Yhe other day I had a terrible bicycle accident third in the series that I survived miraculously after being hit from the back that shows how unsafe the vulnerable in the society remains be it the pedestrians cyclists or motor cycles overrun mostly by carelessly driven auto mobiles.
One in the repair shop in Aero Cycling in G-8 Markaz in Islamabad that I became inquisitive about its owner being more passionate about his work than most skilled people that I ever came across. More interested I became in him after he disclosed his name to be Honourable Haroon General named after his father the “General” ‘something his Rajput father from the historic city of Gujrat adored. Little did he know one day his grandson will carry his legacy as professional bicyclist in the country.
While we discussed various bicycles that my thoughts strayed to my own first bicycle of the English “Raleigh”, on which I learnt riding having numerous falls in the process in the thorny field hedges in Landikass Swat where I spent my early childhood which by then were green fields and orchards today turned into densely populated part of the city of Mingora . I thought I need to research and was surprised the Raleigh to be the oldest cycle company founded in 1887 on the small Raleigh Street in England.
I dug deeper to discover the street was named after Sir Walter Raleigh axed to death by Executioner It was on 29 October in 1618, greeted by his brave last words to his executioner Strike Man Strike. He was born to a Protestant family in Hayes Barton in Devon on 22 January 1552.
He caught the eye of Queen Elizabeth and in 1584, she granted him a Royal Charter to explore, colonise and rule any “remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian Prince or inhabited by Christian People.” He was knighted in 1585 but Elizabeth didn’t like the fact that in 1591, he married one of her ladies-in-waiting, and so she sent him and Mrs Raleigh, Elizabeth Throckmorton, to the Tower of London as punishment for a year!
After James VI took the throne in 1603, Raleigh was arrested on suspicion of a plot to remove him and replace him with Lady Arabella Stuart. This is called “The Main Plot”, and it is to be distinguished from the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes, a couple of years later.
Raleigh was convicted and sentenced to death, but James VI commuted the sentence to imprisonment and Raleigh spent 13 years in the Tower of London…again.In 1616 he was released and was granted permission to lead an expedition to South America in search of El Dorado – the City of Gold.
However, a condition of his pardon was to avoid any hostility against the Spanish, which would be in violation of the 1604 peace treaty with Spain (the victory over the Spanish Armada had been in 1588). Avoiding stepping on any Spanish toes was always going to be awkward when searching for gold…since South America was heavily a Spanish domain!
Unfortunately for Raleigh, a detachment of his men attacked the Spanish outpost of Santo Tomé de Guayana on the Orinoco River (in north east Venezuela). This was against Raleigh’s orders, and it also led to the death of Raleigh’s son, Walter. The leader of the attack, Lawrence Keymis, begged Raleigh for forgiveness. When he did not receive it, he immediately committed suicide.
When the expedition returned to England, the angry Spanish ambassador, Count Gondomar demanded that Raleigh’s death sentence be reinstated. James VI felt it necessary to appease the Spanish, and so Raleigh, for all his pro-British heroics, still received the sharp edge of the blade.He was to meet his fate with considerable dignity.
According to Wikipedia: “After he was allowed to see the axe that would be used to behead him, he mused: ‘This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries.'”
Some people accept a sad situation with a smile that in fact turn their defeat into victory and sufferings into relief that makes then stand alone then those who tread a cautious path that leads them grope in the darkness of their ignorance of defying the destiny that defeated many wise and killed numerous cowards despite all their precautions.
