Gear5

Admist the noise of a dozen different engine sounds, I waited patiently at an important(and crowded) junction on J.M. road, Pune on a happening Saturday evening. I turned off the engine of my beloved old-model-CBZ(sadly out of production now.) The seconds counter below the red light read 93, yet half the engines were idling around, their owners wary of turning of their engines, never mind even the ones who had the enviable button start option. With nothing much to do, I looked around at my fellow road users. The rickshaw behind to my right was ferrying two pretty young things sporting cool T-shirts and hip jeans. One of them even wore shades (though I wonder why anyone would want those at 6:30 in the evening??) I checked if they were looking at me; they were not and even if they were, it wasn’t much use-they’d be gone in another 80 seconds. A quick glance around and I counted four couples perched closely on their bikes. The girls of course, like every other Pune girl had bundled their faces in Taliban-style scarves (They say it’s for the pollution. Really, not to ‘cover their faces’?). Plenty of cars idled at my right followed my a long line of cars I didn’t bother to study. The countdown reached 10. Napping engines awoke with a roar, rickshaw engines roared the loudest (hats off to their high treble engines). Clutch-Click-Gear1-Kickstart.Throttle.
As the signal turned a welcome green, I squeezed my way into every available inch, not allowing anyone the liberty of cutting me off. I’m a seasoned, rider on these city roads. I worked on the accelerator and clicked to gear 3, whizzing past Pizza Hut to my right and a crowded bus-stop to my left. I race past the 3 couples but could not beat the 4th fellow( have never come even close to beating a Karizma till date). Time to slow down as I see another red light glaring back. As I click into neutral and wait, I quickly watch new age nuclear families waiting outside McDonalds and a small groups of youngsters enjoying their quick-weekend-junk-fodder. The Crossword bookstore next door was also doing brisk business-I’m assuming there weren’t too many window shoppers browsing through books and CDs in there.
Another roar of engines (This time a bus peaked the decibel levels with its high- bass-grumble) and I got back to city-riding. Up the Garware bridge and onto a fully congested street. You will never want to be a pedestrian on this road ever, leave alone crossing, even walking on this road is not a safe exercise. I crawled past Champion sports on gear2-It’s one of the oldest and most reliable sports shops in Pune. Business is still run here the old Puneri way (Shop timings :10 am to 1 pm. 4 :30 pm to 8:30 pm. Mondays closed.). And yes, find your own innovative parking solution if you want to drop by for your sports gear please! I finally came to halt at Good Luck chowk( It’s named so after the Good Luck café to my left, the all time favorite of the old-time Punekars). From behind me a Piaggo’s engine tattered away and I found myself irritated by the noise, despite my helmet. Right ahead, I see a Honda Dio and a fit young lady, her face hidden beneath multiple layers of scarf of course. She was wearing low waist denims. Hey! Wait a second! What’s that? I see a partition. Just above the rim of her low waist denim. Ah, I get it now. They’re low butt jeans, must be the latest fashion. (It’s been three years since I’ve left college, I should have thought of that before). I look away, beyond the red signal. Diagonally across, was our very own Sagar Arcade, the ‘mall’ where you could buy ‘imported clothes’ and electronic goods. It once used to be a booming internet café hosting building- the entire first and second floors were let out for internet surfing and chating in 1998-99. From the second floor, a huge Career Launcher board seeked attention of onlookers. It’s the place where hundreds of students pay anything between 15k and 18k for CAT/GMAT/GRE and other ‘important’ examinations. I’m no different. I should’ve put all that time and money to good use and traveled across India by the now-efficient Indian Railways. To my left was Bhandarkar road which connected to Dilip Oaks-The GRE Coaching Destination and Status gym-where the famous Rocky Poonawala conducts Latin Dance classes.
Roar. I ‘ride’ into FC road- one of the most popular roads of Pune city. Cars parked on the leftmost lane, traffic on whatever was left. Click-Gear3-Cruise; I see valiant cyclists to my left. A little ahead I dodge brave-heart double seat cyclists. I see Vaishali hotel (the SPDP specialist) to my right where young ‘young girls’, young ‘young boys’ and families waiting for their turn to get inside and eat. FC road is always like this, bustling with activity, full of students eating, chatting, laughing and eying each other. Meanwhile, I better my own lowest speed of ‘feet still on the bike record’ and see IMS- another CAT training centre and Apache-the popular Pune pub. (Study hard, Booze harder you see. Beer is good for health, so cheers everybody!). If riding here is bad, parking is a horrid nightmare. Period. I move past Fergusson college to my left and the road decongests a little and – I crossed 35kmph for the first time in the last 20 minutes. Only to slow down and halt at Dnyaneshwar Paduka chowk. If you take a left you can reach Model colony, one of the older societies for rich Puneites. A right turn will take you to a humbler Modern college, my college and the WIE sports complex, the badminton/table-tennis coaching arena. (The Who’s Who of badminton visit the WIE sports complex every other month of the year).
I’m nearly at my wits end now. 156 cc, 12.5 bhp power going unutilized is unbearable. I open throttle. The countdown timer reads 3. Click- Gear1-Go. 2 more clicks. Weave, slide, glide-brake, naah I don’t collide, as I said earlier I’m a seasoned Pune rider. Click, click. 40 45 50 kmph. I slow down once under the flyover that runs across over head and takes traffic leftward to Aundh, Baner and Pashan and go into a divider-less stretch of a Shivajinagar street. I now feel like I’m riding a motorbike- the bike does feel like a CBZ. I’m going to use a subway and get onto the old Mumbai- Pune highway. Riding is much better there, you get enough free space to feed fuel through throttle. As I smile silently under my helmet I feel sane now- and why not? I’m in Gear 5- I AM, in my gear!