Long Wait for my First Motorbike - 625
LONG WAIT FOR THE FIRST MOTORBIKE .
Almost my entire first 20 years of life have been in the Hindi Heartland with the major chunk of it being at Bhilai and Kharagpur . Bhilai in the main Hindi Heartland of Madhya Pradesh which is Chattigarh now . Kharagpur though in West Bengal had a sizeable Telugu population which made it easier for me to be more than comfortable with Hindi and Bengali besides the Telugu during early school days .
What this also meant was that despite my Fathers many and varied attempts , my prowess with Tamizh , my mother tongue was restricted to Speaking alone and that too with a severe North Indian intonations .
During the Primary Schooling Period in Kharagpur which ofcourse was in the Hindi Medium , my father had hired a home Tamizh Tutor , Ramamoorthy Sir by name to teach me to read and write in Tamizh . He was a tall and portly man who I guess would have tilted the scales at 120 Kgs plus . The very look of him was sure to send the shivers down ones spine . He being my tutor made that even worse. .
He used to come to our house Bungalow No 281 in a Moped of the olden days which was no more than a cycle fitted with a motor and also had a pedal to be used if and when needed to transport his portly frame around a rough terrain . It was indeed a monumental piece of Engineering Masterpiece that this frail looking contraption could transport the portly Mr Ramamoorthy around the town .
No prizes for guessing . Despite his huge frame and other not so subtle ways , the best efforts of Ramamoorthy Sir were rather inadequate as I could never bring myself to learn even the basics of reading or writing Tamizh . What it did however do was to ignite a longing for a MOPED or a MOTORBIKE later as I grew up .
Looking back , I got my first Motorbike when I was 26 and it was a Royal Enfield Crusader Bike . I am now 73 years old and have been fortunate to have had the services of various models like ROYAL ENFIELD CRUSADER , JAWA , RAJADOOT , TWO IND SUZUKI s , KAWASAKI BAJAJ and the current BAJAJ CT 100 .
Thanks to Ramamoorthy Sir , though he seems to have had a bad time with making me learn to Read or Write Tamizh , his moped has indeed been the reason for igniting a passion for the Motorbikes in me .
ROYAL ENFIELD CRUSADER
RAJADOOTJAWA
IND SUZUKI
KAWASAKI BAJAJ
BAJAJ CT 100
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