I cycled to KanyakumariSince Oct., 1954, When me and our family shifted to Kavadiar, Trivandrum (from Pilavila, east of Samiyarmadam - now in Kanyakumari Dist. of TN) and started living in Melevariam, (now Srikrishna lane, near Narmada complex) and began going to school, since Oct. 1955, I made every opportunity like school free days as well as the class breaks during Onam, Christmas and the big summer, to go back to Attoor (now in Kanyakumari dist.), where my maternal uncle, Danakattu Appukuttan Nair and family lived. I used stay with them for under a week.

The chief attraction was the book free days and as guest in a friendly atmosphere where all the time was playful and without any serious diversions. Secondly, that uncle’s house was full of kids and Chandran was roughly of my age and of the same wavelength. We paired ourselves very well during the day and night. We tripped together to the homes of relatives, went to bathe in the river at Chitharal, near our home in the Kuzhithura ar. Occassionally, bathed in the irrigation canal with a knee deep water right in front of the home.

There were four more kids like Soman, Krishnan Kutty, Syamala and Sakuntala in the house. Ammayi was a very affectionate woman. So my mom and dad were free of any complaint about my staying away in Attoor for some days. Generally, I took a bus on my own from Trivandrum and travelled to Attoor while uncle took me back by bus to our Melevariam home.

During one of the school breaks, while holidaying with the uncle’s home, one evening, we between me and Chandran caught up with an idea of going to Kanyakumari in a bicycle and secretly. We, at night and during daytime, developed different plans, rather proxy plans, for approval by ammayi, so that Uncle might quickly okay it. We were rather good and confident at bicycling by then. We had between us some money for the wayside expenses. What we did not tell the home was that our trip that we hatched is to Kanyakumari and not to Chaikod, about five kilometers of Attoor. We had a tacit approval for the trip anyway. I am not sure if uncle cleared the trip, but certainly Ammayi okayed.

We were obviously bubbling with joy and were waiting for the daybreak. The routines like some household chores, Chandran completed. We had the breakfast of only Kanji and theeyal. We took stomach full I suppose. Then in fact Uncle went out in the early morning itself. Ammayi informed Uncle that the boys would be going to Chaikod later in the day but not how. Uncle perhaps thought we would walk the trip

We, Chandran and me, politely and meekly got permission again from Ammayi for our trip. We went by foot to Attoor, hired two bicycles without any difficulty and started pedaling off to Kanyakumari instead of Chaikod. Attoor to Kanyakumari and back is well over 80 km. It was a tedious cycling trip. The route was Attoor-Veeyanur- Verukilampi-Azhakiyamandapam- Thuckaly-Nagarkovil-Kottar-Sucheendram-Kottaram-Kanyakumari. Pretty long ways undoubtedly. But the adolescent minds overcame each and every doubt. It is a daring or devilish mind at that age. Like I noted earlier we were at the same frequency. That did the trick.

By noon, we were past Nagarkovil and safely managed to touch down at Kanyakumari say may be close to 2 o clock in the AN. We saw the ocean, roof of the sanctum of temple and Gandhi Samadhi. We had a banana and cup of plain water to each of us. The made a U turn and pedaled back keeping the destination of Attoor in mind. We were indeed tired but the desire to get back to Attoor before uncle comes back home was on top of the agenda.

But we were totally oblivious of the people, though scarce, on the sides of our route. Some of the onlookers who knew uncle recognized us. As we were pedaling hard no one tried to stop us to figure out about the trip and destination. To our ill-luck, one or two passengers noted and noticed us and promptly relayed the news to uncle once they reached Attoor. We, chandran and me, never had this ever occurring in our mind. That was the catch of all. Luckily, the road trip was not very bad. In fact, the bicycles perfectly helped us with out any breakdown or snags. It was a safe trip. Due to excessive sweating we were shirtless, instead our shirts were secured around our waist – like wrongly placed scarfs. Cars were very few so were the buses. Trucks chiefly plied only after the sunset. We had no deflated tyre luckily during the trip. Otherwise we would have been caught up in the night and had no idea for ourselves to manage the cycling trip. In fact the cycles too did not have any headlamps.

Once we reached Attoor, we were very tired. We had no shirts on instead both of us rolled the shirt and wore it around our waist. Once we settled with the cycle shop, we were indeed happy for a split second, which vanished quickly, as uncle appeared before us as if from nowhere. He just asked me where did we go. The answer was a lie as I said we went to Chaikod.

He signaled us to home. We thought that we escaped the punishment for our clandestine trip. But we did not know what is waiting for us at

home. We committed a double crime -one is lying and other is an unsupervised bicycle ride or race to Kanyakumari - a clean 80 km distance both ways or 50 miles. We were only hardly 13 yr of age then.

We went home and had to face several questions from ammayi about where we went, what happened on our ways, what did we eat, why did we lie and so on. The final direction was to get a bath and then get ready to face the questioning and punishing by uncle. After bathing, we were quick to have a supper of fish curry and rice. Then between us we decided to curl up for a good night sleep. The other kids were questioning us and warning us about the beatings by uncle when he comes back home.

By about 8:30 or so in the evening uncle came back from Attoor. Once he stepped into the verandah of the house, he hailed for Chandran. Chnadran jumped from his bed and ran to uncle. The next shout was to me to go. The interrogation went for about 5 minutes in succession. I got a warning being a visiting guest, while Chandran got a good share of spanking with a warning not to repeat such trips anytime in future. For me the punishment amounted to taking me back to Kavadiar to my then home cutting short my stay with a friendly crowd.

I was reminded of this episode which lay at bottom of my heart, only when I read in a mail, about my grandson Darsan, a lad of say 11 yr riding his bicycle with his dad Hari, a clear 27 miles up and down from their home in Gainesville, Florida. I was probably couple more years older than Darsan, when along with Chandran, I took this Attoor-Kanyakumari and back bicycle ride. Well, for sure, we never ever did any such physically challenging bicycle rides.

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thrivikramji@gmail.com .