Years ago, when mopeds, scooters, and cars were new to Coimbatore and only the rich could afford to buy them, it is worth recalling a youth, who parodied the fuel-run vehicles by displaying a Tamil phrase ‘Manitha Sakthi’ (Manpower) painted bold on his bicycle’s chain guard.
Coimbatore: Despite financial difficulties in the family, the father, who is the sole breadwinner, bought his school-going daughter a new bicycle. But the impractical man had little chance to doubt that his valuable present to her would soon go neglected, as it stood idle for months from the day it had a flat tyre. And whenever the girl’s mother instructed her to get it set right, the latter, who was a class X student then, evaded the advice, citing her ‘busy’ academic schedule.
But the irritated woman would shout at her husband: “Instead of purchasing this damned bicycle, you would rather have bought me a small gold ring or a pair of ear studs. It would have been useful at least for pawning at times of financial difficultyâ€
With schools of the present-day competing with one another to convert students into ‘mark scoring machines, it is sad that the learners, held by the stress of completing their homework, find little time even to have a bicycle ride in their evenings.
But a father, who is in his early forties, can tell the present generation how cycling was once an integral part of his life, as he regularly rode it to school, park, cinema, and shop for a number of years. Worried at the pitiable state of the present-day students, he doubts whether the modern generation would lead a disease-free life by missing the opportunity of pedaling bicycles in their youth.
Years ago, when mopeds, scooters, and cars were new to Coimbatore and only the rich could afford to buy them, it is worth recalling a youth, who parodied the fuel-run vehicles by displaying a Tamil phrase ‘Manitha Sakthi’ (Manpower) painted bold on his bicycle’s chain guard.
Also, it would be funny to come across a scene in the MGR blockbuster Malaikallan. The movie, which was made in Coimbatore by the Pakshiraja Studios, portrays even a police inspector pedaling his bicycle in search of the notorious dacoit on a night with its dynamo-generated light burning!
On days, when students find little time for cycling, they learn yoga at school to keep them ‘fit’. On the other hand, their parents wonder why they, in their student days, had hardly heard about such ‘strange’ exercises, involving different bends and twists of the body!
Debi Prasad Chattopadyaya, an eminent Marxist philosopher, in his book Lokayata, informs that the early form of yoga was practised only by primitive magicians. He traces the roots of yoga thus: “The primitive magician l of breath, abstinence, withdrawal, self-torture, and narcotics. These did induce morbid nervous and cerebral exaltation and sometimes even a cataleptic rigidity and insensibility. The original purpose behind these was to bring nature under control and not to affect any hypothetical ‘communion with the spirit world’
But the irritated woman would shout at her husband: “Instead of purchasing this damned bicycle, you would rather have bought me a small gold ring or a pair of ear studs. It would have been useful at least for pawning at times of financial difficultyâ€
With schools of the present-day competing with one another to convert students into ‘mark scoring machines, it is sad that the learners, held by the stress of completing their homework, find little time even to have a bicycle ride in their evenings.
But a father, who is in his early forties, can tell the present generation how cycling was once an integral part of his life, as he regularly rode it to school, park, cinema, and shop for a number of years. Worried at the pitiable state of the present-day students, he doubts whether the modern generation would lead a disease-free life by missing the opportunity of pedaling bicycles in their youth.
Years ago, when mopeds, scooters, and cars were new to Coimbatore and only the rich could afford to buy them, it is worth recalling a youth, who parodied the fuel-run vehicles by displaying a Tamil phrase ‘Manitha Sakthi’ (Manpower) painted bold on his bicycle’s chain guard.
Also, it would be funny to come across a scene in the MGR blockbuster Malaikallan. The movie, which was made in Coimbatore by the Pakshiraja Studios, portrays even a police inspector pedaling his bicycle in search of the notorious dacoit on a night with its dynamo-generated light burning!
On days, when students find little time for cycling, they learn yoga at school to keep them ‘fit’. On the other hand, their parents wonder why they, in their student days, had hardly heard about such ‘strange’ exercises, involving different bends and twists of the body!
Debi Prasad Chattopadyaya, an eminent Marxist philosopher, in his book Lokayata, informs that the early form of yoga was practised only by primitive magicians. He traces the roots of yoga thus: “The primitive magician l of breath, abstinence, withdrawal, self-torture, and narcotics. These did induce morbid nervous and cerebral exaltation and sometimes even a cataleptic rigidity and insensibility. The original purpose behind these was to bring nature under control and not to affect any hypothetical ‘communion with the spirit world’