The Suprise Day With My Bicycle  Chaitanyamoi Chetia   © Copyright 2023 by Chaitanyamoi Chetia

Photo by Md Mahdi on Unsplash

“Hello! Your bicycle is looking amazing today with a green cover in the saddle,” a senior boy in the locality said to me.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“You are looking great today with your bicycle!” a woman acquainted with me said.

“Thank you,” I said and bicycled along the curved alleys and passageways. Sometimes, I let my bicycle stand inside the boundary of our house, and sometimes inside our garage.

I walked to the garage and touched my bicycle, after that I did my routine task. Now it was my summer vacation, and I had been enjoying the vacation, riding my bicycle along the roads, flying kites in the field, eating gulab jamuns and taking cold beverages in the hotels and entering home in the evening after sunset.

My love for the bicycle developed in me from the day l learnt to ride. Most of the time I rode along the intricate alleys of the tea estates, and in the field behind my home. Sometimes, I would accelerate the speed of the bicycle in the alleys of the tea gardens and I enjoyed that the most; when I would see a tractor carrying green tea leaves in the same lane heading towards the same direction, I accelerated the speed of the bicycle and would leave the tractor behind. After that, I clasped one hand tightly in the grip of the handlebar, and lifted the other hand up in the sky, and that gave me great pleasure.

Riding the bicycle in the countryside helped me to know some new things that I did not get the chance to know before. I saw most of the houses in the countryside had a pond in the front, some houses had mango trees in the boundaries of the houses. I saw some boys were sitting in a circular way under the shade of a mango tree and they were tasting the sliced mangoes among themselves in the banana leaves. The women in the villages had cut the mangoes in slices and letting them dry in the sunshine to prepare pickles. I came home and said all these things about the drying of the mangoes under the sunshine by the women of the villages to my mother.

Bicycling on the alleys made my body sweat in the heat, my hairs became disordered and my clothes became wet with perspiration.

“Reaching home I shall take my bath,” I wondered while bicycling along the alleys. On the way I saw a tall coconut tree bending towards a pond with a bunch of coconut fruits, and the long green leaves of the coconut trees had been spreading on the pond.

Riding a little more, I came across the primary health centre with innumerable quarters in it encircled by tall walls and gates. It was a big compound where senior doctors as well as junior doctors and nurses stayed in their respective quarters.

The compound had a playing ground, as well as a table tennis board for the doctors to play during the recreation time. The last time I came to the primary health centre was when I fell down from the bicycle and bruised the fingers of my right hand and the knee of my right leg and blood oozed out from the skin. I was immediately given first aid as soon as I arrived at the health centre; a nurse had put cotton in a dressing surgical scissor, after that the nurse dipped the cotton in a liquid and dressed the wound with precision and care. Rubbing the cotton in my skin was so painful that I shouted out at that moment. I rested in a chair there for a while, and after that I returned home riding the bicycle; this time while riding I could feel the pain in my knee and fingers. Entering home, I parked my bicycle in the garage and sat quietly in my chair. I made up my mind that I would never ride my bicycle in great speed and I would never overtake cars in the street.

The accident happened while I was riding the bicycle in the street where buses and cars moved all the time. While I tried to over take a vehicle with my bicycle, suddenly a scooty from the opposite direction came towards me. I pulled the brakes with both hands; the bicycle stopped immediately, subsequently my body was jumped over; I fell down, I rolled on the road bruising my knee and my fingers. I stood up with the bicycle and rode immediately towards the primary health centre.

The doctors at the health centre were friendly with me and they adored me as well. I frequently saw the doctors walking along the road crossing my home; the junior doctors often told me to come to their quarters in the afternoon to play table tennis with them.

The doctors often chatted with me when I came across one other on the way. “Why did you not come yesterday to play table tennis?” a young doctor of the primary health centre asked me as he saw me rubbing the rim of the bicycle.

“I shall come, uncle,” I said with a smile, and I again started dusting my bicycle.

I dusted the bicycle with a cloth and rubbed the innumerable spokes and the rims, and parked the bicycle in the garage behind the car. I made up my mind that after some time I would ride my cycle in the large green field in the backyard. The car garage was near the front door of my home; whenever I came out of my home I stood in the verandah and gave a glance to the garage; and I perked the bicycle always behind the car. In comparison to the car, the bicycle was shorter in length and dwarf in height. The car in the garage completely concealed the bicycle.

That afternoon the sky was covered with clouds. I went to the field in the backyard and rode the bicycle. Gradually the sky became darker and heavy downpour came; all the boys playing there deserted the field immediately and the boys who were flying kites, winded the threads of the kites, lowered them and departed. A herd of cows and goats were grazing in the field afar, the cows mooed and the goats bleated and left the field. A crow was in a electric post, it chirped and flew away as the rainfall gradually became heavier.

There were a colony of houses there; the women of the houses clasped the clothes that were hung in the ropes outside and hurriedly moved with the clothes inside. I laughed with my friends, played in the field and cracked jokes with them during the leisure hours.

“Go home, it is raining heavily!” a woman of my mother’s age near the field said to me. As if the sound was not audible to me, the woman again shouted at the top of her voice, “Go home, or you will be completely drenched,” and saying thus, she hurried inside home with the clothes in her hands.

At last, I left the field and came home. Arriving home I changed my wet attires, and soaked my body and neck with a towel. “What a bad luck! The rain came suddenly,” I said.

I sat on a chair in the verandah and looked up in the sky to know when the rain would be abandoned. This time I craned my neck to the garage and was astonished to see that the bicycle was not there.

“Oh, I didn’t bring my bicycle with me!” I said in despair and immediately sprinted towards the field. As I reached the field I saw nothing there; the field was deserted. Rain water had been dripping from the hair to my eyes, and my entire body from hands to feet had been wet in rain. I saw nothing in the field, only the green grasses in the field were shining with rain drops.

“What happened to my bicycle?” I shouted, and ran everywhere in despair. “Where did I park my bicycle?” I cried.

I sprinted to a house in the field nearby, and knocked at the door in confusion; there was silence; no one came out. At this, I again knocked at the door, and my body was completely wet. Rain was still falling; and the whole field became watery. “Aunty, aunty,” I again knocked at the door for the third time with my fist; this time a little harder. After a few moment, an aged woman came out.

“What happened?” the woman said, “and why have you come in this heavy rain. I am having a sound sleep and you knocked the door so heavily that I woke up.”

“Did I park my bicycle at your house?”

“You haven’t come to our house today. What happened to your bicycle?”

“My bicycle is missing, I forgot to take it from the field,” I said, and came out of the house.

This time, I went to the next house, and knocked at the door in the same way in great confusion. The senior boy opened the door and came to the verandah and said, “What’s up?”

“Have I parked my bicycle here?”

“You have not come to our house today,” he replied.

I went to the other house and questioned the same thing and I got the same answer. I became muddled with many thoughts and became restless. I repeatedly walked in the wet field, moving my neck to the right, to the left and again backward, and looked at the gates of the houses, to the electric posts and every where. I saw nothing, and heavy rains had still been falling. Afterwards, I went home in despondency; my inability to find my bicycle became a centre of discussion among all the people of the houses whom I had visited; and they started gossiping about my bicycle.

“I took the bicycle from the garage and rode it to the field. Who must have taken my bicycle!” I wondered and walked to the garage to see thoroughly.

I was surprised to see that the bicycle was parked in a slanting position and was hidden by the car. I touched the bicycle with both my hands and patted the saddle, and caught the grips of the handle.

A bicycle had two rims, and the tyres in the rims carried me everywhere; and like a foolish boy I ran everywhere on feet and searched the bicycle here and there. Of all the things I had received as presents, this was my best present so far, and it was in the garage. I smiled walking around the bicycle that the car in the garage could conceal my bicycle in that way; I took a deep sigh and smiled in ecstasy; and that moment gave me the highest joy ever.