As a 12 year old boy with an incessant curiosity as is nature for boys with my type scientific bend, I was fascinated with machines in general and automobiles in specific. I remember the times when one of our relatives, who repaired mechanical watches for pleasure, had shown me the workings of an automatic watch. I did not understand anything of substance regarding the working of a mechanical watch then, but I remember me curious as ever making numerous visits to his home, and watching wide eyed, him dexterously dissect watches to its parts and work on it carefully and slowly as if its a piece of very fine jewelry. The watch bug caught me.
Out of my interest I read a book on watch repair, but the book was for advanced practitioners and thus was only useful for me to understand basic principles of watches and watch repairing. That hobby did not progress much, but I must have spent close to a hundred hours reading and re reading the watch repair book (authored by Br. Berkmans, and published by Kerala Bhasha Institute, 1988), lest some thing useful might come out of it or the familiarity of the pages will help me understand watches better. I continue to maintain an uncommon interest in workings of fine mechanical objects and needless to say if I could afford, would only buy a mechanical automatic watch of great pedigree.
Out of my interest I read a book on watch repair, but the book was for advanced practitioners and thus was only useful for me to understand basic principles of watches and watch repairing. That hobby did not progress much, but I must have spent close to a hundred hours reading and re reading the watch repair book (authored by Br. Berkmans, and published by Kerala Bhasha Institute, 1988), lest some thing useful might come out of it or the familiarity of the pages will help me understand watches better. I continue to maintain an uncommon interest in workings of fine mechanical objects and needless to say if I could afford, would only buy a mechanical automatic watch of great pedigree.
Now coming to automobiles, when I was 12 or 13 I had drawn my version of an assembly line for automobiles as seen in big car plants. My concept was flawed but the essence of automation and progressive step by step building of a complex object in serial order in an assembly line as an idea came to my mind quite easily. I had asked my father (who was a Mechanical engineering teacher at a college) about the concept of torque, momentum etc as soon as I learned it from my 8th text book. With enough knowledge as deemed required, I tore open a mechanical time piece, extracted the parts to make a crude single ratio gear with 1:15 drive ratio, connected this gear to a 1.5 V DC mini motor prime mover and put this all inside a toothpaste cardboard box with wheels as Vicks tops. It worked well, climbing the 30% gradient with ease. I wanted to make sort of crude gear box with selectable set of gears and had worked out the ratios, but my lack of dexterity with small wheels and general lack of larger motive power (9 v motor for better power) prevented me from building a working example of it. I had this set of automobile disassembled, put into a box for many years, and reaching into it under the bed and working on it was my favorite pass time till about age 14, if I was not playing outdoor games with other children.
Then fast forward to year 2006. I was earning salary as software engineer and I wanted to buy bike. Just a sudden decision. We friends, have practically covered every part of Chennai and TN on bus and train, but buying a bike for personal transportation for me was the natural outgrowth of new independence, freedom to spend own money and escape from the travails of public transport in Chennai. First of all, I did not want to buy a brand new bike, I had only a limited use of 1-2 year in mind and was not keen on the huge depreciation in value if I decide to dispose of the vehicle some time in future. I had narrowed down my choice to Yamaha RX series, very specific at that on first instance itself. This is also not surprising given that Yamaha has a cult following among youth in India and a RX100 was the dream bike of many of youngsters for almost a decade. A new RX 135 was retailing for 53k at the time which was the last of the batch of RXs ever sold in India, but this was quite a huge sum for me to spend looking at an uncertain future in the city and with my higher studies plans. I bought 2 weeks of Yellowpage papers to search for used bike ads. So in one of the yellow pages papers I saw a very simple 2 line ad advertising to sell Yamaha 1999 model, 2nd user, for 14k at velachery a suburb near north Chennai. I Immediately called owner, who was of my age, just graduated from college and a typical Tamil guy. fixed up a meeting and took the bus first out of my office to velachery. I reached the house late in the evening. I met owner, his father and mother. They showed me the bike. There was lying a beautiful piece of machinery with Yamaha silhouette, classic color scheme, the same old raw machines look (black in color, Rx 135) but laden with dust and leaning on the side wall. It was evident that bike was lying unused for quite some time. Miraculously it started in first kick, I smelt the exhaust (there were no mechanics other than my mechanical intuition and I was pretty confident of my mechanical sense), revved the bike and took it for a small 'first ride. The bike stalled several times and I had to call owner to start it from one nasty stall, when he sort of managed to start the bike and pushed and rode it back to house. Despite all these, I was in love with the bike and wanted to buy it purely based on sound engine, and good price. A price was immediately negotiated at 13.5k, I fixed up a day and promised to buy the bike. Later I paid the money and rode this bike through heavy Chennai traffic, 15 full KMs of ride to Nungambakkam, where I was then staying. The longest I drove before in a bike was mere 250 m (so a good achievement and again I was confident that good sense of riding in bicycles was enough to learn bikes instantly).
Bike and me meshed well pretty fast. I must have spent close to 3-4k in buying new tires, putting new electricals, battery etc. The bike served me well in Chennai for the entire 1 year. It was a hoot to drive with immense pickup, great sound, and good acceleration in all gears (this is what makes RX series famous). I loved riding the bike anytime of the day, say putting it out from home, taking it out of stand, putting in side stand, admiring its slanted side stand stance all were my pass time hobbies. Bike had some hiccups for sure, it went completely bonkers when it rained heavily and refused to start at all when fully wet. We had a particularly testing time, once after a 12PM movie where me and my friend must have kicked the starter lever in desperation more than a 100 times in torrential rain. But these nagging wet starting issues aside, I had no significant reliability problems to write about. After Chennai stint, I brought it back to Thrissur and drove it in Kerala roads for some months. Here we got a new paint job done at 1250 cost. Then in my Delhi university days, the bike became my companion for many extensive intra Delhi trips and must have run 3-4k KMs in that busy student year alone. I took it from Delhi to Gurgaon, Noida etc many times. Then Gopu my brother, ruined the bike with an ill adviced oil change and the engine froze as the regular side oil was not filled up. We had to change the cylinder and piston. Gopu used the bike in SPA, and had a small accident which dented the bikes front. Bike survived all this and again served me admirably well during my trips from Dwarka to Gurgaon office of Tata Capital Ltd on many occasions.
Finally I returned back to Kerala, and had also bought a new P220 bike. Oldie RX 135 was seen as crude and outdated model and was never in my outright favor again. But I wanted to get the bike back to Kerala for emotional sake and just use it occasionally here for enjoyment. At this time, due to extended periods of non usage, the bike was hard to start and had silencer problem, oil problem, carburetor problem etc. We had even thought of abandoning it all together at the time of shifting to new house. I wanted to unlock its fair price to sell, so it came time to sell the bike. Gopu must have spent many 200rs to refurbish the bike just before some prospective buyer came to look for it. Gopu had also used it sporadically, in my absence, at Delhi. But the bike never regained its Chennai or Delhi glory days. We had put an asking price of 10k only and by Gopu's record, he had received more than 60 responses and more from a classifieds site, all interested in buying the bike. all this in response to our simple classifieds ad soliciting buyers to RX 135. A good bike enthusiast came, a Kannadiga of Tamil origin, who appreciated the bike and bought it for 10k in ready cash. So I had bought it is 2004 for 13.5 k and sold it in 2010 for 10k, a bike of much lesser utility and in a state of low maintenance. Undoubtedly this is proof that the bike still elicit huge demand from bike lovers and it is heartening to see that I once was just one among the fanatical bike lovers and still is, though my tastes have evolved with technology and time and also with purchasing power. Now my dream bike is an R6 which I hope to earn post my masters study in UK/Singapore.
But in my heart of heart, a special corner is reserved for the first full automobile possession of mine, the black Rx 135.
