I Kissed A Girl In My Class by Abhilash Gaur Page B

the carrier
and bell didn’t descend from the loft but were merely picked out of
pigeonholes that lined the shop’s walls like a postal sorting
office. Once the mechanic put on Manu’s job had everything he
needed, tools included, he sat down on his haunches and started
work, which involved a lot of greasing and inserting balls into
places that Manu never knew existed.
    Assembling a cycle
must be a tedious job for the workmen who make several of them in a
day, but for Manu it was pure fascination. The gleaming new rims
turned into wheels before his eyes as dozens of spokes went into
both wheels and passed through the cycle’s thin axles. Every spoke
had to be tightened with a little round key that twirled swiftly in
the mechanic’s trained fingers. Then both wheels had to be checked
for balance and shaky movement. More balls, more grease. The handle
went into the frame, and so did the front fork. Oh, there were so
many of these little pieces to be fitted to complete the jigsaw
puzzle that’s a bicycle. Brakes and brake shoes, saddle rod and
saddle, pedal hub and pedal shafts, and then the pedals themselves.
It’s unfair that cycle mechanics don’t get any respect when they
are really quite talented craftsmen.
    When everything
was ready, the bell had been rung, the brakes tested for grip,
every remaining bit of plastic and paper wrapping torn, and the
grease stains polished off, the tyres were inflated hard with a
hose attached to a compressor. It was the only compressor at a
cycle shop in those days between sectors 29 and 22, and air pumped
into tyres with it was regarded as something special, although many
a tyre and tube had been destroyed with over-inflation at novice
hands.
    Manu took a test
ride around the shopping block. It would take some practise to get
used to the new seating position and the bigger frame, and the
cycle would feel lighter after a few days of running in. All that
Manu understood, so he grinned from ear to ear, and even executed a
skid in the corridor, getting a frown from Papa.
    Papa paid exactly
Rs 1,000 for the cycle, and it was a goodly sum those days. He
wanted a sturdy lock on the cycle but Manu protested it would spoil
the look of a sports bike, so they settled on a cable lock that
could be secured around the rear wheel.
    Back home, the
cycle got the kind of reception that cars get these days. Ma came
downstairs to see it and hear about all its outstanding
characteristics. Manu wanted to carry it upstairs at night, “since
it is new” but Ma and Papa shot down the idea. He was hours away
from turning 12, and the cycle added to his excitement. That night,
Manu slept fitfully and was up first in the morning. It was raining
(it always did on his birthday) so he could not take it out for a
spin, but he cleaned it with a damp cloth nonetheless.
    ***

25. Birthday
Boy
    The Mach-1’s
small mudguards were no defence against the muck kicked up by its
wheels on a wet road, and that was the main reason why Manu’s
parents had been set against buying him a racing cycle. Now, as
Manu rode to school without a raincoat, the rear wheel sprayed a
straight line of brown mud on his white shirt and the front wheel
did the same to the inside leg of his blue trousers. That didn’t
matter because all the boys who rode racing bikes came to school
with similar stains.
    When Manu reached
school his friends teased him about the red vermilion mark on his
forehead (Ma insisted on doing puja in the morning on his
birthdays) but gathered enviously around his new bicycle. Everybody
wanted to ride it, and Manu let them do so with firm caveats. “No
speeding, no skidding. Don’t take it into the ground and don’t
stray from the straight road because I don’t want you to go out of
sight”. They did his bidding but still Manu felt uneasy all the
time the cycle was in their hands. Anyway, the cycle came back
undamaged, and after parking it the boys went straight to their
class.
    Manu did not like
the vermilion mark