The best purchase I ever made was not a house, a car, or an expensive piece of technology. It was a bicycle.
At first, it was simply a practical object—a convenient way to commute, exercise, and move through familiar surroundings. Yet over time, it became much more than a machine made of steel, rubber, and gears. It became a source of freedom, discovery, and pure joy. More importantly, it changed the way I travelled and, in many ways, the way I understood life.
A bicycle asks very little of us. It does not require fuel, elaborate preparation, or a carefully planned destination. It waits quietly until we are ready to move. Once the wheels begin to turn, however, the world changes. Distances become personal. Hills are no longer lines on a map but physical challenges felt in the legs and lungs. Wind becomes either a companion or an adversary. Rain, heat, dust, and silence become part of the journey rather than inconveniences to be avoided.
My bicycle eventually carried me far beyond the routines of everyday commuting. It became my companion as I travelled along the coast of India. Those journeys were not hurried attempts to reach one destination after another. They were slow, deliberate passages through landscapes, villages, towns, rivers, beaches, temples, churches, mosques, fishing harbours, and forgotten roads.
Travelling by bicycle allowed the coast to reveal itself gradually.
In a car or train, landscapes often disappear before we have had time to notice them. A village becomes a blur. A river is crossed in seconds. A hill is conquered without effort. The traveller remains separated from the world by glass, speed, and comfort.
On a bicycle, there is no such separation.
The smell of the sea arrives before the coastline becomes visible. The air changes as one approaches a river or an estuary. The road rises slowly, and every incline announces itself through effort. One hears conversations from roadside shops, the bells of temples, the calls of fishermen, the laughter of children, and the distant sound of waves. Travel becomes not an act of passing through a place but of entering it.
The slowness of cycling also creates opportunities for human connection. People notice a cyclist in ways they rarely notice someone inside a vehicle. They stop to ask where you have come from and where you are going. Some offer water, tea, food, directions, or simply a few words of encouragement. These encounters are often brief, but they remain in memory because they are unplanned and sincere.
A bicycle makes the traveller vulnerable. There is no metal enclosure offering protection from the weather, fatigue, uncertainty, or the occasional fall. Yet that vulnerability also creates openness. One becomes more dependent on the kindness of strangers, more attentive to the environment, and more aware of one’s own limits.The journey therefore becomes meaningful not despite its discomforts, but partly because of them.
There were days when the sun was unforgiving, when the road seemed endless, when the wind resisted every movement, and when the body wished to stop. Yet each difficult stretch eventually gave way to another landscape, another village, another evening, and another small sense of achievement. Cycling taught me that progress does not always have to be dramatic. Sometimes it is simply the willingness to continue turning the pedals.The bicycle also introduced me to a different idea of wealth.
Modern life often persuades us that joy depends on acquiring more—more comfort, more speed, more possessions, and more status. Yet some of my happiest moments came while carrying very little: a few clothes, some water, essential tools, and whatever could fit into the bags attached to the bicycle.
The road stripped life down to its essentials.
Food tasted better after a long ride. Shade became a luxury. A clean room at the end of the day felt like abundance. A kind word from a stranger could change the mood of an entire journey. The bicycle did not give me more possessions. It taught me how little was required to feel alive.
Perhaps that is why it remains the best purchase I ever made. It was not merely something I owned. It became a doorway into experience.
It gave me movement without haste, solitude without loneliness, effort without competition, and travel without detachment. It allowed me to see the coast of India not as a line on a map but as a living world of people, histories, landscapes, faiths, hardships, and beauty.
A bicycle appears simple, but the life it can open is vast.It can take us to work, around a neighbourhood, across a state, or along the edge of a country. Yet its greatest gift may not be the distance it covers. Its greatest gift is the attention it demands.
On a bicycle, we do not merely arrive.
We notice.
We listen.
We struggle.
We meet.
And slowly, kilometre by kilometre, we become part of the road we travel.
This can also be made more lyrical and memoir-like, with specific memories from your journeys along the Kerala and Tamil Nadu coasts.
It's never too late 