Tag: dailyprompt

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.

Consumerism is becoming increasingly visible around us, so much so that it is beginning to resemble hedonism. We consume not merely to meet our needs, but to distract ourselves, display success, and chase brief sensations of happiness, often at the expense of nature.

In this pursuit, we seem to be forgetting that life is meant to be lived, not accumulated. Material things may offer temporary comfort and artificial excitement, but when we become dependent on them for happiness, they often leave behind emptiness, anxiety, environmental destruction, and long-term grief.

Perhaps a meaningful life lies not in possessing more, but in needing less, and in learning again to find joy in experience, relationships, nature, and inner peace.

In an era of rapid technological advancement across nearly every sphere of life, we must learn to exercise restraint. The fact that something can be done does not mean it should be done without careful thought, ethical reflection, and a clear understanding of its consequences.

There are several examples one could cite, but since I am a biologist, I will draw on an episode in that field from the past decade.

Human progress has always depended on the courage to ask, “Can this be done?” Every discovery, invention, and scientific breakthrough begins with that question. But a civilized society must also ask a deeper question: “Should this be done?”

The ability to do something proves only technical capacity. It does not prove wisdom, necessity, safety, or moral justification. A thing may be possible and still be harmful. It may be brilliant and still be premature. It may solve one problem while creating consequences that are far more difficult to control.

A powerful example is gene editing in human embryos. With tools such as CRISPR, scientists can alter DNA with remarkable precision but not perfect. In theory, this technology could one day help prevent serious inherited diseases. That possibility is extraordinary. But editing embryos also affects future generations who cannot consent. The long-term effects may not be fully predictable. A change made with confidence today may carry hidden biological, social, and ethical consequences tomorrow.

The 2018 case of gene-edited babies in China showed this danger clearly. The technology existed, but the use of it was widely condemned because it was premature, unnecessary, and ethically irresponsible. The question was not whether gene editing could be done. It clearly could. The question was whether it should have been done under those circumstances. The answer, for most of the scientific world, was no.

This distinction matters in every field -science, medicine, artificial intelligence, warfare, business, and even personal life. Power without restraint can become arrogance. Innovation without reflection can become harm. True progress is not the ability to cross every boundary. It is the wisdom to know which boundaries must be crossed carefully, which must wait, and which should not be crossed at all.

Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. The real measure of human maturity is not only what we are capable of creating, but what we are wise enough to refuse.

Even for a person like me, someone who is regimented and naturally inclined to plan, I have learned to first deal with chaos, and over time, I have even begun to appreciate the value of a little chaos.

I think what changed me most was my last few years of cycle touring along the coast of India. These were solo trips, carefully planned, and each journey lasted anywhere from a few weeks to two months. The planned roads grounded me. They gave me direction, structure, and the ability to keep to a schedule. But it was the chaos that created the opportunities for the most valuable experiences.

Honestly, I do not even know where to begin. But looking back, there are a numerous moments I would not have missed for the world.

A road closure in Tamil Nadu once forced me to take a deviation that added more than ten kilometres of riding that day. At the time, it felt like an inconvenience. But that detour took me through coastal villages I would never have seen. I passed children who waved as I rode by and directed me to a beautiful lighthouse that was unmarked on the map. I stopped to ask strangers for directions. I drank a hot cup of tea in a stranger’s house. On that rainy day, I fell off my bicycle into a pothole that turned out to be deeper than a crater. I had passers-by help me lift that loaded bicycle. I took refuge in a temple. I rode adjacent to a magnificent secluded beach. I received thumbs-ups and waves from passers-by who stopped to ask where I was from and where I was going. I was offered food, although I had to decline, since I had a ways to go.

All of these became invaluable experiences. I would have missed every one of them if I had stayed on a straight, even highway, with speeding cars, auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, and trucks whizzing past me.

Over time, I have come to see that a little chaos in other aspects of life, whether in finance, health, travel, or personal choices, can also become something to learn from. It can teach us to step away from fixed ways of thinking and living. Some of those moments seemed disastrous at the time, but when I look back now, they were not disasters at all. They were pauses. They were interruptions that forced me to reassess my goals, my priorities, and the direction of my life.

I have learned to move forward without too many expectations. Perhaps the only thing one can truly expect is the unexpected. None of this means that life should not be planned. Planning matters. Discipline matters. Structure matters. But a little chaos can open doors that a perfectly planned life may never reveal.

That, perhaps, is life: plan carefully, ride (live) openly, and leave enough space for the road (the future) to surprise you.

If I could choose where to live, I would choose the place where I can live freely, at peace with myself and with others. I love nature and the outdoors, so I would prefer a place with an abundance of it. I currently live in Kerala and I love it for whatever it offers – beaches, mountains, rivers….

The other side always looks greener from a distance. But every place has something to offer, and every place has something we must learn to accept.