A Sister and A Scooter

The hot wind on my cheeks was like pin-pricks, as I sat at the back of the scooter, perspiring profusely, trying to keep my hair rooted to my skull as the speedometer raced. Despite that, I could not help smiling; my un-helmet head (call it privileges of being a woman) tickling with the excitement caused by the speed of the scooter and the reaction that followed.
My five-foot something sister gripping the handles of a Bajaj Chetak on a hot, sunny, crowded road is (still) almost-abnormal even in a self-proclaimed 'liberal' metropolitan like Delhi. Talk about girl power! For Bajaj Chetak is among the heaviest of scooters in India. The horrible spat of pain my back received when I tried to hold it bore testimony to this fact.
A woman driving a scooter is rare enough and a Bajaj Chetak at that; I bet people who saw this had visions of a new age Durga- with a huge helmet on her head instead of the crown and a scooter replacing the tiger. The breaks, clutch, horn, keys all in the numerous hands she possessed and instead of that half-placid, half-divine expression on the face, a very 'Muh-To-Band-Karo-Uncle' look.
So as the heads turned one after the other, and people gaped from inside car windows, truck windscreens, bus rear-views, rickshaws, cycles, other scooters I smiled and whispered into my sister's ear-
You've Got Audience!
She, with her pretended nonchalant giggles responded-
Really??!!

Stopping at red lights turned out to be even more amusing. I could hardly contain my smiles and burst into giggles at sporadic intervals. The people around us looked everything from awed to shocked to 'This-is-once-in-a-lifetime'. The pleasure of the entire ride, of course, belonged entirely to me.

However, the smoothness of the entire experience did not last for too long. A couple of more rides made me realise that something had gone awry. Every time I went out with her on the scooter either the petrol would finish up half way, or the breaks will fail or some such thing will happen. Mostly when we'd begin, the scooter would not kick start, at least not at once, and I would look at my sister-
Not Again!
while she would laugh and rubbish my forebodings with a wave of her hand and force me to sit. Invariably we would come back home on foot, dragging the scooter along with us, at times, welcomed back by sniggers from roadside rogues.

It was like a jinx- My sister and I on the scooter.

After every such experience I would swear to never set foot (read bum) again on that scooter with my sister but something or the other always brought the three of us together for another one of those trips.

We undertook one such unforgettable trip during the time I had to visit the university to put in my admission application forms for my bachelor's. Surabhi, my sister, decided to take me to the north campus and argued that it was more feasible to ride on the scooter than to drive the car because half the world would have turned up at the campus and it was bound to be exceptionally crowded.
It was a very hot June noon. The university was some six kilometers from our house. I collected my documents and we started. A few kilometers went by peacefully and I was almost settling in that feeling of being both a witness and performer in something out-landish when there was a loud crack. We stopped the scooter and Surabhi announced that the clutch wire had just snapped. This meant that although the engine would start, we wouldn't be able to change gears and therefore the scooter wouldn't move.
An autorikshaw driver who had been listening to our conversation hurried to pour some words of wisdom on our fickle minds. He examined the scooter, confirmed that the clutch wire was missing, even found it a few meters ahead of where we stood. Then he assured us that our problem wasn't very big and as is characteristic of people living in India, he came up with a 'jugaad'. He told us that all we needed was to ask someone to push the scooter and when it gained considerable momentum we must put it in gear and it will move. Surabhi, for some weird reason thought it was a very good idea and refusing to hear my pleas to at least visit a mechanic ordered me to hop on and requested the autorikshaw driver to do the honours.
After we were seated the driver began to push the scooter...faster and faster until he was running with it. And just then Surabhi decided to put it in gear. There was a great jerk as if the tyres of the scooter had suddenly rolled back as it ran forward. The impact of it was such that I was thrown off balance- even as I sat on it. My back hit the stephanie as I rocked on my bum. My hands and legs momentarily kicking the air. It was embarrassing and I thought I must have looked like one of those teddy bears that have all their limbs suspended abnormally in the front or like a baby rocking in a cradle making a bee-line for the ceiling fan with his two hands and two legs.
Nonsense- I spat out.
Surabhi broke into horrendous laughter at my outburst.
"What are we going to do when it stops again?”,I asked

What else could we do but that search for someone who could push the scooter yet again? This time we had stopped at a left turn. Surabhi confidently announced that the 'rikshaw walas' in the north campus were very sweet creatures. So we approached the only one we could spot. He was sprawled across his machine and when we said,
"Bhaiya, zara scooter ko dhaka maar dijiye"
he gave us a look and muttered something about not being free. Sweet indeed!!
Minutes had passed and we still couldn't find anyone to help us push the scooter to a run, although the campus was crowded. Obviously we couldn't have asked any one of the aspiring DU students walking the streets though I’m sure chivalry would have made them do it. The crowd only served to jeopardise my dreams of happy times in the near future. Maybe a month down the line I’d be studying with some of the many walking the streets today, watching us make a spectacle of ourselves.
In the meantime, Surabhi had caught hold of a hesitant 'rikshaw wala'. He began to push the scooter with the two of us sitting on it but less than ten seconds had passed before he turned around and walked off. The scooter was hardly rolling and we couldn't have put it in gear. Both of us were desperate not to lose the little momentum that the scooter had gained.
What happened next was instinctive!
We placed our feet on the road and sitting on the scooter we began pushing the road away with our feet. So basically what it looked like was a scooter with legs working like paddles work for boats. We were sitting on the scooter and pushing it with our legs. So as it gained momentum it looked like we were running in perfect unison, our legs just inches from each other, just that we had forgotten that the scooter was under us.
Doing it was wierd enough- I can hardly imagine what it would have been like watching from the pavements. To me it would have seemed the limit of stupidity, which it did but there was more to come. Just when I thought I wouldn't want to be found dead doing something that ridiculous, Surabhi put the scooter in gear. A moment ago I had been looking like the Salman Khan of 'Andaz Apna Apna' paddling a bike with his feet on the road, a moment later my legs were lifted off the road, my hands in the air as the scooter began to move. I had to snatch whatever part of Surabhi that came within reach- helmet, hair sticking out from under it, collar, sleeves, everything to keep myself from somersaulting over the stephanie and onto the road.
My string of What Nonsense!, Garbage, Idiotic, Rubbish only served in making Surabhi laugh even more like one of those highly stylised Ravana's you would have heard at one of those 'nukkad Ramlilas'.
To this day, I roll my eyes whenever I remember that day. We ran with the scooter under our bums quite a few times.
The most embarrassing however, was a very crowded red light. There was a mechanic shop right next to the pavement near which we posed in preparation for what was to come. But Surabhi refused to hear a word, enjoying every bit of it. When the light turned green everyone started their vehicles, put them in gear and began moving, while we- we began walking as we sat. Everyone was staring at us and like always I was the one to see most of their reactions. People sticking out their heads from out of bus windows, smiling. People in cars, slowing down and turning back to look at us. Traffic swished past us and we still walked as though we were in knee deep water and of course, on the scooter. The worst was that a lot of vehicles also got to witness what happened when Surabhi changed gears.
That day I was ready to sign on a stamp paper and swear that I will never accompany Surabhi on the scooter. Of course, it happened again and again. Not the clutch wire, but sometime the petrol, at times the break and at times simply 'I-don't-know-what's
The jinx is still there.