THE BEGINNING. AGAIN.

Sometimes, you have to let go of the things that are the closest to you. Things that you have poured your heart and soul and life savings into. Life's like that. Yeah, a bitch.

My 1954 AJS 16M came to me all the way from central India. It had changed hands several times, each owner leaving his ugly mark on the poor girl. By the time it reached my place, the gear shafts were stripped of all splines, the magneto had lost all its spark, the motor had seen better days, some of the nuts and bolts had come off cupboards and bullock carts and the suspension was short.

The AJS, after many years of my fettling. She left in this condition.

 Wages back then, just as they are now, seemed too meagre to mount a complete restoration. I did what I could, getting one aspect of the motorcycle fixed as best as my capacity and wallet could permit.

The result was a fine motorcycle that was rough around the edges. A machine that had its own whims and fancies. A motorcycle that would sometimes start right up in the first kick and run the rest of the day like the finest Swiss clockwork. But on other days, the AJS was stubborn like syphilis, refusing to even fire once, let alone run. 

But the journey to get her here was long and well worth it. However, everything comes to an end and the good old AJS was packed off, destined this time to southern India.
 
I'm glad to see, however, that the current owner has started where I left off. In fact, he's gone 30 steps ahead already, with a complete ground up restoration. I couldn't have been happier for the old girl for she totally deserves what's coming to her!

This is how the (can't call her mine anymore) AJS now stands. And from what I can see, she couldn't have gone to a better home!

SURPRISE..? SURPRISE!

I love surprises. And especially when it comes to riding a motorcycle. But sadly, I don't get any on the machines I've been riding all thanks to my day job.

On today's machines, you thumb the starter, shift into first and away you go. You reach your destination, dismount, plonk the thing on its kick stand, and get about doing what you set out to. On most occasions, there isn't even a need to check the fuel level, since the thing returns such a ridiculous fuel consumption that you could ride around Asia in a tablespoon of petrol.

But that's just plain fucking boring, in my opinion. I want my motorcycles to emit strange noises as they plod along, making me wonder what's up. I whack open the throttle, only to find the sounds changing, allowing my mind to deduce that the piston is about to come off its gudgeon pin and come straight up into my balls. And then a jackass driving a tin shed on four wheels veers out of nowhere, busy on his mobile phone. I panic, not knowing whether those old drum brakes will actually do their job on time. There's no fuel indicator and gauging the amount of the stuff in the tank is pure guess work. Is there enough to make it, or will it run dry in the middle of blessed nowhere?

But I make it to where I want to go, turn off the motor by using the valve lifter, dismount and tug the machine on its cycle-type mainstand. I'm surprised I'm here, I'm surprised that we made it and I'm surprised that the machine still surprises after all these years. Makes me wonder, which modern motorcycle even comes close to that, eh?

Garage Built Motorcycles

There's nothing like making your hobby get you some money for gas. Let's face it, building motorcycles isn't going to get you a fancy private jet, a double-D racked Playmate nor your mug on Mount Rushmore. But what it can do is make you smile and as I'm going to find out hopefully, at least keep the motorcycle tank sloshing with fuel.

With that in mind, I bring to you 'Garage Built Motorcycles', a small venture to rebuild motorcycles in my cunt of a shed for other people. All for a small fee of course.

Whether it's a complete restoration, aesthetic overhaul (a neat term, if I may say so myself, that I coined up for a paint job and then some) or a cafe racer project, we've got the ways and the means to get the job done. I'm not going to be doing servicing and bike washes for now, but if you ask nicely..

MY FATHER'S SON

Not too long ago, I was introduced to this group of cool folk. And I must have stuck out like a sore thumb. There I was, dressed in my oil-stained Levis and a simple T shirt, faded with use and adorned with what else but some print that was motorcycling related. They were draped in the latest threads, complete with that season's hottest sunglasses (so what if it was well past eight pm at the time) and shoes of the sort that rap stars place on altars in their sprawling 'cribs'.

After assessing this specimen before them, one of them asked me what I did for a living. Just then, before I could even speak, my old beat up cell - that was obsolete the very same day that I had bought it nearly four years ago - rang and I pulled it out of my pocket to answer the call. All eight pairs of eyes rolled on to the sight of that dinosaur in my hands.

'I ride and write and build old motorcycles for a living', I tell them, their eyes following my phone as I slide it back into those faded denim pockets. 'Oh okay, but what do you do for a living', they ask me once again. 'I just told you, I ride and write and restore old motorcycles', I repeat. And by now, they throwing each other nervous glances and murmuring something amongst themselves. It's no surprise that I didn't make any new friends that evening. I wasn't hip enough, I suspect.

But, they don't get it. And I reckon they never will. With all that conditioning in school, at home, it has moulded them into believing that apart from growing up to be a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer or a banker, there isn't anything else in this world that is worth doing. To them, you're doing well if you drive a fancy car, not if you're under it.

A mechanic is automatically summed up to be someone who couldn't clear grade three in school. A writer is a looner who cannot hold onto a 'normal' job. A motorcycle restorer is a grease monkey who can't update his knowledge to machinery more current. A motorcyclist is a bloke who bullied the studious folk in school and although he's grown physically, mentally, he's still that ten year old bully in the school yard.

I must admit, I have never found the need to fit in. Now although that might seem like a boast, it is anything but. It's an honest admission. I have never felt the urge to get myself the hottest video game nor do I recollect ever troubling my folks for spiffy sports shoes or anything of the like. Kids growing up with me would have a new school bag every year, I did just as well with that khaki coloured canvas bag that did a wonderful job in lugging my books to class every day for years on end.

My dad always proudly tells me that his first job was in a glass factory not too far from his house. His job was to assist the glass blowers by carrying molten glass in large vats around. His salary was a paltry 2 'annas' a week. But his dad, and my grandfather, said that work was what shaped the man and my dad was only too happy to work his way through his school vacations. He went through college and then joined a multinational company as an apprentice on the shop floor. Sure, he was a qualified engineer at the time, but he wanted to learn his trade right from the bottom. His peers scoffed at him as he got his hands and clothes dirty while they sat in air-conditioned offices, but he smiled back at them. Slowly, he worked his way up and built a life for himself.

I have grown up seeing him fix nearly everything at home, right from a busted faucet to his Jawa 250, with its innards scattered on an old bedsheet spread out on the balcony. He could have simply called the plumber. Or have had the neighbourhood mechanic push the bike to the garage to get it fixed. But my dad, being the man that he is, chose to do it himself. I remember Sundays spent with dad as he taught me the nuances of motorcycle maintenance.

Many Sundays later, I come home with the offer letter for my first job. I was to be hired as a mechanic in an authorised car workshop. My mom smiled. My dad gave me a firm tap on my shoulder. I had done my folks proud.

Of course, I didn't have the money to splurge on clubs and fancy coffee shops. But I now had access to tools and contacts with some of the best machinists and spare parts shops in town. I rebuilt my first engine when I was 16 years old. It was from a derelict Sunny Zip that a neighbour dumped into my willing arms. My first classic came home dead, molested and I paid a song for it because nobody else wanted to even salvage it for parts. It was an old Matchless G3L, the one I fondly christened Eleanor. She was more Bullet than Matchless, but I somehow knew that there was a G3L within her somewhere. Besides, I finally owned my own Brit classic! I polished the first engine head in my life when I was 18 years old, under guidance from one of the best of his time. The head belonged to my dad's Fiat 1100, manufactured in India under licence and called the Padmini. Dad played test driver. I clearly remember the grin plastered across his face as he drove back into the compound.

The day I become a Dad, I will strive to be sort of father mine is to me. Motorcycles have kept me away from many vices through the years; picked me up when I was broken and have been the sole witnesses of some of the best adventures I have had in my life. I have met the best people simply because of my passion for a pair of wheels and working on bikes has taught me lessons no school or self-help guru ever could. I am proud to be who I am - oil soaked, grease under my nails, grazed knuckles and calluses on my palms. I am after all, but my father's son.

IN HINDSIGHT..

After loading up, post last week's shopping binge, with enough lights to brighten up Vegas, it was time to actually fix one on to a motorcycle. The RX project desperately needed a tail light and the contemplation that was oscillating between an old Lucas replica lamp to a mere strip of LEDs simply had gone on long enough.

I needed something that didn't mar the shape of the seat hump but at the same time, was large enough to actually be an effective tail light. Getting one that was what I had in mind was getting hard, till my recent shopping raid paid rich dividends.

So this is what Yellow Fever's rear end now looks like after a lot of drilling, filling and heaps of cussing. I apologise for seeming like tooting my own horn, but what the heck, I think it's come out looking like a million bucks!

F-LIGHT OF FANTASY

It's been awhile since I scribbled anything down here. But the thing is that this was intended to be a blog, not a cesspool of meaningless twat. And when I think I don't have anything worth mentioning, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'll say nothing. Even if it means months of you staring at the same damn screen.

Anyway, I've been meaning to go out shopping for bike stuff - the kind of goodies that everyone seems to have seen somewhere but can't place where. My RX 100 project sorely needed a tail light, and my wallet was sore shelling out fines extracted by the well meaning men in uniform. And I thought to myself that illuminated parts are something that I could do with having around the shed, up for grabs at a moments notice.

Besides keeping your rear end from resembling pita bread, these things are great tools to keep you from noticing the flaws in a motorcycle. Don't know how to clean up that gangrenous tail of your new and spiffy customised motorcycle? I'll tell you what; just slap on the largest red light you can find back there and then never forget to proclaim how responsible a motorist you are whenever the occasion permits.

As with all things of this nature, the day you choose to actually get off your ass to get something done, the stars and fate sit together the night before, plotting on how to ruin whatever semblance of a plan you might have had. This time they concluded that rain coupled with unimaginable traffic would do wonders to fuck up my scheming.

I wouldn't have any of that, though. I mean, if it was for anything other than motorcycles, I probably wouldn't have even got out of bed and put on my slippers, but here I was going shop to shop to find the perfect specimen of something that I didn't even have the faintest of a clue about. I would go to the bloke behind the counter, ask him for lights with very accurate and helpful descriptions like 'long', 'circular' and 'motorcycle'.

This is what I ended up with, and in retrospect, I don't think any of the stuff I got home was ever intended to grace a motorcycle. I know for a fact that the olive green bits go into Indian Army jeeps while the spherical one in the centre appears to be a replica of what used to be fitted onto the old Nissan Patrols.

CUSTOM MOTORCYCLES, THE RAJPUT WAY

As I've always maintained, I have met some of the best people in my life through motorcycles. I don't exactly know what it is about them, or may be it's my inability to put it into words, but there's something about motorcycles and the envelope around them. Rider and machine, a bond that can lie dormant, but never dead.

We were two blokes in different cities, divided by large expanses of the Indian subcontinent. I didn't have a clue of who he was; neither did he about me. Yet, now, I can count him as a very good friend of mine. And a way better artisan. And his art medium is motorcycles; no surprise really!

Here's a glimpse into Vijay's world and his Rajputana Customs movement. I call it a movement because it is bound to change the way we perceive the term 'customised' when it comes to motorcycles in this country.