Wild imagination

The odd looking, heavy, cumbersome, , once very popular scooter.....Bajaj chetak. My dad had a chetak and he stills swears by it. Frankly, those scooters never really appealed to my eyes. The hand gears reminded me of the autorickshaws and it was once a delusion for me that rickshaws were actually modified versions of Bajaj chetaks. This, combined with my childish imagination, as to how the rickshawwallas actually 'built' those rickshaws make up a surprisingly funny streaming video in my mind, a bit blurred, as I made up the video in my mind when I was a kid and its got a bit fogged up as the years passed by !!

I used to imagine that the rickshawallas had a saw at home or in their garage. They used to saw off the rear wheel of their bajaj chetaks. Then after this they sawed off the front portion containing the handle assembly. They also sawed off the front headlamp. Then they used to buy this 'box' which was available in the market .....(I had seen a nearby garage where an old rickshaw frame was probably being painted or something .....led me to think that those autorickshaw frames....or boxes ....were available in market.) You joined the handle assembly, the front headlamp and put up a front seat and a backseat and a meter, stick up those, maybe with fevicol inside the box, put the wheels, and VOILA!!! There we have.....an autorickshaw !!! I didnt know how the crank in the autorickshaw worked, but used to think that it must be fun, pulling that 'stick' to start the engine. I remember asking dad, if he could install a hand crank instead of the 'kick' starter in our own bajaj chetak !!!

Those times are long gone, when imagination could go as wild. Bajaj chetaks have gone out of production and autorickshaws dont have hand cranks anymore !!!