When the Parsees trav-ersed the world on cy-cles: Now chronicled by Goan writers

As a people, Indians can be found in all the corners of the world. Working and earning that honest rupee. The migrating Indian has been as constant as the rising sun.  Now it has emerged that a group of doughty Indians from the city then known as Bombay had cycled across the world in the 1920’s.  Members of the enterprising Parsee community cycled tens of thousands of km across the world across continents to be more precise. Details of this adventure have never been documented before. Now however Savia Veigas and her husband Anoop Babani both passionate cyclists did the hard yards so to speak and came out with The Bicycle Diaries. Both well into their sixties, the duo took up cycling inspired by neighbourly encounters with passionate cyclists. Initial tentative rides over a period of time turned into long rides. It was during one of those rides in 2017, that Anoop fell from the bike and injured his rib cage. Barred from riding for weeks, they decided to read about it. They wanted to know how and when did cycling come to India? Who were the early cyclists and from which cities and importantly what kind of cycles were they riding and why.  Their research unveiled the fact that it was well-to –do Indians mainly from then Bombay and Calcutta who took to cycling in the 1890’s inspired by their British peers. Such was the allure of riding that cycling clubs came up founded by the small yet powerful Parsee community and the educated prosperous Bengalis in Calcutta. These cycles were predominantly British made and expensive. They were used for leisure, sports, fitness and global tours. More research revealed that a group of six cyclists had ventured out on a Global tour in 1923. All of them were Parsees who completed a journey that  covered 71,000 km over a period of four and a half years. They were not the only ones. This inspired another trio of Parsee cyclists to girdle the globe. They rode for nine long years and traversed 84,000 km spanning five continents. This was the start of several such trips that lasted till 1942. Anoop said these stories were just waiting to be told to a larger audience.  A photo exhibition on the Global Indian cyclists organised in Mumbai and Goa added an impetus and  The Bicycle Diaries was born out of that motivation. The book covered in detail the exploits of this handful of Indians who cycled the streets of the world and were witness to a Europe devastated by two World Wars, the Great Depression in America, civil wars and people’s revolutions in East Asia and scenes of abject poverty and homelessness in Africa.  They were the first ever to cycle across the deserts of Sahara and Mesopotamia, the rainforests of Amazon and Southeast Asia and the mountains of the Alps and the Andes. Many of the cyclists had the honour of meeting the Pope and the dictators, Kings and Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers, innovators and scientists and sports personalities and movie stars. The cyclists maintained meticulous diaries and shot awesome photographs. The early cyclists were slightly ahead of the age of affordable sunglasses and hence could not use protective eye wear to prevent bright light and the blinding sun from damaging their eyes. At least one of the cyclists lost his eyesight and died a blind man. The record of the trip Anoop said helped him tremendously in his writing the book. He said “It took me four years to speak to the children, the grandchildren and other relatives and access all the records. They were very forthcoming with all the information. All of them are based all over the world, so it was quite an experience getting in touch with them. I spoke to people in the USA, Canada, Australia, UK to name just a few. ” This book will ensure the exploits of Kapadia, Pochkhanawala, Davar. Ghandhi, Kharas and Mofy to name just a few will never be forgotten. Nor will the efforts of this Carmona based author couple who will keep these great adventures recorded and accessible in the form of this path breaking book ‘The bicycle diaries’