The thrills of speed

by Jayasiri Jayakody

Speed thrills. All of us, at one time or other in the course of our lives, have experienced the heady thrill of speed, whether in competing in school athletics, aboard a speeding vehicle, or just running out of sheer abandon.

The thrill and the exhilarating feeling experienced with an intake of LSD, an immensely popular recreational drug among the youth of USA that began circulating in the 1960s and still being widely used, resulted in the drug being named "Speed" by its users.

The thrill and the exhilarating feeling humans derive from extreme speed has its beginning in the pre-historic era, when the early men, lived the same way with animals. In hunter-gatherer societies, the fleetest of foot only had a chance of survival.

Only a fast runner can escape attacks from predators, and a successful hunter had to be able outrun prey. So, the obsession with speed was inculcated in the minds of human kind, and it had urged man on a quest for even greater speeds.

The speeds man had achieved with various means had propelled him into outer space, reaching the moon. Now, the search is on for even greater speeds that will take him to other planets of the galaxy.

Meanwhile, back on earth, humans are striving to achieve even greater speeds in walking, running, swimming, riding and driving, as the constant updating of world records in athletics and other sports activities clearly indicate. We have not been successful in eradicating or even suppressing the primeval urge to achieve more speed, we have only refined it.

In the present society we are living in, there are two kinds of people. There is the cautious type of people, who are more conservative in their habits, who like moderate, safe speeds, and the speed fiends, who yearn for more and greater speeds at risk of life and limb.

In my experience, the second group consists of the go-getters, the achievers, the movers and the shakers, though this is not a hard-and-fast rule.

This long, and perhaps unnecessary preamble, is relevant to this true story. There is a journalist friend of this writer, still dashing, well dressed and debonair even though he is in his early sixties now. This little story unfolds just after the opening up of the economy by the late President J. R. Jayewardene.

Now, this well read and sociable journalist, the protagonist of this story, whom we will call PC, loved motorcycle and speed. Honda C 90 motorcycle were imported to the country at this time, but PC was unable to buy one. But he yearned desperately to ride a Honda C 90.

Fortunately for PC, one fine day, a good friend of his, arrived on his brand new C 90. PC told the friend of his wish, and being a close friend, agreed to let PC ride his bike. Now, PC's riding experience, in those days, was limited. The friend told PC to sit astride the bike, and started to instruct him.

"Now Machan, you kick this pedal, and the bike will start" said the friend, which PC dutifully did, and the bike started at the first kick.

"Now, you twist this handle to make the bike go," said the friend, and PC, without waiting to hear the rest of the instructions, did at once, and the bike being of the clutches type, sprang forward! in his excitement, twisted the handle more, and the bike increased speed!

Now, fortunately, all these happened on a straight stretch on a small road in front of PC's house without much traffic, pedestrian or vehicular. PC was in a dilemma. He did not know how to stop the bike in its mad careening down the road, and he wanted desperately to stop it.

Just then, to PC's horror, he saw a bevy of women, on the road in front of him. He did not know the location of the horn button, so he took a deep breath, and started shouting and screaming with all his might, for them to get off the road. The women took one look at this onrushing demon screaming like an Apache on the war path, and scattered in all directions.

PC was in luck. He could see, in front of him, the turn off to another friend's house, tastefully decorated with bamboo. He swung the bike at full speed at the bamboos splintering them, and the bike crashed into them and fell, throwing PC clear! Amid a red haze of pain and a rush of sound in his ears.

PC raised his head, to see two friends converging on him from two sides, one, the owner of the bike, running after him, and the house owner, rushing to see who crashed a bike in to his ornamental bamboos, damaging them!

Poor PC, had to get both the damaged bike, and the ruined bamboos, repaired, and that was the last time he ever rode a Honda C 90!

What thrills speed, hey!