ME AND MY MEAN MACHINE

I sincerely believe that 2°C doesn’t get interesting enough until it is mixed with 80km/hr on a motorcycle.
But it’s not something that everyone understands. So when I put on my riding jacket and boots and set out on a 200km solo ride from Lucknow to Allahabad, I noticed a variety of emotions in people around me--- surprise, amusement, anxiety, even anger.
Now, my ’95 Royal Enfield can embarrass anyone who vouches for Bullets being reliable machines. It truly has a mind of its own that isn’t governed by any principles. There will be times when a half-kick would bring the engine to life. On other days, no amount of kicking, rejetting, spark-plug cleaning, prayers or pleading would work. And it is this unpredictability that makes it beautiful.
On this freezing, misty, foggy morning too, I couldn’t see it coming. We had gulped down 160kms in three hours and done it with such panache that I called up my host in Allahabad and told her to put the chicken on the stove. Seriously, I had absolutely no idea that only 40 kms away from some delectable chicken, the bike’s characteristic ‘thump’ would suddenly turn into a gentle purr and the engine would die as calmly as a proud soldier.
The only thing I sense then is that something is seriously wrong. So I don’t even try starting the bike. I coolly take off the luggage, keep it beside the sleepy owner of a seemingly flop dhaba and wave down a tempo. I ask the driver if there’d be a mechanic on his route.
The tempo driver doesn’t say much. He just smiles, hands over his tempo to one of the passengers, gets off and starts dragging the bike down the road. Somewhat getting his point, I ask him nervously “What all bikes can you fix?” “All-rounder,” he replies nonchalantly as I trudge along.
A couple of kilometers and several smiling passersby later, we reach his ‘workshop,’ a large room with a few tools arranged symmetrically on the floor. I figure how much of an ‘All-rounder’ he is when we discover that the engine has seized and his ‘Chhotu’ keeps bringing me endless cups of tea just to keep me busy as he struggles identifying correct spanner sizes.
Well, he gets the bike to start, but Mr Allrounder does something that makes the battery conk off barely five kilometers later, in an even more desolate little town. And in case you didn’t know, the great thing about Bullets is that they don’t start without a battery.
By some strange stroke of luck, however, I spot a mechanic working on a Rajdoot inside a tiny workshop and see him fit to leave my bike with. I take the battery which I replace at Allahabad later, board a tempo, then a bus, then a rickshaw to an irritated host and cold chicken seven hours behind schedule.
When I reach the workshop the next morning, I’m in a hurry to reach my Lucknow office on time. But the mechanic insists on a smoke and buys me a cigarette out of the money I give him. I don’t smoke, but somehow avoid bursting into cough as I puff the smoke into the mist. As we try the new battery, he tells me about the strange day when both the bikes that had been brought to his workshop had caught fire and turned into ashes the moment he tried to kickstart them. He tells me about there being no deaths in his family for 45 years straight, then five people, including two brothers and three children dying over the past three months.
The battery is fine. The fog has cleared. I put on my jacket and take to the open road again, knowing that life would move on, both for me, and him.