A Bullet Named Padma

This is my motorcycle. Her name is Padma. She is a 2004 Standard 350 with the right side gear-shift and cast-iron block that can sprout a leak at will. She has a neutral-finder. She has an amp-meter that actually means something. She has two sets of crash guards, one for the rider and the other for the rider’s legs. Why? Because shin burn, that’s why. She does not have an electric start. Which can only mean one thing. You need to add 15 minutes to your travel time in the morning to partake in the starting ritual. 

The ritual is unwritten, passed down by sages and seers and the mechanically gifted by word of mouth, sometimes scribbled on a fossilized replaced knee. It begins with a pause, while you stand face to face with your motorcycle, helmet under your arm, a look of resignation in your face, for a forlorn face, devoid of hope, is the starting point. You must mentally prepare yourself for not being able to start her up today. Keep the Uber app ready. Now, approach slowly and swing your leg over, hoping for that muscle under your butt cheek to not tense and cramp up. If it does cramp, swing back over and lie on your back stretching out your hamstring. Don’t worry about looking like a chooth. You already are one, trying to hold on to a piece of antiquity because it induces a misplaced sense of nostalgia and uber-coolth. If your leg didn’t cramp, you are through stage one. Now, reach your left hand over to the underside and turn your petrol tap to the ‘Res’ position, praying secretly that you didn’t forget to turn it off from your last ride and haven’t inadvertently flooded the carb. If yes, add an additional 15 minutes to your travel time. Now, stick the key into the keyhole and turn it to the ignition position. Use your right heel to maneuver the neutral-finder to neutral. New bullet owners can ignore this step while slowly dying inside. Flick the kicker from under your right calf. You can do this with flair, flamboyance and pizazz. This is the coolest part of the ritual. Watch the amp-meter and kick-downwards to bring the needle to the center. If it’s slightly left of center, you’ve got the headlamp on. If it doesn’t move, your battery is dead. Call an Uber. If it makes it to the center, congratulations, you may now proceed to kick. Remember, this is not a Yamaha or a Shogun. You can’t have a go at the kick-starter like you are both a couple of March hares. Be a gentleman. One kick at a time. After 3 – 5 unresponsive kicks, you need to turn the choke on. Watch out for that recoil that projects your knee into your face! About 12 minutes into the ritual, she will show signs of life. After 15, she’s all dukku-dukku-dukku for you.

Nobody kick-starts their motorcycles anymore. What does that say about us as a society when our association with our near and dear is limited by a button? Padma is a constant reminder that sometimes, I need to work on my relationships, on my life. A metaphor. A big-ass, heavy, metallic, unreliable as shit, metaphor. Come to think of it, I’ve always only ridden a motorcycle that needed a kick-start. First with a Luna that lost its silencer somewhere near Vidhan Soudha, then the Bajaj Priya, whose seat springs never functioned, then a Kinetic Pride, that never started, over to a Splendor, which was reliable, so reliable, never failed me, then my cousin’s deadly RX100, which wheelied in 2^nd gear, then finally Padma, my Padma. We’ve had some good times, ride wise and food wise. From egg puffs to phal. And egg-newdals-haff-kebab at decrepit “Chainees” stalls. Biryani, so much biryani. At tiny joints near Chunchi to nasty splodges of gloop served in Chitradurga. She even waited for me while I took a consequential dump by the side of the highway even, so many times, keeping watch, my own risky getaway driver, like Tyrone from Snatch. She’s been my companion for close to 12 years. Through punctures, dead batteries, engine block air leaks, seizures, crashes, skids, petrol tank leaks, tappets, those stupid friggin’ tappets, the works. Always let me down when I didn’t expect but never let me down when I needed her the most. Albeit, without a functioning headlamp in the middle of the night near Vijaydurg. A story for another time.  

Don’t get me wrong, I love my bike, much like most Bullet owners do. But like most Bullet owners, I despise her from the bottom of my heart as well. For all practical purposes, she is a pretty shit bike, a relic from a romanticized past, the protagonist of a falsely perpetuated myth of riders on the mountainside and scenic seaside highways, on salt flats and river crossings, young bearded friends in leather jackets with red bandana scarves smoking cigarettes at a chai shop at Khardungla, captured in Gingham filtered pictures on Instagram. If you thought that’s what you sign up for once you buy a Bullet. You’re. Mad. Or. What? In reality, you’re more likely to find Bullet owners at their favourite mechanic’s than on an obscure road in the middle of nowhere.  

Bullet mechs are and always will be the coolest people in the world. Shafique Bhai, at the start of Four Bungalows Market in Andheri, an old bearded man who perpetually smelled of ittar and looked way too spotless for a mechanic, spoke with the voice of a chipmunk and rode a pristine 1982 Standard 350 that looked straight off the showroom. He knew the bullet very very well, but there was a laziness that was exasperating and cool at the same time. He always stayed in touch and had a brother in Bangalore that he’d visit on occasion, threatening to land up to stay in my house. I indulged him for a while before he stopped calling me a couple of years ago, realizing that I had left Mumbai and wouldn’t be coming back.

Salim Bhai in Indiranagar wore this faded brown leather jacket and rode a Thunderbird with an RD handlebar. He was mostly in demand from these large touring groups headed to the mountains as a personal tour mech. They paid him enough that he’d leave his brother in charge of the workshop and that guy didn’t know squat. Incredible no? Salim Bhai was a touring mech! So much for hitting the open road and living life dangerously. Also, a testament that you better not be more than 100 meters from a mech if you decide to hit the mountains in a Royal Enfield.

Then, there’s Tanveer Bhai and his late father who I referred to as just Kaka. Kaka was a Bullet Whisperer. He could decipher issues with a Bullet by listening to its heartbeat. It was incredible! This man was a genius! How he remained a secret even within the Bullet community in Bangalore was a mystery to me. His son, Tanveer bhai, is my go to mech for now and even he has stopped working on bikes regularly. He owns three Ubers and only looks at bikes as a hobby, paying respect to the occupation that got him to where he is. He still has a workshop on Viveknagar main road, but its closed most of the time, unless some of his regulars have entrusted him with their bikes. Kaka passed away recently and that got me thinking about how a simple thing like a motorcycle creates a circle of trust, an eco-system of relationships, and that’s why this post. I’m pretty sure I’ve been ripped off by all of them, having spent a small fortune on unchanged brake shoes, clutch plates and engine oil, but I signed up for this when I decided to buy Padma, so I suck it up.

Of course, as it always must, it all does tie back in to food. The thing is, I never hold back from asking any person for recommendations when it comes to food. So, as is my want, I happened to ask Tanveer bhai for a biryani recco near Viveknagar and he didn’t disappoint. He claimed that there was a well-kept secret amongst the mohmeddan community around Austin Town about a biryani guy who served the best beef biryani in the city for “reejhunaybul price”. You had to get there early as he started serving at sharp 1 PM and by 2:30, it was all over and he would close for the day. This sounded tremendously enticing and I decided to head over post my wheel bearing changes, ditch the free bike wash, and land up early at the soon to be discovered biryani joint. As luck would have it, I reached 20 minutes too early and found myself sitting on a short bench in the squalid, greasy corner of what can only be described as a soot-filled oily cave, overlooking two biryani merchants working their magic on a couple of massive steaming aluminium vats of ambur style gold.

I tell you man, there are few greater pleasures in life than that provided by a fresh plate of biryani. But the whole experience of just watching these two guys going at it like pros, draining par cooked rice into bamboo sieves, segregating meat chunks from sherwa, layering the vat with precise quantities of masala, meat and rice, managing the temperature off the wood-fired stove, was special. When it finally arrived on a plastic sheet lined plate, steaming my face with hints of mint, coriander, clove and cinnamon, I already felt like I had had enough, more than enough. But that feeling died down in a about ten seconds and I ruined my face Khoon Bhari Maang style trying to belt it like a champ. That was some tasty stuff!

Was it the best biryani I have ever had? Probably not. But for 60 rupees, there probably isn’t a better biryani out there. For once, I might actually head over to Tanveer Bhai’s even if Padma is running problem-free. Actually, probably not.

She’ll plan that out for me anyways.