Me, myself and My Yezdi

Part -1

"The first meeting".

By Aquin

Certain happenings in life, are never intended. But, they change the track of life. And my love with my yezdi was one such story. I was a so called geek, I never had interest in motors or machines. A bike meant nothing more than a mode of commute to me then. I was a typical student of architecture who failed to notice that the sun was back at its place unless my mother knocked over the door.

On my 10 semester course, life was at a phase where, days n nights were filled with tiresome work. I was on my tenth semester, and I was all set to be a professional in a couple of months. My lovable parents were excited about the future that was instore for me and they, started getting stuff for me to start off.

It all started with, my mother booking a swift for me. However, it was understood that I needed a new bike too. So, we were looking for options and came across almost every bike in the market. Some how, I had a different taste from the rest of the youth. I found all the bikes very common. So, I decided to move in for a heavy vehicle. And thus, I proposed for a enfeild. Once we reached the showroom. I understood that, it wasn’t my machine. I was too tiny for the huge machine. Thus, I had to force myself to select a lower CC bike. And after several tries, I ended up finalizing a Yamaha Fz. I liked it better than the other bikes and thus, picked it. I chose the colour and the manager of the showroom suggested me to bring in photographs and other required data to get the bike registered. I wasn’t too happy about deciding, but was glad that the work ended.

The next morning, I was about to start to the showroom.by the time I was tying my lace, it began raining. So we(myself and dad) decided to wait till it stopped. And there was the second cup of tea from mummy. As we sipped the warm cup of refreshment, we started talking about the bike and This is when Daddy, reminded me of his old YEZDI days! I was excited on hearing the name! Who could even forget about the bike that roared all the way taking us to school?. The bike, that was once the biggest and heaviest thing that, nobody except daddy can touch.

I was reminded of my childhood dream of, "riding a Yezdi someday!" I also remembered how badly I wanted to get a yezdi once, I passed out of school. I instantly asked my dad.."can we find myself one?" and his reply was…" if we try hard, Yes! But, u will have to grow more skills to own the bike." He warned me that it wasn’t as easy as other bikes to start off with. However, I felt very satisfied with the thought of finding a yezdi.I changed my mind from FZ to the STUDMACHINE that was once a dream to me. However, my mother wasn’t too happy about changing my mind to get a 2^nd

hand bike, after we all got ready to pick a new bike from the showroom. So, we decided to search for the machine for a couple of days and if, we do not find any, we would return to FZ.



The day started as the car flied a 21 kms from my place at OMR to reach triplicane 2nd sales market. We, entered every single shop enquiring for a yezdi/jawa. There was no luck, however, there were a few who promised to find bikes for us but, needed a week! I dint have patience to wait. After a tiresome search we reached home at 8pm completely exhausted. Its at that time when, my brother searched the internet for adds. We found a few good offers and noted numbers and started calling people. Spoke to some 7 people and fixed up that we would meet them the next day. We started at 9 am, reached the first person at 10:30 in MMDA colony. The person left the key with a shop close by. We went and had a look at the bike. As the shutter of the garage went up, I was able to see those shining chrome silencers and glossy maroon paint. It was such a relish that I fell in love the second I saw the bike. I went closer to it and, put the key in its switch. And like a goof, I asked them "where is the kicker?" with a loud laugh my father pushed the gear leaver in and took it out as the kicker, pumped and kick started the vehicle. The bike with its awesome beat Roared like a lion echoing quakes into the dark metal shuttered shed!. There was a little bit of engine noise, however, dad assured me that bikes of such age, do have certain issues that must be rectified. We waved a bye to the place before we went around in too see options of other yezdis. The day was successful as, we came across seven Yezdis. And as we reached home, I realized that the TAJ-114 the first one I saw was the best deal. I remembered the bike’s mudguard knocking over my leg before I left as if telling me.."take me home with you!" (I know this is a shameless rip from the Tamil movie polladhavan. But, every blog needs sum commercial value) So, we spoke to the owner of the TAJ-114 and he said, he was leaving town next morning and would return in 15 days. We felt bad about not being able to get the vehicle for a couple of weeks. So, an hour later we called him again and enquired about the time he was leaving. He said he was set to go at 7. So we told him we would reach there at 6. Next morning, myself and my dad took a bus at 5 am to his place. I needed my dad to accompany as, I never handled a yezdi before and dad happily agreed. We paid the money at 6:30 am. An amount of 25,000 INR and the bike roared out of the garage. To our dismay, in a distance of 3 kilometers, the fuel was dry. There was a strike for some odd reason and to our bad luck, there were no fuel stations for the next 6 kilometres. So, we had to take shifts and push the bike all the way. Getting Astonishing glances from several other citizens of Chennai. It was the first 10 minutes since I owned the bike and, I got to know that a YEZDI isn’t a easy deal to handle. Finally, we spotted a bunk near olympia IT park. I crossed the road and fetched fuel for the bike. Then we roared all the way back home!. As we reached, kids of the neighborhood and, my younger brothers were spell bound by the roar of the machine. We cleaned the machine as we sipped tea.Did a small photoshoot as, it was mandatory to show proof to buddies on facebook! I clicked pics, uploaded them and received comments within an hour. Little did I realize then,that I had given birth to new passion this day .