AN ELEGY WRITTEN ON A RALEIGH BICYCLE.

It was in 1975. I was L A C, that too, a senior Leading Aircraftsman, not a small rank. Monthly salary, Rs. 200/, food and accommodation free in A. Class city.

I was doing a Physiotherapy course in Command hospital Bangalore. At that time I had no cycle, the most luxurious vehicle, an airman can afford to possess, that too with formal permission to keep it in the billet. As you all know, U/T,(under training), means, many of your privileges which you enjoyed as a P..staff are curtailed. Discipline is tighter when you are reduced to U/T of any rank.

A corporal sab of the hospital had a brand new Raleigh cycle, the costliest cycle of those days. It was his pampered dream to be the owner of a branded full option Raleigh cycle. Usually, the definite minimum requirement of the airmen cycles was, two inflated wheels and a namesake break, if not sufficient both legs will serve the purpose of the break. But Cpl. sab,s glittering olive green Raleigh cycle had two bilateral mirrors, one full dynamo set with a headlight and back red light, necessary reflectors, handles, and adjacent parts adorned with beautifully embroidered rexine covering, mudguard flaps, and many other ornaments, a bicycle can maximum carry. A beautiful small statue of Sree Ganesh was fixed on the front mudguard. The pedals with beautiful covers gave the look of a Mercedes car break. It was altogether a showpiece. But after all, it was a bicycle.

It was the passion of the cpl.sab to wipe it every day with a soft linen, and keep looking at it for some time to appreciate in soliloquy, the shining cycle." It was an amusement for him. John Keats says, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". We. 'cycleless' also enjoyed his coming, riding that marvelous two-wheeler and sprouted out a desire to have one that kind at least for riding. Nobody expressed even a rare desire to borrow that royal vehicle for any purpose because everybody knew that he had loved it passionately and might not like

to share it.

I was in good relation with him. I also was very careful to maintain the relationship by not expressing my desire to ride that cycle. Days passed comfortably. Your life will never run smoothly always. Destiny can any time play cruel fun with you. One day I had to report to the Cambridge layout post office .l had some minutes only to reach the post office before it was closed. I did not tell this to this cpl.sab. But he came to know the problem from the conversation among our trainee friends. To my utter surprise, he offered his ever-loving Raleigh to me and said" Go and do your job". I thankfully declined the offer first, but the gravity of the problem necessitated to avail my test flying on that Raleigh. Probably, I might have been the first borrower of that cycle. I looked at the cycle and ensured twice that it was locked. Got the job done in twenty minutes and returned. To my dismay, Raleigh was not there!!. I had full faith in my memory of twenty-three years that I had kept the cycle there only. Still, I searched the whole compound, but not found. I came back with a heavy heart. Cpl sab would be waiting for me. You imagine the nature of turmoil at that time. I was prepared to face anything but I could not tolerate a strained relation with him. My other friends also came to know about the theft of the cycle. I knew that it would be great news in the hospital. Some times, some people have enviously thought this favorite item would be stolen once as it was very alluring. Someone, who was refused to borrow from the cpl sab, might have considered it poetic justice. But I could never think like that because I was helped without my request. That moral obligation bounded me. I told Cpl sab all that had happened. I was curiously watching his face for an explosion or a wild grimace. But he controlled all that storm blown within his mind. He told me, " Don't worry, we will report to Ulsoor police station." I reported the theft to the police station although I knew that nothing will work out because I saw someone thousand cycles lying unattended there. I searched all that, but Raleigh was not there.

The next day, I went to the Raleigh shop and gave the order for a new Raleigh cycle with a full option. They said the cost would be approximately Rs. 650/., my four months salary!. In the evening I called cpl sab and told a lie to come with me to the police station in an auto-rickshaw. We did not go to the police station, but to the cycle shop, where the new Raleigh was ready with full option. I knew each decoration of the former one. So, that knowledge simplified the problem of the rebirth of the new one.Cpl sab was astonished and expressed all his feelings of sorrow and gratitude with a loving hug!

I enquired about the stollen Raleigh queen in police station many time in six months with no result. Again after three years in 1978, when I came to CHAF, Bangalore, I went to the police station, not with the expectation of Raleigh, in its original appearance, but an emotional attachment with the Cpl, sab,,s ardently loved Raleigh queen. But,," eureka"! I identified the Raleigh only by the fixed small statue of Sree Ganesh, among 1000 rusted and deformed cycles, lost all its glamour, an immovable structure, rather a skeleton of that queen, resembling the wrecked Titanic 108 years ago in North Atlantic Ocean !!.