LIVING IN Delhi, I am accustomed to travelling in metros and cars. With the advent of technological advancements, various new cars, bikes, CRV’s have flooded the market and the streets of this city. The high tech automobiles are no more considered as luxuries but a simply a ’necessity’. It’s not really bizarre to spot a BMW or a Porsche these days. The busy and overcrowded lanes of Delhi, has no place for the less powerful vehicles. I cannot imagine myself on a bicycle or a scooty on the ’oh-so-fast-paced’ roads in my very own city.

While travelling in these automobiles defines your social status, some other, not so fast and so comfy vehicles can be a lot more fun than the former. A few days back, along with my friend, I went to Jaipur to spend a few days at her place. For travelling through the city, we had only one means-her scooty. At first, I was not so sure of riding on her hero Honda pleasure (yes, the ’why should boys have all the fun’ scooty). Having never travelled on it, my apprehension was justified (especially knowing my friend and her haphazard ways). Having no other option, I had to eat my heart out and get on the backseat of the small, petite vehicle. Scary, it was.

But as we treaded onto the streets, my fear slowly gave way to pure delight. At 7am, the streets were devoid of any rush, hustle and bustle that I am accustomed to in my home city. We drove at full speed (although I’ll have to admit that compared to a bike or car, it’s really less), it gave us no less of an adrenaline rush. The cool air that gushed past us on the deserted streets made the journey exhilarating. I always felt that when you are on a bike, it’s only to experience the speed, but on the scooty, I really got the chance to dig into the fantastic views and the scenic beauty with the sweet rush that the wind instilled in us.

The peaceful atmosphere and a sense of security that you get in a small town are something that I could never expect from a city like Delhi, where eve teasing and crimes are on an all time high. Although the roads aren’t as wide and smooth in a small city as they are in Delhi, the bumpy, road surfing left us laughing hysterically at the end of the drive. All in all, we had fun the way we couldn’t have imagined in a car or a bike.

After coming from Jaipur, the next time I got the chance to sit on scooty was just a couple of days back. After my examinations, my friends and I usually go to the market to hang around and ease up. While we where there, it got quite late and one of my friends, by chance, had bought a scooty with him. It was just the three of us, so he decided to drop us at the metro station. So, the three of us got on to the Kinetic. Yea, well, I know that tripling is not allowed legally, but we did not have a choice! Late at night he could not have left any of us stranded on the empty road.

Past that, the junketing but exuberant journey began. I had never sat on a two wheeler with two other people besides me. Through the vacant, small and ignored roads of Dwarka, without any traffic, making our way through all the short cuts that could have possibly existed, bickering about which route to take, and hailing for others to join us, as if we were on a metro connect RV, shouting ’paanch rupai, paanch rupai’, to all the people who walked past us, dodging the policemen somehow, we finally made our way to the metro station. By the end, we were all in silly grins and high jinks. The ride was simply whoopee!

Now, I know that there is no comparison between the heavy metal and high tech automobiles and a scooty, but riding on a scooty has its own fun-specially in a small city. Try it, you’ll enjoy it thoroughly and end up feeling frolic and fun.