Royal Fame, Glory and Shame.

One can recognize a shiny new bike, if its parked, if it passes by or if it gets stalled. Yes, especially when it gets stalled people will surely know you are a new rider and will look at you as if its an eternal sin to stand in the midst of the mere mortal human race and kick start your bike, fail miserably in doing so and then quietly f*@# off from that place after you have self started the red elephant.

The Enfield is a plain, simple bike and simplicity is the modern art that the bike offers to the rider. For an IT professional owning a bike like the Enfield, quick starts, automation, exception handling, smooth flow, streamlined processes are just adjectives & variables of bull shit written in software development guides and books. Dont expect these words to ever be associated with the Enfield. It doesnt need it. More over you need to be in a relationship where you dont expect much and be bold enough to admit that you love it for what it doesnt have rather than what it has. The Royal Enfield is the simplest of motor cycle designs that one can imagine. To counter that thought it cost as much as a second hand car in India, and as an owner you are constantly taunted by the fact “What have you paid for?” Mr K calls me “Bullet Baburao” I rather like the name and decided to name my bull Baburao. So from now onwards its adventures of Bullet Baburao. The bike is a thrill to start if you really know how to. I am getting a hang of it.

First of all, never throttle the Enfield when you kick it, unlike other bikes that will ignite if throttled at start, the Enfield requires none. In fact you will drown the engine with fuel if you ever do that. I see it very much like the fuel injection system vehicles where you have instructions on your dash board not to throttle while you turn on the ignition switch. But be careful, if you havent decompressed the engine already, the backfire can send your foot to the moon in one shot. Right tnow I am nursing a sore heel from one such beautiful kiss from Baburao. The electric start according to me are for pussies, but when Bengalooru honks behind your ass you better get moving in two seconds or hear unspoken Telugu and Kanada abuses in addition to some north Indian, Malayalam, Tamil and English too! Its as if the IT industry will head towards a disaster of apocalyptic proportions if I wait to kick start my bike. Road sense and patience is literally non existent. So I try to leave a little early to my home and take an inner road that is less congested so that I can ride in peace and its relatively safer. Thump, thump, thump, blast, phat, phissssssssss ... My new bull just stalled. I pushed it to the side and tried starting it, but it would start and die out. This happened for about 2-3 mins and suddenly I could see from the corner of my eye several heads turned towards me, in what looked like an evaluation of my biking skills. 300 eyes of Somasandrapalya were looking at me with great expectations, I felt like Moses on a mission to deliver them to the promised land riding a Gajja vahini that will guide Somasandrapalya through the stenches of the compost dump, over bumpy terrain of HSR layout Extension to the land where they will get F@##ing nothing but red dust on their face. Baburao is famous after all, so I pulled the choke, kicked it like a horse, pressed the self start [exempting my self as a pussy this one time] and finally drew a crowd in close vicinity of my bike. I remembered the scene from Black hawk down where the US maries runing out of ammo see the Somalian militia close in for the kill. After all my efforts I realised that there was one final adjustment I could do to keep the crown amused. And believe me you get respect standing there only if you manage to look busy fiddling with the bike's controls, at least that way you look like an intellectual than a sack of potatoes riding a two wheeler . I turned on the fuel cork to reserve mode and gave it one last kick. Roaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr, the bike started and people went back to their jobs in a matter of seconds as if they were never there at all. Life moved on, dung covered cows crossed my path waving their tails, piglets ran helter skelter squeeling on hearing the noise and Baburao excited with what ever little dignity was left of him rode away into the HSR horizon reciving the setting sun......” Come on people of Somasandrapalya .... I am just learning to ride the bike”.