beep beep.

no i don't know this man. no, ma, i didn't ride anywhere on his bike with him. but when he asked me to pose for a photo on his bike with him, i had to oblige him to satisfy my own sense of humor.

i'm not crazy about motorcycles.

my dad grew up riding bikes, & finally, after much pleading, my ma allowed him to get a new bike a few years back. however comforted i am by the neon orange vest he wears when he rides, i still worry about him sometimes.

i admit, my heart has grown to love mopeds. my lovely roomie catharine made sure of that when she bought a retro light pink one & dubbed it big mama. impossible not to love. and me & big mama had some good times, until she started getting lazy about starting & her tire went flat.

but when i started dating a boy with a bike last semester-- a ninja, mind you, i realized that i do, in fact, dislike motorcycles. but not for the reasons i thought i did; namely, safety. i don't like them for the same reason i don't like sitting in the back of a convertible; they make me cry, they make me eat my hair, & the only thing i can say while i'm on one is, "...what?"

in india, my tolerance for bikes is being tested. at first i thought these people were on to something when i started seeing entire families of 5 on a single bike. (inevitably, some toddler is always seated first, & i double take every time... "is that 3 year old driving that motorcycle!?! what da what!") but my opinions shifted once i started riding with my translator, parm, to the village i work in each day.

evidence: young children in india drive motorcycles. ?

parm is a skinny indian man with glasses who despises walking. i hop on the back of his bike & ride side saddle (all the ladies do it) to the front door of whoever i'm going to talk to that day. nevermind that the streets in the village are literally 3 feet wide. nevermind that every woman & child of peda jalaripeta is sitting in the street husking corn or braiding their hair. nevermind that i've scratched my face on multiple occasions when i've forgotten to duck as parm drives me into low-hanging tree branches. and nevermind that we nearly run over 8 infants each way whenever we go.

the beloved parm, who calls me "hanson" & mocks me for taking photos of plants.

literally EIGHT. i hardly exaggerate in india because there's no need. naked babies stand in the 3-foot-wide streets, & parm beep beeps his horn & passes them with centimeters to spare (i'm all about the metric system these days).

one of these days, parm, we're gonna get your skinny little bum walking, or ima gonna be a crazy lady by the time i get home.