The Biking family - IX (By Mark Bradshaw)

Aparna and her sisters along with their families landed at Ram's house as invited. All of them were gracefully dressed and had bought a few gifts for the hosts. Sanjay and Seetha were a childless couple. Ram and his wife lead a simple life. As they entered their house, they were enthusiastically welcomed by their adopted family. The couples and their children paid respects to the elders by prostrating in front of them seeking their blessings. Even though they were revolutionary, they respected the time honoured traditions of honouring the elders. It was their firm belief that modernity is also respecting our most sacred of traditions. They felt that when they visit elders, they should dress appropriately. After all, no one goes to a temple wearing shorts.

The elders blessed them and asked them to be seated. Since they were relatively less well to do, they had just a charpoy where the visitors usually get seated. However, the couples felt equally comfortable sitting on the floor and did so. Ram was visibly happy at Aparna and her sisters accepting their invitation. Ram's wife was around 60 years old. Once they settled into their hosts' home, the most obvious of questions were asked. They were asked, how come you ladies from a village based families managed to learn motorcycling. This was a question that theywere asked atleast 100 times. Rani smiled and said, it was just that our mother didn't want to accept status quo. Lot of people kept saying that women cannot ride bikes. She sought to challenge that and learnt it by herself and eventually taught us. After all, decades back, people would frown at women driving cars. Does anybody look at women driving around these days? When not many women went to college or worked in the early 50s, we had brave old women of those days do that. These days80% of the medical college students are women. Nobody even considers it strange. Likewise, this will also pass. On them beng saree clad while driving, Anjali mentioned the comedy movie in the early 90s when an actor disguised as a woman rode a bullet wearing a saree. If a man can do it, we can do it better. The folks burst out laughing at that explanation. We figured that if we can adjust the way we wear our saree, we can ride even the biggest of bikes. Eventually, we got used to it. 

Food was served. There was so much love in the preparation, even the most luxurious food couldn't have tasted better. The couples learnt that they were from a farming community and they made their living tilling the fields. Most of the food they made was grown in their own fields. Untypical of many farming families in those days they had only two children whereas Ram's siblings had atleast 3. Envying the fact that lots of wealth will be split between just two children, his siblings distanced themselves from Ram. One day, his daughter fell ill and was bedridden. He was in the farm and Ram's wife was attending to her. Sanjay was barely 3 years old then. Ram's wife cried for help. At that crucial juncture, his relatives ditched him and did not help. She had to take the girl by a bullock cart to the nearest doctor pleading for help. However, it was too late. The child died a painful death. Upset with the attitude of his siblings, he just wrote off all his wealth for his siblings. After all, this wealth cannot save lives.  A small portion of it was sold to another farmer and they moved over to the place where they live right now. Sanjay grew up without knowing what it is to have a sister. He grew up to study at a local college. He graduated with distinction and ended up marrying Seetha who was his college junior. Anjali, Rani and Aparna couldn't bear hearing this sad story. They started sobbing heavily. To them it was unimaginable as to how heartless people can be towards such a beautiful girl child. They just fell on Ram's lap and cried even more. The hubbies who are normally composed broke down and couldn't imagine this. Having a baby girl himself, Raja just imagined how it would be were it to be Bindu. He almost fainted. Losing a child because of greed was unthinkable. A girl child is a bundle of joy.

Anjali said, why do you have to worry about your lost daughter uncle? We are here for you always. We are your own. Just think that you have got a bonus of two more daughters. As Ram was saying this, his wife couldn't bear with it. Those unpleasant memories of that tragic event resurfaced after 32 years. Aparna just wiped her tears and said, "Don't worry amma. We are all here for you." The very sound of Amma coming from a girl evoked her daughter's memories for Ram's wife. She reminisced about how her baby girl would crawl around her feet hanging on to her saree and cheerfully said Amma. Rani said, we keep hearing about it in movies but to come across it in real life is horrifying. The sorrow dissipated slowly. The couples had bought a Dhoti and shirt for Sanjay. They also bought a salwar kameez for Seetha. They asked Seetha  aand Sanjay to wear them right away. They both came back after changing clothes. Rani just hugged and kissed him and asked  Sanjay to treat them as his own. Sanjay was slightly elder to Rani and a few years younger than Aparna. 

As time passed, they were ready to drop off Ragav at his college hostel. Sanjay asked Ragav to visit his second home as often as possible to which he agreed. The hubbies wanted to see Ram's agricultural fields. As always, the ladies took over the saddle of the bikes. Anjali rode the CBZ with Ragav as pillion. Rani stayed back to help Amma. Aparna kickstarted the bullet. She asked Seetha to be her pillion. En-route Anjali asked if Ragav had any girlfriends. Since Ragav and Anjali were just 10 years apart, they treated each other like friends rather than an aunt nephew relationship. Ragav blushed and said nothing. Seetha just admired Aparna's bullet riding skills. She hasn't seen even men riding it so well. To see a saree clad girl riding it was a wonder for her. Since Seetha wore the salwar  kameez, she didn't sit side saddle. She lightly held on to Aparna. It was a 50 km ride from their home to the hostel. Upon landing at the hostel, a few friends of Ragav were looking at the bikes and their riders. They were unaware that Ragav's mom and aunts rode heavy bikes. When Ragav was just unloading his luggage and trying to enter his room. His friends came over and said. "Boss, you didn't tell me you had girlfriends" .  Ragav couldn't control his laughter. He just managed and decided to play a trick. He went back downstairs and winked at the ladies. He introduced Anjali as his girlfriend.

The boys fell for the trap and got introduced one by one. The ladies just played along. Aparna said, she is a neighbour of his and a very good friend. So friendly that she can travel a distance of over 300 km to drop off his luggage. Seetha was watching all this fun unfold from the sidelines.  This went on for over 15 minutes. Eventually, they revealed their actual identities. The boys were scratching their heads in embarassment. One of them got the courage to say Aunty you look great in your bullet. I would like to get trained in biking by you. Aparna said, she will do it if he comes over to her home. 

The ladies kept laughing at it for sometime. Aparna rode back in her bull. Anjali took Seetha as pillion and returned to Ram's home. It was around 5:30 pm when they returned.