Bicycle in Hindi

A bunch of elder Indian ladies and I nearly had an altercation today at Dubai's Mushrif Park. In my defense, these old gals and at least 50 of their closest family members were grilling and picnicking, dancing and singing, and eating papadums right smack in the middle of the bike-dedicated lanes of the park.

And though I swear I have an affinity with Indians, I spent the good part of my ride in a state of ruined euphoria, annoyed at the Indians' propensity to lay down a picnic wherever a tree casts some shade. Shame on me.

For the past two weeks, the college has been on mid-year break and I've made it my business to find all the safe and good places to ride my bike. Though the UAE isn't the Mecca of cycling like Boulder County, I have found a few gems, and my favorite discovery is Dubai's Mushrif Park. With its low scrub trees and rolling sand dunes, the bike trail around the park is the most desert-like place to cycle without having to cross any roads. When I arrived this afternoon, I was like a kid on the way to Disney World, hardly able to appreciate my good fortune.

I got there at around 1:30, suited up with my helmet, water, fancy new bike shoes and mobile phone and set out onto the trail. Just as I was approaching the end of my first lap, I came around a shady bend through a long stretch of brush trees hanging over the trail and had to stop fast to avoid straw mats, strollers, rice cookers, lots of people sitting around Indian style with plates in their laps, and at least 8 older women weaving through the crowd handing out food from tin containers. I clipped out of my pedals, and a little breathless, tried to explain that this is a bicycle trail, a bike path, you know, a training place, and they moved (a little) to let me navigate around all the people, looking at me like I just dropped down out of a UFO. All I really wanted was to ride my bike, so I hopped back on, a little miffed and headed out for another lap, only to come around 15 minutes later, to find that their crowd had multiplied, and there were even more baskets of bread, babies, coolers and a full-on cooking stove in the middle of the path.

At this point I am ticked, and I know really, I need to get a sense of humour, but I was incapable at this point, and so even more loudly I said BICYLE PATH I AM TRAINING BICYCLE PATH PLEASE, all while dodging picnickers and plates. Some of the younger folks actually tried to slide over their straw mats and move stuff out of my way, but the older ladies were saying WE ARE ARRANGED LADY WE ARE ARRDRANGED ALREADY SO SORRY. Now I'm thinking, seriously can't these people read the giant white bycicle drawings on the path, don't they notice the dotted lines? And surely they can see all of the lovely picnic tables and shelters in the more developed parts of the park. But hey, shoot, I should stop at the rangers office and tell them about these renegade picnickers. But no, maybe I shouldn't ruin their party. What to do? Argh, shame shame on me, yuppie impatient expat with no manners yelling at old ladies. Shame on me.

I opted not to tell the rangers and when I came around for lap three, the party appeared to have parted for me (and probably the other two cyclists who'd joined the path by then), except for a hapless school-aged kid right in the middle with a hunk of bread in his hand. As I got close and slowed down they started hooting in a high-pitched woohooo all Indian-Bollywood-style while hollering something like bampling baaisick and rushing to get the bread-kid out of my way.

This is when my mood turned OK and I was probably even grinning as I came out at the other end, to lap their party twice more to the tune of bollywood bampling baaaisick. And though I said before that Urdu is the Language to learn, I should probably learn to say bicycle in Hindi as well.