I am part of a WhatsApp group with my schoolmates. It's good to keep in touch with friends from school days. We share important stuff going on in each other's life but mostly it's pretty casual. People forwarding jokes, or sharing pictures of them having fun. Ofcourse fun for most of my 40+ friends is getting together with other friends and have drinks and good food. All that is nice and I like doing that too. However I was kind of getting bored with everyone sharing the same kind of pictures of them drinking and eating. So I started sharing pictures of me riding my bike, most people liked it and congratulated me ofcourse. I continued sharing such photos regularly on the group. Soon some people who just couldn't relate with the idea of me consistently running and riding, started saying stuff like - why do you run so much? Why do you ride so much? Isn't it lots of hard-work, trouble and tiring? Why do you go through all the suffering? etc. etc.
In a response to one such message, I wrote following in Hindi:
कौन कम्बख्त exercise करता है? हम तो cycle से घूमने जाते हैं. दोस्तों से गप्पे लड़ाने जाते हैं. गरमा गरम समोसे खाने जाते है, चाय कि चुस्की लेने जाते हैं. मस्त फोटोज खींचने जाते हैं. खुली हवा में सांस लेने जाते हैं. अपने चेहरे पे धुप और हवा को महसूस करने जाते हैं. रात में नींद अच्छी आये इसलिए थकने जाते हैं. जीने जाते हैं, बच्चा बनने जाते हैं. कौन कम्बख्त कहता है कि हम मेहनत करने जाते हैं. मेहनत तो सब करते हैं. हम तो मजे करने जाते हैं 😀🙏🏽
It would loosely translate to:
Who says, I exercise? I travel on my bike. I go to talk to my friends, to eat piping hot Samosas, sip that tea. To take cool pictures. To breath the fresh air, to feel the sun and wind on the face. To get tired, so that it's easier to fall asleep in the night. To live a little, to become child again. Who says, I work hard. Every one works hard, we just have fun.
Well obviously people liked what I wrote and some even found it amusing and funny but as expected, it didn't matter much. As it's hard for people to really get it, unless they try it. Like any other drug? Well cycling is my drug and a pretty healthy drug :-)