Often, I would dream about riding a bicycle in my childhood days. However, the nature of the ride had a little adventure flavour in it. In a normal world, the bicycle rider has two main functions to do; keeping the handle balanced & empowering the paddles with feet.
In my case, I used to dream about flying the bicycle without putting any effort into the paddle. I would move the cycle around like a floating sci-fi vehicle. These dreams, with time, matured enough to make me believe that I, at some point in my childhood, actually rode a bicycle. The misconception continued.
Unavailability of any extra bicycle at home thwarted my riding fantasies in earlier days. When my grandfather retired from a forty-year teaching profession that event brought a great level of happiness to me. I got his bicycle. However, I got sad when I realised the truth. I COULDN'T RODE THE BICYCLE.
Keeping the importance of revision in mind, I started learning my forgotten art of man oeuvre.
The first step was to park or move the bicycle around without placing my foot in the air. After lots of frustration, I actually climbed the seat like a normal person with help from some self-appointed under-age trainers. My feet were away from the ground and the paddle was hardly accessible to me. With a little struggle I moved a few meters in a zigzag path. However, the incapacity to fuel the wheel resulted in a massive mockery of me. I collapsed with a bang.
Hiding the tears wasn't easy for me, especially after rubbing my knee on the bare rocky road. I tore my cheek with my teeth to hold the pain which was quite successful.
In just a second, a band of brothers passed with school bags. Four students, older than me, were going to a middle school in the nearby village. One of them, the most volatile one, chuckled a little and examined my knee.
He had seen my continued failures; thus, he passed some sympathetic vibes. He quickly suggested a weird idea which needs to be discussed.
He told me that every bicycle needs some blood offering to be owned properly so I need to offer some if I was really serious in learning. I bought the idea but struggled to collect the blood because the wound was not very deep. However, I marked the bicycle handle with a very little amount of blood droplets which was available to me.
I couldn't ride the bicycle properly for the next three to four months. I blamed myself, I would've offered some more blood not some droplets from a little tear of skin.