Monday, May 30, 2016

Tire Punctures

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My romance with wheeled vehicles started at 3. My father gifted me a tricycle in about 1946. Plastics revolution was three decades away. My tricycle was all iron and bolts and nails and it was equipped with hard rubber tires. The rubber came off in ten days and I was speeding on rims. And I took a nasty tumble and had to have my forehead stitched up. The scar remains one of my official identity marks...it is there in my SSLC register in black and white (I still happen to have this indestructible document with me).

Pretty soon after I started earning at IIT KGP I bought an Avon Blue Bicycle which was stolen the very night I bought it. Then on I was managing with second, third and fourth hand bicycles.

I was a late riser and was always in a rush to speed to my lecture class. And every morning was dreadful to me since I was scared that when I picked up my push bike I found its tire punctured and I had to run...I was athletic.

The bicycle had to be dragged to the shop often. And Gupi and his forbears used to declare a puncture or at best a leaky valve tube.

Then in 1984 I bought a Chetak and had a puncture the very next morning. And I had to drag it to Tikkas where the mechanic under the mango tree took half an hour to set it right. Once again the dread was there every morning. I could never replace the flat tire with a stepney.

Then I bought a Maruti car in 2000 and it had a puncture the next day.  And had to drive to the Tikkas in my Chetak and fetch the car puncture mechanic to do the needful. And the dread was always there every morning.

When I turned 70 my son gifted me 4 tubeless tires and told me that even if they are punctured I can drive to the nearest car tire mechanic.

I am in heaven now since I don't have the daily dread.


If you think this blog is solely about tires and my dread about their punctures, you are mistaken.

It is about my life itself...it is an allegory and is metaphorical...the tire is my body and the tube is my ego.







...Posted by Ishani

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