Exhilarating Bicycle Ride!!

Well I am at Pune right now for attending a week long training on PMP – Project Management Professional. Pune is a place that I’m in love with. But this place just got better – thanks to the go-green initiative by Tata Comm.

I reached the excellent “Renaissance” campus last evening. I was really looking forward to this offsite training because this place is so scenic. With more than 300 acres of lush green property, this place reminds of the Textile Mills that Dad used to work in, exception remains that there are no fat-bellied “Guards” springing to attention every 10 meters, when they see Daddy Dearest!

So after quickly unpacking, I opened my “White Tiger” and had a blissful evening reading almost two chapters and even managed to have a half an hour nap. Imagine! On a nice cosy siesta on a Monday evening… man this place is surely heaven!! 

When I went down to the mess, as expected, all eyes (there were quite few of them really) glued to the Telly busy watching the stupid IPL CSK vs Pune Warriors. I mean how boring could people get? Isnt this what they do every single night? Why waste such a wonderful opportunity and watch the idiot box? Beats me every time…

And to top it , there was a nice open Badminton court and a lonely looking “TT” table, but as expected, no takers. My trip during my induction training last year was better. People did get out of their rooms and play like crazy, late into the night. And what was better was that it was a good opportunity to meet some future colleagues. But NO, not when the country is gripped in the IPL fever.

I almost dashed out of the depressing mess hall into the landscaped gardens and was immediately transformed into the lovely world of nature. I could smell the intoxicating scent of earth, the lawn must have been watered in the evening. The crickets were busy gossiping the night away, there was a light breeze. There were giant tress which were gracefully swinging… what a treat for my greenery starved eyes from the maddening Mumbai! 

And with due earnest, I had left my Ipod in the room, my phone was in the deepest part of my pockets, I was not going to waste such a treat. Just when I finished one round of the Renaissance building, I noticed some bikes (cycles) parked. There were so many of them. I just loitered around them and was thinking how long it had been since I had ridden one. Well I used to go to school on a cycle till 9^th standard, so easily, it must have been 12 years! Imagine! Just then I noticed that these cycles had no locks… wow… by heart started racing, I yanked the one nearest to me and surely, they all had “TCL <Number>” written on them. Whoa… I checked the tyres for air pressure (didn’t want to get blamed for flattening out the poor bikes with my weight) and picked a blue one.

Without thinking too much I just started pedalling, first five / six rotations were so tough, because as I later realized I had forgotten to take a push from the ground… but with a wobbly but confident start I went around the renaissance building once more. It was only when I was coming back to the stand that I realized that something was grazing the ground, incidentally the stand was broken… didn’t even realize that.

Changed the bike to a maroon beauty with a functional stand and left for the round of th e”Dighi” campus. And what a ride! I felt like I was on a vacation, taking bicycle rides just for the heck of it. As I went around the campus I saw    cycle stands at various places – ATM, Guest house, Go-down, NOC etc. So you are supposed to leave your cycle at the stand and pick out the one which is available on your way back! 

WOW… what an initiative, it was surely missing the last time around… and it has made commuting within the campus so much easier, otherwise the walk from the main gate to the NOC is easily 3 km! 

I loved the ride in the night, it was so serene and pretty, I am surely going to do more of that today, this cycle thing has really made this trip special. Never mind if the cycles are medium sized, impossible for me to stand and pedal over slopes. And ofcourse, Tata Comm rocks for being sensitive to the needs of the employees, and over exceeding expectations, every single time.

I’m loving this!

-         - Priya

P.S: I just remembered that I had cycled across the scenic Tioman Island in Malaysia… but that was a different country, different timezone, doesn’t count right? 12 years without riding a bike it is then!!