Wistful For A Vespa

There is a brewery in Germany with the brand name of St. Pauli’s Girl, which has been operating since the 16^th century. I know about them because they have a catchy slogan with which they have been hooking new drinkers for years -- "You never forget your first girl."

Driving around town in my car one recent snowy January evening, I got to reminisce about all the vehicles I have owned. My mental list started with a red tricycle, then a blue Norton bicycle, then a black BSA bicycle which my aunts collectively gifted me, and then, years later an old, blue car, and now a beige car.

Surprisingly, though I have never owned a motorized two-wheeler, it was a certain scooter that resonated and clanged the most in my memory. And so I started to consciously think about our Vespa.

Vespa in English is a kind of a wasp or a hornet, but for me Vespa, will always be our off-white color scooter with the plate of MYO 3128. This is in spite of the fact that it was later repainted to an avocado green and the registration plate number changed. (The MYO stood for Mysore, which is not really a state's official name.) Disjoint memories tumbled out, as if someone had suddenly overturned a bag of assorted junk on the carpet.

I learned to ride two-wheelers on that scooter. It must have been this same Vespa that my dad was driving when an auto-driver in Bangalore crashed into him, flinging him out of the vehicle and fracturing his right hand. The doctors had to join the bone fragments with a metal pin that has stayed in my father’s arm ever since. He has a huge scar to show that runs pretty much the length of his forearm, and even today makes it difficult for him to place food in his mouth if it requires too much wrist. Maybe it doesn’t hurt, but only now do I realize that I have never once heard Appa complain about the hand.

I do recall his pride in telling us the story of how he himself telephoned his new wife, my mother, from the hospital after the accident, so that it would be a lot easier for her to digest the news.

When I was seven or eight, I can remember riding in the scooter standing in the front, caged within the confines of the handlebar and Appa’s hands as he navigated the streets. I must have been short enough to not block his view. I had to hold on to the smooth and fat center of the handlebar, taking care not to obscure the speedometer. There were things like the clutch and gears on the left and the accelerator and the rarely used front brake on the right. (If I placed my hand close the clutch-and-gear side, I would get grease on my hand. But the bigger worry was that the skin of my hand would get pinched off, if I imprudently placed my hand there just as the clutch was being let go.) Plus, the brake was on the floor, so I had to be very careful how I stood, making sure that Appa had clear access to the brakes.

Mundane stuff, I know, but it is all slowly coming back to me. And I think that the reason this particular one is embedded in my memory is the Tamil song that Appa would often hum, when we were out riding. Kathu addikkudhu, thool parakkudhu, kadavilladha sangadam. (The wind is blowing, dust is flying, oh the nuisance of not having a door!)

Eventually, as always happens, I grew bigger and Mukund took my place in the front. I was sent to the back (would that be a promotion or a demotion?) sandwiched between Appa, and Amma, who sat sidesaddle, the way ladies in sarees sit pillion on a scooter. The back seat in scooters is a rectangle barely larger than a brick, so I had to sit on a black plastic bar that was attached to the front seat, intended only for the rear passenger to hold on to. So there I was, crouching uncomfortably on a hard plastic rod which was a literal pain in the butt.

I can picture the four of us now, and I regret that there isn’t a photograph of this quintessential Indian family scene, four to a scooter. Mukund and Amma might wave jauntily at the photographer, Appa might be looking ahead intently since he was driving, and you might hardly see me in the photo, squished like a bug between my parents.

Later still, when Jagan came of scooterable age, I got booted out. Five to a Vespa is slightly much, even for a middle-class Indian family.

Another memory, this one from Bhubaneswar, one that stayed with me even though it’s been 25 years. Appa and Amma are off to some exotic event (or so I imagined since I wasn’t invited). Appa has gone ahead to fetch the scooter. Amma is busy doing the last minute things, clearing the dishes, locking the almirahs. I was following her from room to room. We both hear the distinct metallic bleat of the scooter's horn -- Appa signaling his growing impatience. In the manner of mothers sometimes sharing small confidences with their children, Amma gives me a smile-and-exasperation combo which I read to mean, Easy for him to honk but who will do all these last-minute things that need to be done? She then hurries up outside and they leave. And for the next two hours that they are gone I constantly worry about their safety, because when I was eight I was always worried that some accident would befall them when I was not there with them.

Eventually, the Vespa was sold off. Appa upgraded to a Chetak.

In one of the games that I play to amuse myself, I deliberately conjure up someone from my distant past, someone whom I might have interacted with for brief moments a day on a regular basis, say the conductor on my morning bus route, or the priest of the taxi-stand Ganesha temple, or a shopkeeper, an old classmate, a teacher or a long-forgotten neighbor. Then I wonder about where they are now, what they are doing. I wonder if life has treated them okay, and hope that it lobbed them a few easy ones, at least occasionally.

Today I am wondering about the whereabouts of my vehicles. The fate of my red tricycle, my blue Norton 24" bike which I took possession of with sleepless anticipation. And I wonder if our Vespa is still plying the overcrowded roads of Chennai. What happens to really old scooters?

The scooter was never mine, of course; it was my father’s. But there must be some truth to that beer slogan, because I have never forgotten my first scooter.

Ram Prasad
February 2002

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