The Parentage of Royal Enfield

The Parentage of Royal Enfield

To own a Royal Enfield or a Thunder Bird is a matter of prestige. It is not just a matter of someone showcasing his wealth. It is something else in which we cannot relate it with money. A person who owns this motor cycle need not to a rich man. He stands beyond the measurement of currency value. On the road if we happened to hear that thundering noise of the gigantic machine installed in that cycle we may imagine the personality of whom the cycle bears him on its cushion comfortably. It is indeed a matter of prestige to ride this vehicle.

Various impressions cross through our mind on this motor cycle and riders come across our memory. They are from various moments and different stages of my life. First time I saw this bike in my village. To spend time in our village in the afternoon is an eerie experience. The dead silence engulfs the whole village in the noon. Village folk drive their cattle at 9am in the morning for the pasture. From nine to three the village is abundant with the world of insects ad birds. Only the chirping of the sparrows will penetrate our ear drum. Noon is the world of insects and birds. In other time human world and ghostly world overpower the existence of those pretty creatures. One should call Romantic poets to appreciate this noon time of our village. Nowadays those eerie moments turn out to become the highland moss in “Solitary Reaper”.

In this backdrop one could clearly hear the noise of the Bullet from half a kilometer. Abbu Bhai the gigantic figure grandly fits in the big motor cycle. He parks the bike at the corner of the street and visits the former’s manger. When he goes back to his town the bike carry young male buffalo or an ox. When cattle breeds he-goats or oxen they are destined to the slaughter house of Abbu Bhai. Farmers do not prefer the overabundance of he-goats and bullocks in their mangers. When the number increases message is sent to Abbu Bhai. To carry the big size cattle bullet is the right choice. Dump animal meekly goes with him on the Thunder Bird. Neither we children nor the manger do know the destiny of the poor creatures when the thundering noise fades away in the air from our village. For me the gigantic motor cycle is the object of desire to observe it until Bhai comes with bullock or buffalo to tie them on the bike.  

Constantly I gaze at each and every part of the bullet particularly of its engine. The Machine is something special to me. I started to like Royal Enfield not for the desire of ridding but for the engine alone. The reason for my liking the engine is that the similar is the engine which we used for irrigation very long ago. In the month of ‘margazhi’ at the age of four early in the morning I used to go with my Appa and Periyappa to our farm land. Early at five o’clock they have to start the engine to pump water to paddy. The engine is a magic still now. Still one specimen is there in our village at leisure after its much toil. Akka told me that the Enfield also carries the same size of the engine. In the cold morning engine wont pickup. Our Periyappa collects dry cow dung to fire the magnet of the engine in order to warm up the engine. This is the routine activity in the morning. Half of their energy will be wasted in this process. When diesel engine came everything have become smooth. But that old engine demanded the cooperation of four kith and kins. One man is not enough to start that small engine. But the gigantic diesel engine needs a single man power. Treacherously the diesel engine brought discard in our family. It separated my father and our Periyappas into four. They started to act independently. But that old small engine reminds me of our family unity. Same is the refreshed feeling when the engine of the Royal Enfield is visible to my eyes on the road.   

In my twelfth standard two brothers came to our village with glade tiding on the age old engine of Royal Enfield. This engine always reminds me of something of the parentage when it puffs out its energy as smoke out of toil. Abbu Bhai’s Royal Enfield may remind me of the slaughter house. But not our household engine and the later one in my twelfth standard. Those two Brother’s Royal Enfield bikes comfortably carried me on its cushion.