Bike to work

I was reminded of Biker’s Heaven, a recently opened Ciclo Cafe in Chennai. It’s the first bicycle cafe, where you can sit over a cup of coffee and watch your bicycle have a scrub bath. You can hire a bike on rent and take a ride around the town. In our cities, cycle riders are not credited for their least inconvenient and pollution-free mode of transport (Kaffeeklatsch). I remember, around 1950, my father went from Amritsar all the way to Delhi to buy a new Raleigh bicycle, Made in England, for a princely sum of a little over ?300! Another instance: decades ago, when I went to a library in Stockholm, the librarian told me even the King of Sweden came there on a bicycle. So why can’t we ride a bike to work? 

— LJS Panesar. Amritsar 

II

Cycling in India and Punjab is picking up. The Bathinda Cycling Group (BCG), headed by eye surgeon, Dr Amrit Sethi, has promoted cycling for over three years. The BCG has more than 150 members. There are many doctors in the group. We can see more and more persons on cycles in Bathinda and surrounding areas like Rampura Phool, Bhucho Mandi, Giddarbaha, Mansa. 

— Jagpal Singh via email

Bezwada Wilson

Persons engaged in manual scavenging are still called ‘bhangis’ (‘Warrior of the gutter class’). There has been some improvement insofar as the handling of the work is concerned, but the stigma of being an ‘outcast’ persists owing to caste prejudices. Efforts made by persons like Bezwada Wilson will go a long way in instilling a sense of dignity in the clean-up job. 

— Prem Nath Gupta, Sangrur 

Chandigarh’s villages

The common man or a villager always pays the price for creating mega marvels such as new cities (‘Chandigarh: The revenant’). Forced displacement results in cultural chaos besides a loss of land primarily meant for agriculture. Displacement devoid of a lack of concern for the ousted can cause unprecedented social tension. In India land is under constant population pressure, so, land acquisition must be done in a legal, humane and more sensitive manner. 

— Sameer Pruthi, Sirsa

Loving it!

One of the fallouts of cross-cultural marriages is the vanishing belief in matching horoscopes and delaying a marriage of ‘mangliks’. Social media has played a big role in removing these boundaries, thus making the whole world a small village. The important thing in a marriage remains the same: love for each other and mutual understanding.

— Ravinder Kwatra, Shahabad Markanda

II

Traditional matrimonial alliances involve families and their consent. Complications in such relations are natural, but these are often overcome by either couples themselves or through elders’ intervention. In today’s world of social media, couples can have the facility of pre-marriage understanding. Love is finding a whole new meaning. 

— Raj Kumar Kapoor, Roopnagar 

Crime & politics

The recent incidents of intimidation and criminal conduct attributed to Akali leaders should come as a warning for SAD as Punjab goes to the polls in a few months (‘It’s time for SAD to look within’). There is widespread perception that the party’s young generation has forced the older one on the fringe, as is evident from the contrasting styles of functioning of CM Badal and his son, the Dy.CM, Sukhbir Badal. 

— LJ Singh. Amritsar

Email your letters n Readers are invited to send their feedback to sundayletters@tribunemail.com The mail should not exceed 150 words.