1
Peter looked away.
Was it nerves? Was he thinking up another lie? I hadn’t come down this hard on him before. I was wary over his reaction. But mostly I was hopping mad.
“You fix motorcycle by Friday!” I said giving each word stress for effect.
“Yessir. No problem sir.” It was Peter’s standard reply, which I had heard perhaps thirty times a week for the last 12 weeks. I brushed it past and increased my volume.
“Friday I come! I take motorcycle Friday! Got it? I take motorcycle fixed or not! Got it? I bring rope! I tow it by car! I take my bike! Got it?” I used the simplified English Peter used to make sure he understood. But perhaps all he heard was the white customer’s anger.
“Yessir. No problem sir. Fix Friday sir. You come Friday. Is 5 o’clock ok?” Peter stared right at me with earnest eyes, sounding a bit like a humble waiter in a restaurant. Would he ask me if I wanted sugar and cream next? I had handed over the bike for an engine rebuild at the beginning of December. It was now the end of February. Peter had promised the bike would be finished on every Friday since the beginning of January, yet had not produced it. Always one more thing needed fixing. In early January, he just needed valve stems. Then it was shims. And last week it was a main bearing. The motor seemed to be getting less-built with time.
“All you say are lies, lies, lies, Peter!” Yes, I knew the local culture required him to tell me what I wanted to hear. But when the hell was I going to get my bike back? Couldn’t the man simply tell me the truth about the bike? If he couldn’t get parts, couldn’t he just tell me?
“Yes sir. Sorry sir.” Peter looked away, genuinely ashamed.
“I take bike whether fix or not. This Friday. I come 5 o’clock.” I was determined to get it back from him, perhaps find another mechanic who didn’t lie so much. Perhaps one that could fix it in less than a year.
“Yessir. No problem sir. Bike almost done. Just one thing finish. Bike done today. Test bike tomorrow. You take bike Friday. No problem sir.” This new detail was oddly reassuring. I knew better than to trust what he told me, having been fooled a hundred times before. But Peter seemed to have a plan. Maybe it was the truth. Maybe I would get my bike back on Friday.
I left Peter’s shop worrying that I had been too sharp with him. Gosh, if I got the bike back that Friday, I could spend Saturday morning riding on the back roads. Jeannette would come along. We could picnic. Monday I could drive the kids to school, and they adore that. Oh dear how lovely that would be. I really needed it. The office politics at school were raging and I needed a break.
Later that afternoon I bumped into Sasi, Peter’s parts dealer. He asked how things were. I told him I was taking my bike back on Friday. Sasi told me that wasn’t possible. Peter didn’t have the bike any more. A fellow on the other side of town had the bike, or what was left of it. He had disassembled the entire bike a month ago and sold many of the parts, especially the ones that were hard to get. As Peter owed this guy money, Sasi didn’t think he’d give what remained of the bike back to Peter any time soon. And Peter had a 4000rs. deposit from me.
That evening I cruised Travelocity for cheap tickets home.
2
Much of Kodai’s first-time Western staff come to India expecting “exotic” and “interesting.” They imagine colorful adventures and delicious new foods. They prepare themselves for large insects, tropical diseases and a scarcity of toilet paper. They think it will all be so cool that the third-world horrors will pale in significance. Perhaps the horrors will even be interesting. I certainly did.
And many Western staff run screaming only after a short stay. The novelty wears off and the unusual becomes strange. Garbage is everywhere, it stinks and nobody cleans it up. The Hindu penitents marching with skewers through their faces or hanging from hooks through their flesh are simply blocking traffic. You get cheated by local businessmen. Smiles cease to be friendly and become inscrutable. Then culture shock sets in which is when there’s something that just ain’t right about the country. Some come to this conclusion after only a few days. Others take a few years. A few learn to live with it, even enjoy it.
While we haven’t run home yet, it’s not that we haven’t wanted to. The kids miss home terribly at times. Especially around holidays I feel lost, cold and unhappy. On Thanksgiving I would much rather be back in my sister’s living room having a dysfunctional-family argument with shouting, arm-waving, tears and irrational recriminations than have another delicious dosa at the Hilltop Inn.
What attracts us to India would make a long list. What drives us out of our minds would make a longer list. But for now we have a balance, and it’s weighted more heavily towards India. The challenge to living here is maintaining that balance. Yes we wobble when it takes 15 minutes to drive the 500 feet between the school and my house because a series of bus, car and truck drivers are using the road to talk, park, make a u-turn, eat lunch, play marbles with their children and perform many other activities except dive on the appropriate side of the road at a constant and rational speed. But the balance is restored on every hike through the amazing hills, and over every gin-and-tonic watching the evening light fall on Kodai lake from our verandah. But most especially my balance is restored when I take long rides on my Enfield around the hills. I love to ride my motorcycle in India.
So when I nearly lost my Enfield to a perfectly nice mechanic named Peter, I lost my balance.
3
Soon before we came to India, a nice lady in the Human Resources department sent us an email. It seems that she and her husband, the school pastor, were leaving Kodai a bit sooner than expected. He had a motorcycle for sale, and needed to sell it quickly. It was in great shape and he wanted only 34,500 rs. (about $800). As I didn’t have a good idea what bikes should cost in Kodaikanal, I figured I could trust him, being a pastor and all, and bought the bike, sight unseen.
The bike was an Enfield 535 Lightning, built in 2000. It had a cheesy 1970’s cruiser look. I would need aviator shades, open shirt with gold chains around my neck and a blow-dried haircut to look the part while riding it. But I tried to look on the bright side. I tried to find a bright side. Perhaps I could sell it easily when I got there.
Motorcycles are critically important to my imagination. I dream about them. I ride them. I ride them in my dreams. I dream of riding them. Some of my most enjoyable moments have been spent on motorcycles, from touring Europe on a Czech 2-stroke, to high speeds over American highways on a Japanese V-4, to trail riding on a beaten down dirt bike. I was really excited at the prospect of the lovely oddities of single-cylinder British-Indian engineering. Instead I was getting low-rent Eric Estrada. I kept up hope about selling it.
Internet research revealed that it was the biggest Indian manufactured motorcycle, with the largest displacement and most horsepower. Brand new it put out a whopping 25 hp. Most lawn mower engines put out more. And the bike was heavy—Harley heavy. Looked like I’d be pushing it up hills.
About a week after we arrived in Kodai, a friend of the pastor’s, Dhan, left the bike at my house. The initial impression was, well, anti-climactic. I had expected an ugly bike. What I got was a dirty, rusty, and broken-down ugly bike. The rear license plate mount was dangling by wires. The instrument panel didn’t work. Neither did the headlight. And the float bowl leaked gas everywhere. It had over 60,000km on the odometer. Most importantly I couldn’t get it started. I knew how in theory. I had started many motorcycles in my day, and repeatedly so. This particular bike had the combination of a compression release and a kick-start. No Top Dead Center indicator, but perhaps it didn’t need one.
I kicked it with choke on. I kicked with the choke off. I kicked with the compression release on. I kicked with it off. I timed my compression release with the kick. I ignored it entirely. I tried to find TDC by feel before I kicked it. I kicked it on the beaches, in the towns, in the countryside, but nothing made a difference. It didn’t even sputter. After an hour of this—made all the more humiliating because I knew someone had started and ridden it to my house—I walked back inside on a rubber leg. I sat down in the living room and thought, wow, India is really exotic, unusual, and interesting. Then I had several beers.
Later, I pushed the bike into the covered shed and confirmed all intentions to sell it.
4
I put a notice in the staff lounge. I spread the word. Just asking what I paid for it. My motivation to sell wasn’t simply the ugly aesthetics and non-running condition. I’ve kept bikes like this before (with the intention of improving both states). Complicating the issue was the fine art of driving in India. Frankly, I was terrified of setting out on the roads. Walking along them was dangerous enough.
When we first arrived, the drive from Madurai airport to Kodaikanal confirmed that India was really exotic, unusual, and completely insane. Our driver passed everything marginally slower than him on the congested roads without waiting for an opportunity. He just passed when he caught up. If there was an oncoming vehicle smaller than his car, he didn’t blink. I was their job to get out of his way, in effect to get off the road. But if the oncoming car was bigger, then he would slow down and duck back into his proper lane just in time. At no time did we follow a car in front of us. We were either passing one, had just passed one, or were about to pass one. We just-missed head-on collisions with oncoming traffic at least five or six times a minute during the entire 4-hr. long drive.
Our diver wasn’t unusual. Everyone passed everyone constantly. As we would pass a truck, an oncoming car would be trying to pass another in oncoming traffic.
Blind corners didn’t slow anyone down from passing. When not visible, drivers would honk to indicate they were there. Trucks would pass trucks on blind corners while motorcycles would try to pass the passing trucks. I watched the impossible happen time after time as people survived these maneuvers.
Driving in Kodai was compounded by the hills. The roads curved quite a bit and in places were very steep. One particular road is so steep it really could be stairs (for the Bridgewaterites in the audience it’s much steeper than old abandoned Allen Rd. that connects Hut Hill with Keeler). One road coming up out of the gas station in the center of town offers such a sharp rise that long buses scrape off sections of their bumpers if they navigate it at the wrong angle.
My American background was another huge problem. Like the British, Indians drive on the wrong side of the road. Years earlier I rented a car in England for a week. Sure enough, one sleepy morning I pulled out onto the right-hand side of the road, and nearly hit an oncoming car. I was very afraid of making the same mistake here.
So the Enfield gathered a bit of dust. It was just as well, as life was very complex our first month here.
5
Moving abroad to teach in a boarding school is not a simple task. New country. New culture. New job. New school for the kids. New foods. New home. New acquaintances. No friends or family. Every day was a “challenge” in the best and worst sense of the term. We would all arrive home in the evening, exhausted but with great stories. In many ways, I simply didn’t have time to fool with a cantankerous motorcycle.
A month or two into the term, I took up Dhan’s offer to help me with the bike. He had an Enfield, had driven them most of his life and knew them well. He came over and looked the bike up and down. He then got on the bike, waved his hand mysteriously over several parts, muttered a few guttural incantations, kicked it over slowly three times, then kicked it with vigor. The motor sprang to life with a low, slow and almost-sonorous thud-thud-thud-thud-thud, firing perhaps twice a second. The sound was not quite authoritative Harley, that aggressive V-twin bark. The sound was certainly not high-whine Japanese, but something altogether different. I wasn’t too familiar with British bikes, so I figured this is what British singles sound like. The sound wasn’t bad. Nothing offensive. But it didn’t have any flair, either. This was not sexy Italian V-12. It was far more clothes-pins-on-me-trousers-so-the-Missus-don’t-get-upset-with-grease-stains.
Mixed in with the exhaust note was a horrendous clatter from the valves, as if someone was playing the spoons on a linoleum countertop. Idling, the bike vibrated like a coin-operated Supermarket kiddie-ride. I sighed.
Dhan shut the motor off and launched into a long description of all the things I needed to do to start an Enfield. It seemed that I required an advanced degree in Enfield Mechanical Engineering. Without such a degree, I should always park it at the top of hills. In fact, it was preferable to ask random passerby’s until I found one with a degree in to start my motorcycle for me, rather than attempt it myself. I took as many mental notes as possible, and Dhan seemed confident I’d learn how with a few months of practice. But there was a catch.
“Oh, your TDC meter doesn’t work. That’ll make starting the bike really hard,” Dhan says.
“And where might this TDC meter be?” I had looked all over the bike for such an indicator and found none.
“Oh, your voltage meter does the job before the bike starts. Except it’s broken” was the casual reply. Good to know. I figured the voltage meter didn’t register anything because the bike was not running and had no voltage. “So you have to learn to feel when the cylinder is reaching TDC before firing instead of TDC when expelling exhaust.” I saw. My leg would have to learn some new tricks. “And the valves are noisy. You should get them adjusted.” I was about to say “No shit Sherlock,” but remembered I was in a different cultural setting, and my humor might not be appreciated as intended.
And then Dhan looked over the bike again and asked that fatal question.
“How much did you pay for it?” I told him. Dhan didn’t blink before saying “That’s too much. The bike is worth about 25,000 rs. If you want to sell it, you should ask about 20,000 rs. I think that’s what you’ll get for it.”
I sighed.
6
In due time I learned the intricate process required to start an Enfield. Part of the problem is that the starting process is not static. It changes with the weather. It changes with the quality of gas you get. It changes with how clogged the carb is. Did I mention the bike had no fuel filter? It had no fuel filter. Whatever junk made its way into the tank burned in the engine, if it ever got there. The carb would go through periods of poor idle, then fast idle, then no idle, then back to a good idle. I figure much of it had to do with the logjam of rust, dirt, leaves and twigs that made their way from the gas tank to the jets. Once I took the carb apart and poured dark brown liquid from the float bowl. Mostly rust, I hoped.
Starting the bike without a TDC meter was indeed difficult. I’d push the motor through its cycle slowly until I found what seemed to be the compression cycle. Then I’d apply the compression release. Then I’d give her a good solid kick. “Ftuff” was the usual reply, though occasionally accompanied by a backfire strong enough to break my ankle. Five times. twenty times. Fifty times. It was exhausting. My right leg grew noticeably stronger and larger than my left. But one magical kick somewhere in the series would spark the bike to life, and off we’d go thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
On the positive side, the bike was solid on the road. Perhaps a bit too solid, as lithe and lively it was not. The acceleration was close to non-existent. A twist of the throttle made the thud-thud-thud a magnitude louder, but accompanying acceleration suffered a long lag. Occasionally I’d have forgotten I’d accelerated by the time the bike sped up. The extra speed would come as a surprise. Thankfully though, the bike had a solid front brake—a retrofitted disc. Most Enfields have front drums that weren’t designed slow the bike down. They were designed to give your hand something to do while you crashed. Some previous owner of my bike took this badly, and had a disc fitted to the front wheel. I thank him. The bike also had a working horn. Horn and brake, I discovered, were the two most essential items to drive in India. Without them you’re lost.
Personality-wise, the Enfield was really hard to place. I kept looking for a good nickname, and none even registered as a maybe. To start with, I couldn’t figure out if my Enfield was male or female. Italian sports cars are female in my mind. They’re sexy, expensive to run, temperamental in their running habits and enormous fun. A Toyota pickup truck, however, is very male: mechanically dependable and completely boring. My Enfield was definitely very 1970’s male in feel, but there was something vaguely feminine about it. There was something also fundamentally annoying about the bike, though why I couldn’t quite pin down. So I held off with a nickname. Other bikes have been very easy to nickname.
Years ago I lived in Slovakia, just after the Iron curtain fell. I bought and rode a Jawa 350, 1990 vintage. First-hand I learned the many horrors Socialism had inflicted upon Slovak engineering skills and the Slovak spirit. I learned to appreciate Harley-Davidson quality control. I learned to appreciate my electric company’s customer service. I learned to appreciate the West.
That Jawa 350 earned the nickname Snake. The name’s from a horse in a favorite book that would try to kill his rider at random opportunities. My Jawa would malfunction or jettison essential parts at very inconvenient moments—on mountainous hairpin turns, in rush-hour city traffic and at high speed. Once while trying to overtake a truck on a highway at night, I heard an enormous bang then lost all power, including my lights. I had to drift back along the truck in the passing lane to swerve behind it and reach the opposite shoulder, as there was only a guardrail to my left. Invisible and without power with cars fast approaching from behind, the trucker bizarrely decided to move into my lane. Only through several insane and impossible emergency maneuvers did I avoid death. Once on the shoulder, still doubting that I had survived, I checked over the bike from stem to stern and found nothing wrong. No sign of explosion or fire. I started her with the first kick, lights back on, everything was fine. And so she earned the nickname Snake.
My homicidal motorcycle would earn his name over and over again. In the first months of riding, Snake’s front brake seized solid on a curve, the clutch went miles from home, the accelerator cable snapped, five sets of plugs fouled, numerous nuts and bolts fell off while riding. I also discovered the oil drain plug had been fitted in the factory with stripped threads. It’s a miracle I survived Snake’s repeated attempts on my life. I sold her to a perfectly nice fellow. She promptly dumped him on a hillside. He put out his back permanently. I think we both got off lucky.
My Enfield has yet to earn a nickname. Perhaps my limited Western brain simply can’t fully digest what has been a very Indian motorcycle experience—not in a pejorative sense, mind you, but in the sense that the experience has been unique and, I feel, only possible in Kodaikanal.
7
Thud-thuds-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud
Clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty
When in a good mood, I would tune into the exhaust note. When in a bad mood, I’d tune into the valve noise. Sometimes I would follow the logic and wonder about the many sides of my bike’s personality. And I would cringe that I hadn’t taken her to a mechanic yet. The trouble was I didn’t know a good mechanic and I didn’t speak Tamil aside from a few words of general greeting. Other Western staff had used a fellow named Peter, but I wasn’t sure where I could find his shop. I was too timid to ask, when it came down to it, because I wanted to sell the bike, not pour money into it. But I had no buyers. Not even a nibble. Yes, I was being stubborn about the price. Perhaps that was the problem. But nobody even expressed interest in buying the bike. So I rode it.
Eventually, I took the plunge and started to ask around about bike mechanics. I got two references, one to a Dinan and another to a Peter. Dinan didn’t speak English, but Don his friend, did. I could work through Don. Peter did speak English, but Dinan would pick up and deliver the bike, so I went for Dinan. I thought to test Dinan with simple things first, before ordering a whole engine rebuild.
Dinan welded back my license plate frame, got the headlight working, repaired the float bowl leak for about 45 rs. And Dinan picked up the bike and delivered it back. I was elated. It was too good to be true. I wanted to go and thank him personally, but I didn’t know where his shop was, he didn’t speak English, and Don didn’t seem to feel there was a need. So I left it alone.
We’d been in India for a good six months at this point. Learning Tamil had become a quest, complete with insurmountable obstacles. There was no Tamil teacher at school. The two Tamil teachers recommended by friends were unavailable. I bought books and studied them. When I would practice with our ayah, Philomena, she would listen then laugh.
“You learn wrong Tamil, sir” Philomena would tell me.
“Wrong Tamil? But the book says…”
“Book not right, sir” Philomena would laugh.
“So how do I say…” and I would ask her. Philomena was very helpful, as she would tell me three ways to say something. I would try each. She would laugh at each. I would try again and she would tell me I shouldn’t say it that way.
“Don’t say that, sir.” Philomena would correct me.
“Then what way?”
“Not that way.” Philomena would continue to correct me.
Learning Tamil from Philomena always left me knowing less than I had at the start. My books were all wrong, as they taught Tamil that was spoken fifty or a hundred years back. This older Tamil seemed to be as distant from modern Tamil as Shakespeare’s language is from our own. I still persevered with Philomena, and picked up a few words.
I’m sure my confusion with the language exacerbated the situation, but it seemed every time I asked Philomena for the Tamil numbers, or some phrase, I’d get a different answer. I’d write them down, and they’d be right one day and wrong the next. Perhaps Tamil was spoken differently every day of the week. I tried asking for numbers only on Mondays, but still got different answers. Perhaps on Mondays she would give me the accusative case, and on Tuesdays I’d get the nominative. I really couldn’t make head or tale of the muddle.
I also tried to pick up words and phrases from Tamil faculty at the school.
“No, no, your ayah say all wrong,” Hadden told me. And Hadden gave me yet another series of words for Tamil numbers. Despair started to set in.
“Don’t bother trying to learn Tamil, it’s impossible,” the wisdom of a 20-year faculty veteran rang hollow in my ear. I really didn’t want to be ignorant Western staff. But I was too busy to study Tamil full time, and too weak to pick it up as I went along. I sighed.
8
Two days after Dinan fixed the float bowl, it started leaking again. I got Don to call Dinan about it, and added a valve job to the order. Maybe Dinan could quiet up the valves.
A few days after Dinan picked up the bike, Don told me he could fix the valves. The pushrods had worn down so much they needed extensions. The extensions were available in Madurai and Dinan would get them soon. I said yes please, get them fixed. A week later, Dinan dropped my bike off at the school. I started the bike up to the same valve noise. The float bowl still leaked.
Next I found out where Peter’s shop was and took the bike there to see if he could be of any use. I asked him to change the oil, fix the carb and fix the TDC meter on the instrument panel. As Peter spoke English, it was really easy to deal with him.
“Yes sir. No problem. Go buy parts in Madurai tomorrow. Fix day after. Come back Friday.” So I came back Friday, and sure enough I had a working TDC meter and clean oil. Gas was not pissing out of the float bowl. Peter had even cleaned the bike up some. I was elated. It was too good to be true.
Next I asked Peter if he could fix the valve noise by rebuilding the top end.
“Yes sir. No problem sir. I fix top end.”
“How long will it take?”
“Oh, one week to get parts, pushrods, seals. One week to fix. Two weeks maximum sir. No problem.” Peter seemed thoughtful when he said this. It seemed reasonable enough. I left the bike with him and went on winter vacation.
9
The school’s winter vacation lasts about six weeks, from the middle of November through the beginning of January. It’s high tourist season in India since the monsoon is over, but the high heat of April and May have not yet arrived. You can travel around without being soaked to the skin or burnt to a crisp.
So off we went on an extravagant bus tour of India, from Kodaikanal through Bangalore, Goa, Hampi, Ellore, Ajanta, Hyderabad then home. While a marvelous trip worth every dime and every trouble, we arrived back exhausted.
I found Peter had returned my bike already, stored it in a friend’s garage. My heat leaped. I started her and heard the same sack of silverware noise from the engine. My heart fell.
The next morning I found Peter.
“Did you fix my bike, Peter?” I asked not-so-innocently. I knew the answer, but wanted his reasons why he didn’t fix the thing.
“Yes Sir. Bike all fixed” Peter said with a smile. What was he up to? Did he really take me for a complete idiot? Was he joking? I waited for a “just kidding” but didn’t get it. Or did he really rebuilt it and make it just as worse as before?
“No Peter. Bike not fixed.” I opted for a literal response, hoping to avoid confusion.
“No, bike not fixed.” Peter stopped smiling and agreed.
I wondered if I said the bike was fixed, he would agree with me again. And then if I said again it was not fixed, he’d agree with me again, and how long we could keep it up. But it was too early in the morning to descend into farce. I opted for the straight-faced literal approach:
“Why you not fix bike?”
“Bike needs pushrods. Needs whole engine work. Whole top end needs work.” Peter explained what we both knew two weeks ago. Now it was getting funny. He doesn’t do any work on my motorcycle for two weeks because he needs to confirm what I asked him to do before I left?
“Yes, yes. Rebuild whole engine. That’s what I asked you to do two weeks ago.” It was déjà vu all over again.
“Sorry sir.”
“Please rebuild the top end. Whole engine. Top end. Here.” I pointed to the portion of the engine in question, as I had done two weeks earlier.
“Need many parts” Peter was complicating matters by observing the obvious. Was he after money to start?
“You need money to start?” I felt like I was falling into a trap, though an inevitable one.
“Parts cost maybe 2000 rupees. Labor 1000 rupees more. Fix bike in one week, all done. Tomorrow I go Madurai buy parts. No problem.” I gave Peter 3000 rs. in exchange for a promise to fix my bike in a week.
“No problem, sir. I bring bike to your house when done.” I left with a sense that perhaps we were finally on the right track. Now I just had to wait, and pay the remainder on delivery.
Walking back up the hill I thought about it. A complete upper end rebuild for about 3000 rs. was a pretty good deal. $75 to rebuild a motor? You couldn’t touch that in the States. Flycutting the head would cost $125 and up. Wait. Was he going to flycut the head? I sincerely hoped he would. But also I figured that when in India, you just let things happen. There were enough motorcycles on the road to attest to some competence in mechanical matters. I’d leave him the job of quieting up the pushrods, getting the valves to cooperate and all.
10
School started in early January, the skies celebrating the return of students with bright cold blue hues. It was the start of the true dry season. Perfect riding weather. And my bike was in the shop.
My kids were even less patient than I. I had taken them to school every morning on the bike, Isaac sitting on the tank in front and Josephine on the back. Isaac’s feet weren’t long enough to reach the rear pegs. He also enjoyed the full force of wind in his face. And there were the instruments to read. He’d report on how fast we were going and what obstacles were on the horizon. At first Josephine clung to my back with a grip of steel. But in no time she balanced herself so well I’d half expect to turn around and catch her reading a book as we rode to school. Thankfully, though, she’d always have a hand on the seat edge.
“Dad, when are we getting the bike back?” They would both whine in the mornings, facing the terrible prospect of a slow, ten minute walk to school instead of a two minute magic-carpet ride over empty roads at 7:30 am.
I also found the walk annoying. It wasn’t the effort or the speed. It was the lack of a bit of fun every morning. Riding three on a bike (or four, as Jeannette sometimes came with us too), is quite enjoyable. You feel snug all pressed together—an adrenaline version of curling up on the couch and watching TV as a family.
The return trip was one I didn’t miss. By 5pm, the roads were clogged with traffic and tourists. While we never got about 15kph, the danger of hitting someone or something was very real.
Tourist towns are driving nightmares anywhere in the world. One in three cars have just arrived. The drivers are so happy to look around at the sights and search for parking that they lose any road-awareness skills they may have possessed. In India, we have all these problems in addition to the usual crazy driving and road-use habits. In Kodai, no lanes are ever maintained. People drive wherever they see fit. They drive super slow. They speed up and slow down without explanation. They stop in the middle of the road, blocking all traffic, while someone gets out and looks for something in the trunk. They try to turn around on small one-lane roads, blocking everyone for a quarter of an hour as they try to figure things out. And they park at odd angles in the oddest places because they can’t find parking anywhere else. Cars do this. Small buses do this. Large buses do this. The horns are piercing loud and constant. Add to this a wide assortment of cows, stray dogs, street vendors, unattended small children on bicycles and families eating their lunches on the roads and the traffic snarl makes the Gaza Strip look restful and safe.
The traffic is particularly bad around the lake, where the roads are barely two cars in width, steep and with very sharp curves that most buses can’t navigate. And of course, all the tourist buses want to park on the lake. The municipality has made some effort to keep them away by erecting huge steel I-beam height-limiters, about 6 ft. off the ground, right at driver-eye level, even below. The trouble is that these huge I-beams are generally bent like pretzels three or four days after they’re put up. Cars, trucks, buses: Everything hits the barriers. I’ve seen cars hit them at 30 kph, scraping ten suitcases right off the roof rack. While visually amusing—an explosion of underwear, kids toys, toothbrushes and saris—up into the air then all over the road—I sympathize with problem. I wouldn’t wish that kind of accident on any tourist. So I never laugh. I just smile quietly.
The height-limiters then bend and sag down closer to the ground, and only let through kids in strollers and crawling adults. So of course groups of tourists get out of their buses and work-gang style completely demolish the barriers, pushing them to one side. Then we get the huge buses stuck around the lake again. Finally, the municipality erects makeshift barriers out of logs, roping the ends to street lights and telephone poles. These come down five, six times a day. It’s a mess.
I almost forgot to add: High tourist season is when the municipality digs up and repaves the main roads. They have done this every year since we’ve been here, as the paving jobs aren’t particularly durable. At any given time, several of the roads around the lake are closed (though this doesn’t keep the cars, trucks and buses off them after they get under the barriers). And they often pull up the fresh pavement onto their tires as they drive over. By pavement, I should specify: the pavers mix boiling tar with small stones in a tumbler, then spread the black Rice-Krispy-Treat-like stuff over the road with rakes. Occasionally there’s a roller that flattens things a bit. That’s it.
Driving a motorcycle through this mess is both dangerous and not very enjoyable.
But the weekends? Outside of town? The mountain roads outside Kodai are largely free of cars: only the occasional truck making deliveries, the occasional local bus, and the occasional motorcycle with twelve people on it going to or coming from work. Lovely riding opportunities. A massage for the soul.
11
After three weeks, I determine that it’s not pestering to stop by Peter’s shop and ask how things are going. The kids ask every morning when the bike will be back, for their trips to and from school. I’ve missed two weekends in a row of leisure and am feeling greedy. It’s now nearing the end of January. I want my bike back. Peter’s a week off his own schedule. Something must be up. I will ask him just that, in a friendly, non-confrontational way. I even plan my banter and questions.
I walked down the hill to his shop after school.
“Yes sir, bike not finished. Tomorrow finished. No problem sir. Parts hard to get. Not my fault, sir. Parts hard to get. 535 parts hard to get. Bike finished tomorrow. No problem.”
I listen hard, trying to hear what he really means. No Parts? No problem? Finished tomorrow?
“Peter, what’s the problem. Why bike not finished?” I can only come up with an open-ended question. In my heart I know Peter won’t explain anything better than he already has.
“Parts hard to get. Bike finished tomorrow. I bring bike tomorrow. Will you be home 5pm?”
“Yes, I’ll be home 5pm. I’ll wait for you then. Thanks.” And that was that. What else could I say? You lying sack of fertilizer? I walked back up the hill to school, found the kids, and walked home with them.
12
Tomorrow comes, goes and so do several more tomorrows. Time for another visit. Perhaps this time I should be a little more angry.
Peter sees me coming down the hill, and continues working on a car engine. There is a large air filter in a canister lying in the dirt. It’s rather bashed up. One end has bits of sheet steel torn out with pliers. Bits of dirty paper filter litter the ground around it. It looks like an animal has been trying to tear out the tender meat in the middle. He seems to have tried, unsuccessfully, to get an old filter out of the canister, and totally wrecked the canister in the process. I begin to question Peter’s skills as a mechanic.
“Yessir. Sorry sir. Engine needs oil seal. I go Madurai tomorrow. Buy oil seal. No problem.”
I walk back up the hill to school and decide not to think about the bike for a whole week. A watched pot never boils.
13
“Yessir. Sorry sir. Oil seal not available here. I go Madurai tomorrow. Buy oil seal.”
“But Peter, you said last week you buy oil seal in Madurai. Tomorrow you go?” Is there genuine surprise in my voice? I can’t tell any more.
“Yessir. Sorry sir. I go tomorrow. Parts hard to get. Not my fault, sir.”
I have the distinct sense that I’m being lied to, and not particularly well. Perhaps it’s because he’s given me the same story as last week. Perhaps it’s because his story contradicts previous promises to “fix bike by Friday.” I wonder if this is special treatment for the foreigners, or if the locals also get the same run around. I begin to worry that Peter is not planning to give the bike back at all. Let’s see how long I can string the White man along. Then I’ll tell him “bike gone.” He can’t go to the police, who are totally corrupt. Ha ha…. The paranoia grows as I walk back up the hill.
At school I bump into Vasant, the Student Activities Coordinator and a fellow Enfield enthusiast, who asks how the rebuild is going. I tell him.
“So much problem man! Tcha. You should have called me. 535 parts are easy to get. The factory is in Chennai. Tcha. What’s up with Peter? These guys always screw people around. Me too. You just have to be firm with them. Look, I’ll come along and sort it out.” I decline his offer. This is not what I need, a Big Brother to beat up Peter for me.
Don later informs me that 535 parts are in fact hard to get. Enfield doesn’t make the 535 any more, and so don’t stock the parts shelves as well as they should. His theory is that Peter may be mad at the school, and is taking revenge out on me. Revenge?
Peter used to run a garage on the school campus. He performed maintenance on school vehicles, worked on faculty cars privately, and took in other customers from the town. After ten years of this set up, the school suddenly realized that a) he wasn’t a school employee, b) he hadn’t paid rent on the shop for ten years and c) he had to go immediately because he just had to go. So Peter was kicked out of his shop. If this was revenge, why innocent little me?
“Well, I wouldn’t worry so much,” Don tried to put a shiny face on the matter. “Peter’s generally a nice guy. He doesn’t often screw his customers. He may just be waiting on the job. Sometimes they take the deposit you give them to finish a job. Then to buy parts for yours, they have to wait until someone else gives them a deposit. So you just gotta wait.” Often? Wait? Don’s alarming analysis mixed with his laid back attitude was an object lesson in surviving India from Western perspective. But I was not listening to him in that capacity. I heard that Peter hadn’t even started work on my bike. I could have been driving it all along. But was Don right? Was Vasant right? Was Peter right? What kind of .
14
Several more weeks of visits to Peter produced a long list of new parts that were needed, from pushrods (I thought we already spent two weeks on those?), to gears, to oil seals and I forget what else. The final straw was the rings.
“Tomorrow I go Coimbatore and get rings. Bike all done. Bike all together now. Only rings. I go tomorrow get rings.” Peter was smiling. It looked all the world as if he was relieved that the end of a long motorcycle ordeal was near. His smile cheered me but I felt like a fool. My anger at being given the runaround for so long had been rising.
“Peter, if bike not done Friday, I get very mad.”
“Sorry sir.”
“You have my bike 2 1/2 months. This is too long. You say ‘Fix Friday’ every Friday now for 2 1/2 months. You lie to me Peter.”
“Sorry sir. Bike all done sir. Tomorrow I get rings.”
“Yes, as you’ve said all along. But I don’t believe you. You fix bike now.” In my heart I felt the bike sliding away, out of my grip. I hadn’t even seen it in three months. Peter kept it in his “bike shop” at an undisclosed location over near the parts dealer, Sasi. I wanted it back. Perhaps I could rebuilt it. Buy a few tools, borrow few tools. I could work on the terrace in front of our house. Flycut the head? Well… Torque wrenches? Hmmm. It was not a good option, but I felt the only one.
Another Friday went by, no bike. Then I hit Peter’s shop like a ton of bricks and demanded my bike back by Friday even if he hadn’t built it. I went back on Wednesday and shouted.
It was later that day I found out from Sasi that he didn’t even have my bike any more.
15
It was about that point that during one of my public lamentations, a friend offered another friend’s bike to borrow until I got mine back. This friend of a friend was out of town and had made a general offer. I accepted without the usual Wasp hesitation.
It was a really clapped out “Classic” Enfield 350. It was the smaller version of my bike, but with those lovely 1950’s lines. I fell in love with the looks. But it was in bad shape. The muffler was close to non-existent. The full-throated single boomed so loudly, my wife said she could hear me start the bike at school and chart my progress home. Either the paint was the color of rust, or the rust was the color of paint, it was hard to tell. The front brake was a drum with the light touch of a silken glove. Thankfully the rear brake worked well. The big trouble was that the horn didn’t function. And the motor made horrible clunking noises as I sped along. Starting it didn’t require the compression release valve, as there was very little compression. But it started. It ran. It got me around.
I took a day off work, arranging for a sub to take my classes. In the morning I dropped the kids at the bus then headed out of town. Within 20 minutes, I found a lonely mountain road truly in the middle of nowhere. I stopped the bike, and just listened. Nothing but the sound of birds. I climbed a rock face and sat watching the clouds roll by. I listened to the distant monkeys fight. I greeted the local women carrying water on their heads as they walked along the road to their villages. My trifling Tamil phrases impressed them to the point of big smiles. I got back on the bike and explored some more. The road would be wreathed in clouds one moment, then clear the next. The valleys and peaks surrounding offered the same drama. The bliss of riding with no particular place to go is one of the great joys of life. I found my balance again. India was beautiful.
16
“Dinan has your bike now. Peter brought took it over to his shop in baskets on Monday. Not much left, but Dinan figures he can get it together in a few days.” Don and Vasant had made further inquiries, perhaps some threats, on my behalf. There was movement on the bike project now.
I felt like a bereaved spouse being told his wife has been brought, in pieces, to a bush-doctor’s hut. The Voodoo promises that the dead will be brought back to life rang hollow in my ears.
“How many parts missing?” Don didn’t know. But the big ones were still there, head, gearbox, frame, wheels, etc. That sounded like good news.
“Oh, Dinan needs the keys. He doesn’t have the keys.” I had given Peter the keys.
“Peter says he doesn’t have the keys.” I sighed.
Three weeks later, I came down to Dinan’s shop to find my bike “finished.” Dinan had just gotten the job done, largely without nonsense and delay. The bike looked lot like my old bike, as I remembered it, except for the new horn, handlebar grips and other assorted parts that never made it out of Peter’s friend’s shop. Dinan started the bike right up. It ran. The motor sounded strong, though there was an incredible scraping sound coming from the gearbox, like a spoon run over rough concrete. New gears fitting together, I supposed. On second thought, perhaps a few missing.
I drove it up the hill from Dinan’s shop, 12,000 rs. poorer for the parts and labor. I looked down to see gas dripping from the carb. The front brake had a new scraping noise that wasn’t familiar. But as the engine warmed up, a familiar sound came back to my ears:
Thud-thuds-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
Clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty.
Same old valve problem. But the bike was running. I had it back. For the most part it hadn’t been stolen. The wind was in my face. I was joyful.
A sad story you say? No real resolution? Ah. You want your fiction to end pinched with an airtight seal. Everything neat and tidy. That gives you hope. But I’m happy, sorta. So you should be too.
Recent Comments