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EXPERIENCE
A saga of courage
ASHOKAMITRAN
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What looked like an attractive proposition became a series of nightmares…
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I was told by the salesman that I shouldn’t exceed 20 kmph. My suspicion was at full throttle, the vehicle didn’t go over 16 or 17.
There was a recent report of a gentleman owning a 48 cc two wheeler. He said he would never part with it and he had named the vehicle Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. I once owned an even less powered vehicle, 24.4 to be exact. It was advertised in th
e papers as a vehicle which neither required an RTO registration nor a driver licence. I must admit I had once obtained a four wheeler licence. I got it in my second attempt. What happened was when I was asked to go round a circular park, I kept horning all the time. The inspector asked me whether I was driving away ghosts with my horn while not a human being was in sight. I told him my instructor had told me to horn when I was performing a turn.
I bought the vehicle and drove it home from the showroom. My admirer and well wisher S.Krishnan said the vehicle was a marvel. He was not going to drive it anyway. I was told by the salesman that I shouldn’t exceed 20 kmph. My suspicion was at full throttle, the vehicle didn’t go over 16 or 17. Bicyclists overtook me left and right with ease. The manufacturer had depended on the driver’s own shock absorbing capacity and so in the city’s roads, the vehicle made me conscious of all my 200-odd bones. I asked the showroom people. They said I should upgrade the engine. It cost me as much as the original cost. I asked them what my power was now. They said it was 25.4.
Then the company closed down. Even for very minor adjustments or repairs I had to go all round the city but no two-wheeler mechanic would touch the vehicle with a screw driver. A bicycle repairer made the vehicle run again but when I had a flat tyre, I couldn’t get a tube in all of south India. I wrote to a professor of English in Delhi to help me and he sent me a tube along with a book of his which he wished to be reviewed in the leading English daily of Chennai. He must have misunderstood my request. The tube he sent me was flatter than mine. With my own inadequate tools and appropriate fervent prayers, I applied a patch to the punctured spot myself. Lo, it worked. By this time I had spent several times the cost of the vehicle in repairs and suffered any amount of ignominy at street crossings and automatic signals. I thought I should get rid of the vehicle while she was still able to crawl. For more than two months no buyer came. I enquired at my bicycle repairer’s shop and after a week, a person came to me in a Bullet. I don’t know whether you have listened to the engine sound of a Bullet motor cycle. It is almost as good as a Mozart. I was wondering how that gentleman would put up with my shrieking tortoise. But he said he would buy. I gingerly mentioned a price. He smiled. He said he would give me Rs. 500. I was furious. I said even a second hand bicycle cost a thousand rupees. I had spent thousands on repairs alone.
He said, “That’s it. When there is some trouble with a bicycle, I need to spend just about ten rupees. With this vehicle, like you, I too would have to spend thousands.”
The last of ‘Lakshmi’
My will had evaporated. All right, I said. He gave me four hundred rupee notes. That was all he had with him. He would give me the balance the following day. As I had already said, I was devoid of the faculties of my mind. Suddenly another person materialised and drove away my “Lakshmi’ at a speed comparable with that of a buffalo. I asked the Bullet man who exactly was the buyer. Of course, he was the buyer. I reminded him of the balance amount. He looked at me with amusement. “You will get it, you will get it,” he said. That was the last I saw of him.
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