,500. It was bluish-green in colour, and whenever the body got scratched or dented, the paint-shop technician at Ali Automobiles on The Mall found it quite difficult to recreate the precise hue.To give you an idea of how much value a Pakistani rupee carried, my paternal aunt (phopho) purchased a made-in-Japan Toyota Corona in 1968 for Rs 12,000. Today, a bicycle would cost more.

In the mid-1970s, I secured a scholarship to study at Government College (Lahore). The faithful Sohrab, having served the purpose, suddenly felt odd. Whereas previously I could walk to the school, traversing greater distance to a place of higher learning required a quicker means of transportation. Bus travel was troublesome, the family car was mostly under father’s use, and there was peer pressure to buy a motorcycle.

The bike mistry

Two bicycle mechanics worked nearby; their real names escape my memory. Only one lingered on for many years; he was simply known as mistry jee. Come rain or shine, he earned his living under the shade of a peepal tree located next to the gate of our lane 3 on Temple Road.

For more details, read these articles:

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part-1)

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part-2))

Attired in a loin-cloth (dhoti), he wiped off facial sweat with the lower portion of his oil-stained shirt (qameez). To clearly indicate what business he was into, he displayed a worn bicycle tyre high on the peepal tree-trunk. With tools scattered on the ground and fingernails permanently filled with the dirt of eons of hard labour, he consumed his afternoon meals with those very hands.

His open-air workshop remained low-tech but extremely useful to all the cyclists. Mistry jee fixed whatever needed fixing on my bike sometimes using bare hands much like a hammer. Whenever someone’s bike ball bearings were found worn out and required replacement, he announced in Punjabi: Aeday kuttay fail ho gaye nay (literally, the dogs have failed). What he meant was the bearings had failed. Nobody questioned why the slang for ball bearings was dogs.

Employing child labour never was a problem in Pakistan. How else could the poor eat? Mistry jee had an amazing young assistant (‘chota’) who pumped air into peoples’ tyres for free. The child being very short for the large-sized floor-pump, pulled up the handle and then jumped into the air to bring the stomach’s weight down on it. The more air he filled the better he could fill his poor stomach.

Right after finishing college, I was fortunate enough to secure a very respectable and well-paying job that required I move out from Lahore (the 'cultural centre of Pakistan’) to characterless Islamabad (the Federal capital).

Whenever I visited my parents, old mistry jee greeted me at the lane’s entrance with a smile that was fast becoming toothless. He was always glad to hear I was flying high in life. Towards the end of his hard life, mistry jee’s eyesight became cataract-ridden. Forever etched in memory shall remain his dark glasses, looking at things from a very close range, and working even harder as if time was running out.

Now I fix my own bicycles at home. Sometimes when I face a problem, I imagine old mistry jee standing right beside. He always lends free invisible guidance.

The scene

As boys we went all over Lahore without ever feeling deprived or unhappy. I did not ride to school because it was at stone-throw distance. The bike only came in handy when I visited friends at the Upper Mall Road or the G.O.R. Sneaking out on a family car was considered punishable defiance by all fathers but a show of great courage by peers.

The citizens back then had plenty of regard and fear for the traffic police; the sergeants rode powerful Harley Davidson motorcycles. The tonga-walas displayed side lights on their horse-carriages and cyclists too used headlights while riding at night.

To emerge as a law-abiding citizen, initially I invested in a Chinese battery-operated headlight. The cheapest cells came from a brand called Chanda—the costlier one being 5-Stars.

Watch the Chanda TV commercial HERE.

I added to the handlebar an imported chromed Japanese bell whose lovely ring still echoes in my mind. Then came a set of better head and tail lights. These were dynamo-operated. The faster I rode, the brighter the lights became. To see how it all worked, click HERE.

Cycling games

One could not be sad while riding a bicycle. Those who could not afford to own bicycles or needed them for only short periods, came to mistry jee for rentals at eight annas (half a rupee or fifty paisas) per hour. Poorer children, whenever they had spare change, always rented adult-size bicycles. The very young who could not ride properly seated, did the qainchi. I cannot explain the novel technique in words even if I tried; it is best to watch THIS VIDEO.

Then there were some who raced worn-out tyres and dreamed of owning bikes. Watch THIS VIDEO to see how that was done.

To prove useful about the house, I occasionally fetched grocery items from the nearby Saffanwala Chowk or bread from Beadon Road. The plain (sada) bread cost eight annas and the ‘milky’ one only ten annas.

Although riding aimlessly remained the main activity within the narrow confines of our lane, there was one game which we boys regularly played: ‘slip’. This is how it went.

Imagine yourself merrily pedalling away when suddenly another cyclist blocks the path. His manoeuvre seems to be working to your disadvantage because there is no place to escape. Both the obstructer and you slow down to almost a standstill. You balance the bikes while seated but force one another to put at least one foot on the ground. If you can pedal to escape or outdo the opponent in a standstill, you win.

The ‘slip’ taught the boys how to deal with surprise attacks, and achieve greater balance later in life.

A close call

One Sunday morning I dared to pedal to aunty Maria’s place in far-away Cantonment (chaoni). Although luxurious bungalows now stand on this road, in those days there stood an army Mess and a row of barrack-like living quarters for junior officers. Aunty Maria, my mother’s youngest sister, was married to Lieutenant Sajjad Hussain of the Army’s Ordinance Corps.

Double-decker buses plied The Mall in those days. The ones marked ‘1 - R.A Bazar’ ran between the Lower Mall and the Royal Artillery bazar. Courting adventure, I cycled towards Saddar bazar. While making a careless U-turn I was hit by a slowly moving double-decker. I was airborne for a few seconds; such was the deadly push from the bus’s front bumper. The angry driver flung a Punjabi insult at me that I failed to comprehend.

I pedalled back so fast to aunty Maria’s place onlookers thought I had stolen the bike. Out of breath, I narrated the entire episode, with special emphasis placed on, “But what did the driver mean when he said——?”

She did not explain but hugged me hard with a loud laughter. ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) had not yet been invented.

The situation today

For the next few decades, I kept improving my road sense in the hope that my fellow countrymen too would emerge as the most disciplined race on the face of the earth. How much ‘unity, faith and discipline’ we possess after seventy-three years of so-called independence is evident from our chaotic vehicular traffic.

These days I cycle for fitness and in the early mornings. I do encounter motorcyclists who openly violate the rules, recklessly ride on the wrong sides of the roads, sometimes head straight at me, and habitually turn abruptly without indicating. I think we are wasting huge sums of money on marking driving lanes on the roads. It will be better not to have roads but rather large patches of paved surfaces to do as we please.

Despair not; despite all the odds, cycling is great fun if you know your limitations, care for obvious health benefits, and wish for the happiness of childhood days to return.

Do listen to this classic pop song by Queen from 1978: Bicycle Race

Stay tuned for the next article: A Beginner’s Guide To Cycling.

- - to be concluded - -

Also read my other articles on cycling:

1. Refurbishing An Old Bicycle
2. A Beginner's Guide To Cycling

© Tahir Gul Hasan, 2021

Puppu Darling Of 3 Temple Road (Part 2)

What you read in part-1 of this story was only half of what Puppu did. He did much more, as we shall soon see. Before proceeding further, some amazing facts require mentioning about Temple Road where our house has stood since the 1930s.

An historic road

Temple Road was named thus to honour a Sikh Gurdwara built in the memory of the sixth Guru, Har Gobind (1595-1644), whose reign, known as the ‘Gurdwara Chhati Badshahi’ (the sixth reign), lasted for thirty-seven years.

When Emperor Jahangir (1569-1627) arrested Guru Har Gobind’s father, Guru Arjan, Mian Mir—the Sufi friend of the Guru—lobbied for a royal pardon, whereas ultra-orthodox Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi cheered at the execution of ‘infidel Arjan’. In the years to come, the son would fight four wars against the ‘oppressive tyrannical foreign rule of the Mughals’.

Until recently, the above facts remained unknown to me, and when I complained to my mother for keeping mum, she replied in an exceedingly relaxed tone, “Haw-hai. You never asked me!”

There is no denying, we Pakistanis take great pride in memorising exaggerated romanticised tales about invading foreigner Muslim Generals yet suffer from collective amnesia at the mention of indigenous heroes of resistance who belonged to other faiths.

This is Radio Pakistan

Mr Chaudhry Bashir Ahmed and family lived two flats away from us in number four. The gent worked for Radio Pakistan, popularly known as raydway station. I feared one day Mr Bashir would place a skinny hand over my shoulder and soberly announce: This is Radio Pakistan. The sad news read by Bashir Ahmed.

Mr Bashir had just stepped out for some fresh air that day when Puppu took to imitating Radio Pakistan’s famous newscaster, Shakeel Ahmed, whose legendary news bulletin, broadcast during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, went thus:

“Abhi abhi khabar aee hay keh Pak Fizaya kay bambaar tayyaron nay Halwara kay hawai-adday par hamla kar kay dushman kay bohat say jahaaz tabah kar diaye…”

(The news just received: Pakistan Air Force’s bomber aircraft attacked Halwara airfield and destroyed many airplanes of the enemy…”)

To hear what Shakeel Ahmed sounded like, click HERE.

I cannot say with certainty if it was Puppu's loud public singing or this particular prank which made Mr. Bashir ignore his natural vocal talent by never arranging for an audition at Radio Pakistan.

Mr Bashir’s three sons never associated with the ‘riff raff’—in plain words: all the boys of our lane 3. One of his sons, Farrukh Bashir, was known as Chutki (finger snap). He received seven-years of sitar lessons from Ustad Sharif Khan Poonchwaley and eventually became a producer at Pakistan Television Corporation.

Several decades later on 11 March 2008, terrorists launched a massive suicide attack on the Federal Investigation Agency’s office located on Temple Road. Mr. Bashir was at home when the deadly shock-wave caused a door-frame to fall over him; within weeks the head injury brought his life’s bulletin to a sad end.

Where art thou, Ejaz?

There lived a few docile boys on lane 3 but one named Ejaz took the proverbial cake. His drill-sergeant daddy suspected the precious boy habitually escaped to the jungle outside, and to check on the whereabouts, he frequently yelled, “Ejaaaaz!”

No matter what the location, the dutiful son immediately responded with an equally loud and reassuring, “Aaya jeeee!” (coming).

Puppu soon began to take special delight in copying the two hollers. Whenever Ejaz walked by, Puppu called, “Ejaz!”, and the omnipresent boy-chorus of lane 3 responded, “Aaya jee!”.

Giggles naturally followed but Ejaz never reacted to what was life’s observable fact.

Many years later I found Ejaz in Jeddah working as a ground staff member for the Saudi Arabian Airlines. Whenever we met, he tried to convince me with a vice-like handshake that yesterday’s pussycat was a macho-man.

Ramzani drummers and postmen

Although Muslims generally relied on mechanical alarm clocks to wake up early for fasting during the month of fasting (Ramadan), drum-beaters made the scene more musical for the faithful.

Puppu could not outdo the drummers because they arrived at a time when both man and beast enjoyed deep sleep. We never found out if Puppu got up to please The Almighty with fasting or preferred chasing after pretty film heroines in dreamland.

Each drummer marked an area in whose streets he played a large drum (dhol), and repeatedly paused to give loud pious calls: “Roza-daaro, utho, roza rakho” (O, those who will fast, wake up for fasting).

Fasting entitled believers to religiously exceed their bellies' natural capacity by speedily consuming oily parathas dipped in gravy dishes. The activity abruptly ended when a nearby mosque's mullah announced from a loudspeaker: “Khaana peena band kar dein. Namaz ka waqt ho gaya haaaay!” (Stop eating and drinking. It’s time now for prayers).

Soon afterwards, a deafening call for congregational prayers woke up the very young from deep slumber. My mother thought the sound level was ‘enough to wake up the dead in the nearby Miani Sahib graveyard’.

Shell-shocked by the call, children woke up to enquire from sehri-fatigued mothers, “Bhaoo aya?” (Has a djinn arrived?).

They were told, “Nahin! Allah Mian kehtay hein so jao!” (No! God says, go to sleep).

The festive Eid day arrived at the end of Ramadan to thank God for liberating starved stomachs. After the morning Eid prayers, the first to appear in the neighbourhood would be the drummers. Looking fresh and attired in brand new clothes, they collected cash gifts (Eidy) from those whom they had dutifully roused for thirty consecutive early mornings.

A few days before Eid, the postmen astutely indulged in postal blackmail by not delivering letters. On Eid day they arrived wearing patent khaki uniforms and upon receiving cash Eidy, respectfully handed over a letter or an Eid-card as if it had dropped from heaven that very moment.

 
The transgender dancers

Puppu was an advanced amateur singer who laughed off all competition except the professional dancing transvestites known as khusraas, heejraas, and Khawaja-saras. They magically appeared at people’s doorsteps in small groups to dance and sing on festive occasions, such as, the birth of a child—especially that of a son.

Boys who dared to insult faced vile curses which oozed from a khusra's mouth. Hearing swear words sometimes sounded better than music. The lads eventually discovered that the ‘Ph.D,’ label assigned to them by the oppressed was not the abbreviated form of 'doctors of philosophy' but rather pakkay haraam day (Punjabi for: positively born out of wedlock).

To provide musical accompaniment, the two-piece band of the eunuch khusraas used a battered harmonium and a punch-packed dholak. They clapped more boldly than qawwali-singers, danced more wildly than mad dervishes, stomped the feet harder than soldiers to activate the musical brass anklets (ghungroo), and sang popular songs at a volume which silenced the ‘hello, testing, 1-2-3-4’ of the nearby Hall Road’s loudspeaker vendors.

Living in a ‘trans’ world

At 6 p.m., a giant called black-and-white television woke up to hypnotise the colourful population. Before regular transmission commenced, viewers were free to stare at the static insignia of the station to find meanings where there were none, and listen to a short non-raga melody which droned in the background for several minutes.

Much like a book read from cover to cover, viewers stared at the television from 6 p.m. until the ‘brain programming’ ended at 10 p.m. when the Pakistani flag fluttered on the screen to the tune of the national anthem. Pondering over its incomprehensible Persian lyrics worked better than a sleeping pill.

Unbelievable as it may seem now, there was no television on Mondays but we had live transgender-vision that featured khusras in flashy makeup.

During short performances the onlookers showered the dancers with bank notes which they efficiently stuffed inside pairs of pointed chest-mounted money-bags.

Compared with adult eyesight, children always see things differently. Precocious boys noticed that the members of the third gender frequently adjusted something under their dupattas; that something was liberally-padded fake femininity inside pointed brassieres that were fashionable during the 1960s. Since today’s fashionistas are—ooh la-la—so concerned about global-warming, terrorism, and pandemics, this pointed fashion stands no chance of returning.

Those were my wonder years. A naughty aunty described a brassiere thus: “Beta, these pointed fabric bowls are sown together; one is for salan (gravy) and the other for roti (bread).

Such sensitive information increased my appetite and put me off regular dinner plates until the truth behind the undergarment lay itself utterly bare.

The bored housewives of our lane always carved out time for khusra-shows. My mother still fondly recalls, “Oh, how joyously the khusraas danced at your birth! Even several years after that event, the same dancers continued to appear at our doorstep to bless you!”

Today I feel positively blessed by not only both the sexes but also the one that lies in between, and which appears to be benefiting from global mainstreaming efforts.

Mrs Davey takes a direct hit

In 1969, the movie, ‘Nai Laila, Naya Majnoon’, was showing at the Plaza cinema hall across the Charing Cross police station on Queen’s Road. The heroine was Nasima Khan from Dhaka—then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The comic hero was Syed Kamal—perceived as ‘Pakistan’s 'Raj Kapoor’.

For this film, a Pakistani composer efficiently copied Muhammad Rafi’s song ‘O Hasina Zulfon Wali Jane-e-Jahan’ (Teesri Manzil, 1966) and turned it into a duet: ‘O Meri Mehbooba’. Puppu meticulously copied the parts of Ahmed Rushdi and Mala Begum, and sang for our listening pleasure.

One beautiful Sunday morning Puppu sneaked out on uncle Ajji’s 1961 model Vespa 150 (VBA). This Italian 150 cc scooter was immensely popular in those days because its front design guarded the legs, a flat area between the rider and the handlebar accommodated a child in standing position, a small compartment stored personal items, and a spare tyre on some models graced the rear of the passenger seat.

I was then in class-IV. On a fateful day my teacher, Mrs Davey, affectionately known as ‘moti mem’ (fat lady), was seen returning after having attended the Sunday service at the grand church of St. Anthony's High School on Lawrence Road.

From a distance, I heard Puppu singing ‘Tu Hay Laila Nai, Main Hoon Majnoon Naya’, a hit from ‘Nai Laila, Naya Majnoon’. As he passed by, the head moving from side to side, he changed the vocal radio station to the duet ‘O Meri Mehbooba’.

The translation of the male singer’s part:

O my beloved!
Tell me, what has happened?
From garden to garden, like a butterfly
Where do you fly off to?

The translation of the female singer’s part:

What shall I tell you has happened?
My heart is lost
Is it you?
Who has stolen my heart?

It was too late to warn Puppu. Oblivious of pedestrian traffic, he crashed into Mrs Davey’s hindquarters. The lady, built like a Sherman tank, did not fall but Puppu and the scooter did.

The singing suddenly stopped. The Vespa’s accelerator revved up as Puppu tried to maintain a grip over it. The engine produced a wheeeeeooonn sound and fainted after several mechanical hiccups. The rider lay flat on the back in the dust of the unpaved road of our locality (mohalla), and the dark sunglasses rested diagonally across over a face that had the potential to launch a few civil Vespas if not a thousand non-existent ships of Pakistan Navy.

Mrs Davey understood all the Urdu that had until then oozed out of Puppu’s very Punjabi mouth. She was nobody’s imaginary beloved (mehbooba) but there was reason to believe she imagined herself a butterfly (titli).

Red in the face and foaming liberally at the mouth, she shouted, “You loafer chokra-loge, don’t you bloomin’ see where the hell you’re goin’?”

Chokra is colloquial for boy, and loge for folks. Such words coming out of an Anglo-Indian mouth took on a derogatory meaning. Nobody called a decent boy from a good family chokra.

Puppu apologised profusely. The 45-rpm record (tawa) of his tongue got stuck, “Auntie! Aa…aa…auntie…aa…aa…auntieeee!”

“Shut up! Idiot!” she thundered like the heroine in the song that Puppu was singing a while ago.

With the sunglasses now hanging from one ear, Puppu got up to dust his clothes and then, perhaps out of sheer innocence, did the same to Mrs Davey’s rear end.

“Bugger off, you rascal! Don’t you bloody do that!” she screamed.

Clayton, Mrs Davey’s eldest and wildest son, having heard the clamour rushed to rescue mummy in distress; he sounded like another stuck record, “Mummy…mum…mum…mummeeee!”

The aunteeee-mumeeee duel ended in a quick draw after Clayton took pity on Puppu’s apologetic face that was by then redder than a ripe tomato.

It was rumoured Mrs Davey complained to Puppu’s father and uncle Ajji. In the weeks that followed, our singing sensation suffered a ban imposed on aimless Vespa rides, and demotion to the rank of foot soldier (paidal march).

A hero without a heroine

Puppu was a hopeless romantic at heart, in love with God knows who. None claimed to have seen him broadcast ballads for a beloved perched over a terrace. He teased none of the neighbourhood ‘sisters’, stayed away from every precocious maid-servant (nokarani), and never stooped to having a sweeperess (chuhri, jama-daarni, bhangan) cure his aching back.

Puppu sang because he was a nightingale, a rare rose without thorns. These qualities endeared him to the members of the fairer gender who understood he was not a threat to modesty or chastity.

Sometimes when my jovial mother saw the crooner pass by the window with a hit song on his lips, she enquired, “Puppu darling, where is your puppy?”

Interestingly, there lived two sisters in the house next doors, Puppy and Nanni. They were just beginning to take classical dance lessons. Years later they joined Pakistan International Airlines as airhostesses.

On a serious note, my disciplinarian father saw Puppu as a leader of all loafers ('lofaron ka sardaar')—a title gladly bestowed upon the undesirables those population he suspected was rising rapidly.

Fade to black

Several decades later I met with Puppu’s real puppy. His wife and children were at the funeral of Mirza sahib’s son, Shah Jahan, who lost the battle of life to cancer.

Old neighbours had by then mostly moved to foreign lands to take oaths of allegiance to faithfully serve other governments. Shah Jahan’s younger brother, naughty Raja, was a British national.

Puppu’s family lived in some corner of Lahore where our singing sensation met a quiet end. It remains a deep regret that I was unable to pay my last respects to a man who filled with so much music the hearts of the entire population of Temple Road’s lane 3.

The gloomy atmosphere at Shahjahan’s funeral did not prevent old neighbours from talking about bygone times and characters. Puppu’s children were clueless about what their deceased father meant to the old neighbours, and thought I was joking when I narrated several funny episodes from his life. It was this meeting which prompted me to write about Puppu for posterity.

Viva Puppu!

By today’s elitist standards, my childhood might seem strange and deprived but it was culturally super-rich. Life today in the DHAs and the Bahria Towns of Pakistan is quite dull. The moneyed children of generation-X live in sanitised ‘gated communities’ and like farm-chickens, seldom experience rough-and-tough desi life.

Today's affluent ladies prefer going shopping with armed guards in humungous vehicles. The teenaged sons of rich daddies drive expensive sports cars or ride noisy super-bikes that cost millions of rupees each. None wait or save to buy anything because everything is available on-line or on credit.

Courtesy of Puppu and other daredevils, I experienced the swinging 1960s under liberal laboratory conditions which produced street-smart children with naughty genes. Within the walled city of Lahore, you will still find such youngsters.

Religious texts indicate that God Almighty possesses hosts of angels who sing His non-stop praises. Puppu is resting right now but I am sure he will one day be gainfully employed in heaven to make only holy joyful noise.

An urban dictionary defines puppu as someone who is ‘typically mean, smells bad and looks funny’. The Puppu I knew was nothing of the kind. If you looked at different human races living in so many lands, each will have its own version of a darling Puppu who might be living just around the corner.

- - concluded - -

© Tahir Gul Hasan, 2020

To enjoy part-1 of this story, click HERE.