The Uncle in the Faded Blue Scooty
You’ve met him at some point on the road. Hell, you’re probably even related to him — or worse, have him lurking in your living room as you read this right now.
The Uncle is a good man. A kind, gentle, strict, discipline focussed, non-political, tax-paying middle class dweller who joined the workforce as a vacuum cleaner operator right out of high school, and, through sheer hardwork and 600 years of service, retired as the Chief Engineer.
He’s not over 5"5' tall, has a modest bulge around the middle, and sports a wiry tuft of hair over his upper lip that he diligently brushes twice a day.
He has a car — a spotlessly clean Santro. But prefers to ride the decade old blue Scooty he got his daughter when she graduated college. And he cares about the society.
He breaks his day into little 20 minute sequences where he alternates between advising innocent bystanders, reminiscing the days gone by, and describing his political views in graphic detail. And taking the Scooty for a spin to the supermarket.
The Uncle would never be the one stuck in the middle of controversy. Whether there’s an accident victim on the road needing first aid, or the wife having an argument with his sister — Uncle would wring his fingers, twitch his mustache and disappear.
And yet, he has just one problem with the world… A problem he’d gladly throw his life in harm’s way to solve… Motorcycles with headlights turned on during the day.
Economics is a rather complex subject. The logic, most often, is that the more you pay, the more you get. And that makes sense within the normal range of “more”. If you went to the store to buy candy, and you paid more money, you’d evidently assume yourself entitled to more candy.
But I guess there’s an upper limit to more — beyond which the more you pay, the less you end up getting… Exquisite hand-crafted candy wrapped in recycled paper, sure. But less of it.
Take the two things that I am rather passionate about for example — Zippo lighters and Harley Davidson. For a lighter, a Zippo is shamefully low tech. A cheap knock-off Chinese lighter comes with pressurized gas, capillary systems, electrically induced sparks and the works. I’ve even seen ones where little LEDs light up and a creepy music plays every time you light it. The Zippo though? Two pieces of stone, some cotton and liquid fuel that you need to refill every couple of days.
Motorcycles aren’t much different either. The world here starts with 25cc of “motor-fitted-bicycle”. But as you climb up to the “more” range of normal, you already have at least front disc brakes, a decent engine, mono suspensions, and a host of electronics to sound, light and display. Any higher, and you get ABS, security systems, a programmable OBU and the works. Anything beyond this would involve airbags, sat nav systems and ejector seats — not for motorcycles. So the Harley takes it all the way around and gives you… *Drumroll*... a 1970’s ENGINE, and… that’s it!
Alright, it does have a lot more. Like crazy phenomenal torque, stability, a fun ride and 2 hours worth of bragging rights. But what it absolutely lacks is a switch to turn off the lights. See, the guys at Milwaukee (that’s where they make the Harleys) decided that motorcycles needed to have their headlights on all the time, so some annoying Tata Indica rushing to drop you at your neighborhood bar can see me in the rear view mirror, and… not kill me. At least, not kill me deliberately — spite, headlights don’t solve. Unfortunately, Harley didn’t make sure to communicate this to Uncle.
For the past 8 months, I’ve endured Uncle chasing me down through every street, gully, passageway and parking lot in the city to tell me that my lights are on. Slow down for a traffic light, and there he is with his sage advice. Roll on to a cruising speed of 15km/hr through the traffic — he’s waiting to take a wrong turn from the opposite side, frantically waving his fingers.
This one time, I got out of a fight with an arm hanging out of its socket, the dark-mark hanging over my head and my body engulfed in a majestic flame. And yet, all Uncle cared about was that my lights were on. Once, I was skydiving somewhere over the Pacific when Uncle pulled a parachute next to me and did the fist-open-finger-close sign to indicate my headlights were on.
I know, Uncle. Isn’t there something more important you need to do?
