New Delhi: The humble cycle is once again in the news, this time for political reasons.Over the weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi linked the Samajwadi Party’s bicycle election symbol to the Ahmedabad serial blasts in 2008 that killed 56 people and for which 38 people were recently sentenced to death. Modi stated that in these blasts, the bombs had been planted on bicycles which were parked at crowded market places frequented by people buying vegetables and other essentials.“I am surprised why they (the SP) preferred the bicycle” added the PM, in what seemingly is a patently unfair attack on bikes, which ironically most politicians turn to in order to stress their humbleness and, in SP’s case its electability in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh elections.MPs frequently cycling to parliament in New Delhi, to strike a feeble blow in the fight against pollution, feature periodically on television news channels and on the front pages of national newspapers. Regional politicians too are equally enthusiastic about cycling jamborees, which invariably invoke some public resonance, as biking fleetingly equates unapproachable politicians with the aam janta. Public figures too smugly recall in their tedious ruminations the miles they bicycled to school or college or both, as their badge of accomplishment, all of which tends to go down somewhat well with voters.However, for someone who is a diehard cyclist the adverse spotlight on my principal mode of transport is disturbing. But alongside is the frail optimism that the modest bicycle will once again gain real and not token or jingoistic popularity in a traffic-crazed milieu that is simply choking urban India.My frequent cycling peregrinations of some 40 km across New Delhi, meander through three distinct sections of the city, delineated by history, architectural style and ambience. I start in South Delhi, a collage of ugly, but expensive neighbourhoods, crisscrossed by equally unprepossessing commercial buildings and crowded shopping areas, which have emerged unchecked over years.Thereafter, I cross over into Mughal Delhi interspersed with dilapidated Islamic forts, imperious gateways and carefully restored, resplendent tombs of Mughal and lesser Muslim rulers of India. My final run is the pleasantest: across the city’s colonial, but recently much-vilified portion, spread over 26 sq km and better known as Lutyens Delhi Bungalow Zone and designed in the early 1900s.Here, I pedal furiously down imposing tree-lined avenues, past quaint, almost century-old bungalows set in acres of well-tended gardens, registering the residential roll call of India’s political, administrative and military leadership that resides in them. There are about 1,000 bungalows in this Zone, of which no more than 10% are privately owned. The former category includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s magnificent, albeit fortress-like five-bungalow complex that is scheduled to imminently shift to the Central Vista area, adjoining the old-and subsequently the new parliament, all of which are in various stages of construction.Representative image of Lutyens’ Delhi. Photo: Paul Simpson/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0For the hordes of armed policemen on security duty outside each of these grand residences, I am just a greybeard with a baseball cap and mask, inexplicably pedalling past them. Over time some of these bored stiff sentries, cocooned inside sentry boxes, have come to recognise me and wave as I glide past. Undoubtedly, my unconventional salwar-kameez ensemble provides fleeting comic relief to their humdrum and seemingly endless watch details.But traversing Delhi’s diverse sections poses grave challenges to cyclists. Pollution, without doubt, is the most intimidating and palpable hurdle, with Delhi ranking among the world’s most polluted cities. Its winter air is especially choked by crop burning smoke emanating from neighbouring Haryana and Punjab, industrial emissions, construction dust and diesel fumes from vehicles, several hundred of which are added daily to the capital’s streets.Chaotic traffic competes with pollution, as the other significant obstacle. An average of 3 people die every day in accidents in Delhi, many of them cyclists who are invariably mowed down by speeding trucks and buses. There is, without doubt, simply no order to traffic in Delhi, whose guiding principle is that whenever an opportunity presents itself, exploit it and damn the consequences.There are additional obstacles too on my cycling route.These include stray dogs, herds of cows, squatting insouciantly in the middle of roads and the most menacing of all: tribes of aggressive monkeys in the heart of Lutyens Delhi that are no longer fearful of man. Descended from primates that originally inhabited the jungle cleared to build the Imperial city, these red-faced rhesus macaques dominate this area, often attacking passersby, including cyclists for food, or merely to alleviate boredom.The monkey hordes have commandeered roads, public buildings, parks and bungalows occupied by India’s power elite. Hundreds of them ‘rule’ over the impressive 340-room red sandstone Rashtrapati Bhawan, the contiguous Parliament House and North and South Blocks that house the PM’s office and the defence, home and finance ministries.Powerful officials walk warily down vast passageways in all these buildings, fearful of being ambushed by monkeys, cleverly concealed in dark niches of the imposing colonial buildings. Strong wire meshing protects the office of the Indian Army chief, commander of the world’s third-largest and nuclear-armed force, from monkeys who have been known to create bedlam, as either killing or trapping them is forbidden because of religious Hindu sentiment that associates the primates with Hanuman.A monkey in Delhi. Photo: Sohail HashmiIn conclusion, I recall an amusing bicycle story from the 1970s involving Leonid Brezhnev, the former Soviet Union’s political czar, which highlights the bicycle’s foremost role in a perilous situation. A keen bear hunter, Brezhnev on one of his visits to Hungary, then a Soviet satellite, expressed a desire to shoot one such animal in that country’s then thickly forested Balaton region in the west of the country.The request from the powerful general secretary of the Soviet Union panicked the Hungarians, as over years bears had become near-extinct in their forests. But eager to please their Soviet master, they consented, and in a bizarrely complicated plan pressed a circus bear into the plot. The aim was to let the trained animal loose in the jungle for Brezhnev, poised on a machan with his telescopic hunting rifle to shoot, adding another bear pelt to his already bloated collection.But as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And this one most definitely did, but in a delightful way.Happy to be free, the performing circus bear was merrily foraging through the forest when he chanced upon an innocent cyclist, who was not part of the elaborate official Hungarian plan. Immediately, years of circus training kicked in as the performing bear delightfully sighted the cyclist in the middle of the forest.He then slapped the rider off his saddle, commandeered the bike and began steadily pedalling his way down the forest path, much as his keepers had trained him. Within minutes he sailed past the astonished Soviet strongman who not only lost his equanimity, seeing the bicycle-borne bear but also his bead on his target and did not even fire his weapon.The bear, for his part, wholly unaware of the incipient threat insouciantly biked away into the forest, only to be netted later by his circus keepers and a hugely embarrassed Hungarian establishment. The pervasive bicycle had saved the bear from being killed.Perhaps, the SP’s bicycle symbol too could similarly pedal its triumphant way past the electoral post on March 10, when UP’s votes are counted.