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"How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks"
...Posted by Ishani
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"How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks"
...Marcus Aurelius
Marcus-da must have been living in the IIT KGP Campus instead of Hyderabad when he made that cute remark...campus life is so different than city life.
When my brand new blue Chetak arrived on the campus scene in 1984, everyone, who owned one before I did, felt he was my senior and should help me out...even my neighbor who bought his just 4 months before.
And I was (and am) shy and reticent...
When one of them saw me start my Chetak obeying my Bajaj-Kama-Sastra rule book, pulling out the 'choke' lever below my seat, kick the starter, and push the lever back, a senior who was watching me said it was such a dangerous thing to do...for, I may forget to push the choke back in and that would damage the engine beyond repair.
So, I stopped doing it, remembering that I was forgetful.
Then, another said that if I didn't use the choke, the kick-starter would soon stop kick-starting and that would call for a major overhaul.
By the way, I was curious what that choke chokes and was too shy to ask, till I figured out that it chokes the intake of air a bit allowing the petrol enriched...much like the massive 8-Henry choke I knew from my M.Sc days in our Electronics lab which 'choked' the AC voltage but not the DC.
And then when I first visited our Harry's Petrol Pump, asking the vendor-boy to pour 3-3, a mysterious jargon I learned for '3-petrol plus 3-2T' (whatever 2T meant...what 2 and why T?), one senior came forward and advised me make it 3-6, saying that much more 2T is required for good lubrication of the engine for its smooth running without getting overheated, jammed, and set on fire.
When on my next trip, I asked for 3-6, another senior there was aghast...he said so MUCH 2T would only block the cylinder with soot and reduce its life and also choke its 'silencer' whatever it was..."Make it 3-3 like I have been doing for 20 years"...
And he asked, to boot, what spark plug I intended to carry as a spare. When I said, Mico, he was once again aghast:
"Mico is for mopeds...not CHETAK! Always use NGK...it is made in Japan you know"
And another said next time exactly the opposite:
"NGK is only a brand...Mico is a workhorse and you are saving Rs 10 per piece...and Mico is BOSCH...a German product of a century's vintage"
And then one day I was standing by Billoo watching him change my gear cable.
A senior who was sipping tea at Harry's chai dukan walked over to me and said sotto voce:
"Hereafter go to Raghu's workshop...he is a certified automobile engineer, you know, and he stocks genuine spares and knows Chetak inside out"
And so on...I didn't know that my Chetak was such a prize possession that I must spend all my time debating what was good for it and what was not...like on my only son, Sonoo.
Chetak was funny unlike say Lambretta which had a chain drive and an engine placed plumb in the middle. Chetak was a true-blue scooter that had no 'hard drive'...whole of its engine was mounted on one side and directly connected to the rear wheel.
Apparently this original Italian design not only saves petrol but also is hassle-free....just open the flap and it is all there for you to see and fiddle with.
But it had its flip side...it was one-sided like Long John Silver. It was always tilting to its right and falling down on my foot when I stopped and stooped to gossip. And it was 100 kg while I was a mere 50. So, I had to sit leaning to my left, and my wife used to laugh uproariously. Till, she mounted on the pillion (with difficulty since she was short and Chetak tall). But she was always sitting on her side, facing left, and that would balance the vehicle somewhat. But I couldn't make her a permanent fixture on the pillion...she had to cook at home while I dozed in my 'office' with my legs on the table when I wasn't sipping tea in the canteen.
And my kid-son used to stand in the front till he grew to a height that obstructed my vision, such as it was.
And then I had to ask both of them to share the pillion which they did reluctantly.
It all went well enough for a good 15 years till one day the pillion seat came apart due to rusting in the heavy monsoon of KGP.
Chetak's design was such that its stepney adorned its back like the bobbin of an Indian lady's put-up hairstyle those days. So, when a new pillion frame was inserted in place of the broken one, the length of the pillion seat got reduced by 6" and my wife refused to squeeze on it.
And my son grew to 6' by then and kidnapped my Chetak.
That was when I bought my Maruti 800 in 2000 A.D....as good and lame an excuse as any...
...Posted by Ishani
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