The Case Of The Injured Cycle
The kiddo was very upset, when she came back from her daily ritual of riding her 4 wheeled cycle, (2 main wheels and 2 supporters). Something was wrong and she was unable to pedal the bicycle. Her mother looked at me and assured her that we will get the cycle repaired as soon as possible.
But for some reason or the other we kept on postponing the cycle repair and almost every other day the kiddo reminded us of her injured cycle. Finally, she told me, “You just keep on telling me you will get my cycle repaired but you never do anything about it”.
I could not say anything, you see getting a kid’s cycle repaired is a minor task, but to find a cycle repair shop nowadays is not easy. We inquired at the showroom from where it was purchased; they were willing to repair it, after looking at it and with a promise to return it within a week. This basically meant that we will have to drive twice to the showroom. There were a hundred other reasons to not get the cycle repaired, as I totally forgot what riding a cycle means to a kid. We even thought of buying a new one, but the cost of a new cycle made us rethink.
Finally, I was able to find a rickety old shop in the back lanes of a market nearby, where a guy repairs cycle rickshaws and also cycles. But the challenge was how to reach him as the lane is not broad enough to take a car and park it and carrying an injured cycle (kiddos words not mine), is not easy.
Well long story short, I somehow managed to reach the rickety old shop on a Sunday morning only to find it to be closed. On some snooping around it was discovered that the guy has gone to his village for some marriage and will return after a week. I could not believe my ears and almost wanted to scream that how can this guy go out-of-town without informing father of a little girl whose cycle needs to be repaired!
Frustrated I, returned home only to see the upset face of our little one on learning that the cycle has not been repaired. She did not say anything having lost all hope that her cycle will be repaired. She just went back to the book she was reading, and did not even demand the mandatory chocolate tax.
I could not bear it anymore and decided to do something about it. So I kept some newspaper on the floor and switched on all lights in the room and started examining every moving part of the cycle to find out what the problem was. First I could not make out anything, but then I could identify a sound that looked like source of obstruction, and voila! There was a small screw stuck between the chain of the cycle obstructing the movement.
I carefully removed the nut freeing the movement and looked triumphantly at the little one who was looking at the whole circus I had assembled with all the never used tools we had at home. You should have seen the joy on her face, which was 10 times more than what she had when she got the cycle first time. She took one round in our living room, and for a change our cleanliness obsessed the head of the family (read mother of the kids), also just looked proudly at me. Once the kiddo had completed her round of the living room deftly avoiding the furniture, she came with a question, “But papa where did that nut came from to get stuck in the chain?”
“Hmm, let me see”, I said with the sincerity of an automobile engineer who has just restored the Rolls Royce of a princess. Well long story short, soon the former abode of the rogue nut was found below the seat of the cycle and it was quickly banished there for life with the help of a screw driver. With the seat firmly in place, the kiddo started taking the second round of the living room, though she missed the chair, she immediately hit the nerves of the cleanliness Nazi of the family, and we were ordered immediately to march… err.., I mean cycle to the garden in the building.
Both of us immediately obliged. You should have heard the kiddo telling everybody in the garden from the watchman, to the gardener, to some of the mommy’s and daddies and uncles and aunties and anybody else within earshot, that her dad even knows how to repair a cycle. An open-ended invitation was given to everybody to get their cycles repaired by her father, whenever their cycle stopped working.
I guess I have an alternate career in case I fail as a writer. What do you guys say?
Sasha and Prasad Np are proud parents of 2 girls whom they fondly call Princess and Pinkette. He wears many hats after taking a break from being corner office critter for a long time. He is now an entrepreneur, blogger, photographer, traveler and a potential investor in start-ups with unique concepts especially if they are in travel related business. He blogs at Desi Traveler, and can be reached at Facebook and Twitter.