Today, June 3rd, 2024 marks the day of Franz Kafka's centenary celebration. Today, rather, yesterday since midnight, I have been missing my BSA SLR cycle as soon as I remembered that June 3rd , 2024 is Kafka's centenary year of celebration. The reason behind missing the BSA SLR is quite associatively simple. The centenary year reminds me of Kafka's conversation with the crying girl in the Steglitz Park of Berlin who had lost a doll. Every day, Kafka and the girl would meet at the Park and Kafka would hand over a letter on behalf of the doll to the girl. The letters used to bring solace to the little girl telling her not to cry as her beloved doll had gone on an adventure to see the world. The doll through Kafka would tell the little girl a story using a letter which would be given by Kafka to the little girl. Gradually, one day the doll had come back to Berlin as Kafka gifted the little girl the doll along with a letter which said that the adventure trips had changed the doll. When finally Kafka died, the girl discovered an unnoticed, tucked letter in the doll which said that - "Everything we love would be lost someday but at the end of the story it comes back in a different form".
Today's centenary day has made me almost like that little girl. However, while the little girl was looking for the doll, I was looking for my BSA SLR back. The earliest model of bicycle was gifted to me when I was in Class IV with which came our middle-class dreams of exploration, pain, love, despair, aspiration, heartbreaks. Every time I rode the bicycle, I felt like Oliver Right, Jay, Veeru of Sholay, Amitabh Bacchan of Muqaddar Ka Sikander. Some times I also felt like the Elliot, Gertie of ET after I had watched them in Nandan. My BSA SLR then reminded me of Mick Doohan of 90s'. It immediately used to take me off to the scale of Yezdi, Enfield, Yamaha and I would feel high up in the ladder.
My BSA SLR reminded me of Uttam Kumar of Soptopodi with Suchitra Sen being at the back seat of a motorcycle and of so many Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood films. BSA SLR was love for me. It helped me to transcend from reality to my space where all heroes from pages of literature, comics, cinema will come and play with me. I used to imagine myself as being in the pages of Blue Lotus of Tintin with my Indie Street Dog and Trampy Snowies who were equally beautiful.
However, gradually, the images of my magic realism faded but the memories didn't go away. My BSA SLR also started to get old. An adolescent BSA SLR became an adult gradually and started to become old as I grew in age from Class IV to BSc in Economics till I did not leave Kolkata. I did everything to ensure that my BSA SLR stayed in the same old rented house of our 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani, Jadavpur just near the closed meter box as soon as the door of the house was opened. It was metaphorical of me on why I loved to always keep my BSA SLR in that position in the house. One was there was no other space left for the large memory that the physical structure of my BSA SLR carried with itself. The other reason was as soon as you opened the gate of 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani, my BSA SLR even then in 2001 was old but would greet every new visitor with its memories which were my memories too of 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani.
As years passed by from 1999 to 2002 and I was getting ready to leave Kolkata for my masters in JNU, my BSA SLR was crying for elderly care. This was because my joint rides with my BSA SLR to keep riding on life and moving on through its mental health conditions had stopped by. In my times of depression, BSA SLR took care of me. It took me to Jharnar Math, Jadavpur University ground, the corners of South Kolkata, Bijoygarh, Garia without ever failing and letting me know that it had got old and needed elderly care. It also demanded a therapy from counsellors while I secretly rode on it and went to Baul Mon near Ibrahim Pur Road being troubled by existential questions of life. It was silently doing everything. In 2002, once I came to New Delhi, I left my BSA SLR alone at Upendra Biswas Sarani. After that, two times I went back and would ask my Dad how my BSA SLR was doing. It was lying lonely. I would rub my hands on its handles trying to show my care. But I think my BSA SLR had faced its mental obsolescence by then. I suffered a lot of guilt during the entire 2002 about not getting my BSA SLR back to JNU campus and in my hostel Jhelum. Everytime, I saw a student in a bicycle in JNU, my BSA SLR was in front of my eye and I could not do anything for my SLR.
Often, at midnight when I would not sleep in the hostel and study in the mess room, I would silently go to the place where all cycles of hostels would be parked. Those were not the days of car or motorcycle in JNU but of bicycles. I would secretly touch any BSA SLR model (if they could be found) and try to communicate with my BSA SLR back at Jadavpur, Kamarpara. I would try to feel the memories of my BSA SLR and the smell of my growing up from 80s to 90s through the entire socio-cultural set up of Kamarpara, Jadavpur, rural, suburbs, townships of West Bengal. After sometime, during December 2002, one night while I was trying to feel my BSA SLR again by touching a similar cycle at the Jhelum Hostel when everyone was asleep and I was studying in the mess-room, I could hear a cry. After that, my communication with my BSA SLR was over. I could not let it go away from me on the November 2002 chill of Delhi. The night was horrible. I could not sleep and went to the toilet of Jhelum Hostel around 3.00 am and was looking at the mirror with a shaky tremor.
It was 2002. Almost after 21 years back, last year during June 16 - June 23, 2023, I went back to my elder brother's house at the Central Park, Jadavpur which is very nearby to our child hood house of 11/1, Upendra Biswas Sarani. I saw an abandoned cycle at the balcony of the Central Park House which also was crying just like my BSA SLR whom I had abandoned in my life.
I immediately asked my elder brother, Dabhai to take out the cycle on a Sunday and fill it up with air. He immediately pampered me by taking out the cycle from the Balcony and filled it up with the air. I got up in the Bicycle and started following my Dabhai and their son "Kakai" (as he calls me) in a rickshaw.
The rickshaw started moving from Central Park to 11/1 Upendra Biswas Sarani of Kamarpara. It felt like I was chasing their rickshaw and was going back to my past of Kamarpara of 80s and 90s. I was going back to my BSA SLR who I had abandoned and could not take to JNU when I left Kolkata for good.
However, just like Kafka's little girl at the Park in the Centenary Year, last year, my love of BSA SLR came back to me while I chased the rickshaw that was taking my "Dabhai" and "Kakai" in a rickshaw back to Kamarpara and to the past of my memories of BSA SLR. Love moved away but it came back last year during a Sunday as I reached my old childhood house and memories through a new cycle while chasing that rickshaw. It reminded me of this little girl at the Park whom Kafka had gifted the letter of the "Doll".
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