This week I achieved the impossible…… I actually did things that I have not done or postponed for eons….. I finally embarked upon my pet project “RAJDEEP”. I got him to finally write his blog. He writes well. I specially like some of his ideas on some subjects. Motivating him was a herculean task but I sunk my teeth into it and got him to do it. The other thing that I achieved this week was getting Rajdeep to read Dan Brown….. He has been postponing reading the book for a very long time and even if he does it, he never reads beyond page 98. Every time I see his to do list both these things appear in top priority. I was really getting disgusted seeing it for such a long time that I finally decided to take things in my hand and get it done. Every time he starts reading it will be his most favorite book “Brief history of time” and he never really gets past it. So i kept Stephen Hawkins in safe custody in the closet so that Rajdeep had to read something else. The things that I have to do!!! After all I am the “EXECUTOR”

The most important thing that I achieved this week was getting back my bike. It has been in the bajaj showroom for more than five months. The reason being that the part was not available. For the last five months the mechanics were taking me for a merry go round ride which simply would not end whatever I did….. I called every week for the last five months and got weird answers from them……. ranging from the fact that the mechanics are having holiday to everything under the sun….. sometimes it was dussehra sometimes id sometimes diwali….. they gave me every reason in the book. Anybody who lives in Navi Mumbai will tell you that to travel you either have to walk or else take a rickshaw. The rickshaw walas here are very rude and charge you a very high sum (half return) where ever you go. Infact travelling in a rickshaw is actually a status symbol. You need to have a two wheeler for travelling in and around navi mumbai…… else you are in for a major expenditure.

Ultimately I got rajdeep to follow-up and they started telling him that the part is not available in Pune or Mumbai and they would have to check up the Lamington Road. So one Saturday we drove down to Lamington road…… This is Mumbai’s hub for spares of all vehicles and also the hub for accessories and electrical goods for your homes and cars….. It is a mecca for all computer and car parts. You will find everything under the sun at Lamington Road. Any Mumbaikar will tell you that driving through Mumbai in a four wheeler is any body’s nightmare come true….. The roads are either jammed or you never get a parking spot.

The BMC or for that matter NMMC really do take the recent story of finding a pot of gold coins in pune very seriously. They are of the belief that Queen Victoria or for that matter some firangi has stored similar pots of gold coins or some other important stuff under the Mumbai roads…… so when they just recently had all the roads done………. they are digging them all up again to redo it or in this case i think flyovers….. or maybe hunting for gold coins. The last time they dug up someplace and they found an old pipeline…… and they were truly exhilarated….. that euphoria lasted for months.

Driving in Mumbai road is truly mortifying. The journey to lamington road and back home to Vashi took us eight and half hours. The reason being that all the roads upto Dadar were dug up and the detour that we took from bhindi bazaar was absolutely killing. I really regretted driving down to Lamington road. We did not get the part even there. Apparently Bajaj has stopped manufacture of the Saffire as it had a lot of technical faults and it was not feasible to continue with the product.

My choice of the saffire was actually very logical. If you ask any Punekar they will tell you that bajaj is a logical choice for them mainly because the production took place in Pune itself and in my case I took it because I was sure that in case we ever required spares they would be easily available and bajaj spares and service were easily available. The fact that Bajaj would wind up the whole company from Pune was absolutely unthinkable. But in recent times the unthinkable is very much thinkable.

The Planet Bajaj employee told me that the bike was GONE and that I should sell it to him for Rs 1000….. can you believe it…… sell my bike which cost me Rs 40000 for Rs 1000 for a missing part which cost Rs 150. I totally lost faith in Bajaj as a company and specially the employees who instead of getting my bike on the road were offering to buy it back. If I cant get the bike to move how the hell is he going to get it to do that. I refused to do it. They told me about getting second hand parts and I agreed.

In the quest for the first gear clutch plate this week we scoured all the shops selling spares in navi mumbai. When we went back to the service station they told us to try at Sion Koliwada and in some other places…… but I have not yet got over my last escapade with the Mumbai roads so I settled for visiting every shady bylane of Navi mumbai selling spares. We finally got hold of a guy who was ready to sell us the spare from his redundant bike (another sad saffire)….. If you look at any Saffire you will find that they look so forlorn as though aware of their ultimate predicament of going to the scrap yard any time. We settled for the second hand part and got it fixed in the bike and got it home.

After I drove her home I realised that within a month I would have to go back to the showroom because they had not done a good job and I realised very soon I will again get sucked into the whirlwind of mechanics and rude rickshaw walas. So we did the unthinkable. We booked a new bike. It is unthinkable for any middle class person to do something like this because before we embark on buying anything…. it takes a whole lot of financial planning……. all the books of account are checked and rechecked and immediate expenditures planned and then provisions made for the next expenditure…… it normally takes a minimum of six months to a year to actually get something at home. Choosing the bike had its own perils. Rajdeep refused to get me a motor bike and inspite of trying my best to convince him about the pluses of the bike costing less and it giving us a higher average. I did ride a motor bike in Pune. But I guess this is another of the marriage thing. So then when i realised that I am getting nowhere at all and that come what may he is fixed on the bike with automatic gears and if I push it too much I might even lose that!!!…… I agreed to have anything that moved. I do know when to stop…… this being a lost case…… something about me having a uterus. This is something of an antithesis and we are both still reeling in its after effect. But the most important thing is I HAVE A NEW BIKE!!!