Scratching My Vespa Itch

Bajaj Scooter Models

Some people buy yachts and go space traveling. I have more modest dreams and prefer simpler adventures.

Owning a "Vespa" was my unrequited dream. I grew up riding borrowed "Vespas". Actually, the brand in India is called Bajaj. The history is that Bajaj started off as a builder of scooters based on licensed Vespa/Piaggio designs. Specifically, the Bajaj Chetak was very similar to the Vespa Sprint. Sort of like a white labeled Vespa.

Once the license from Vespa/Piaggio expired, Bajaj started rolling out their own models including Priya and Super, which were still fairly similar to their 150cc 2-stroke Vespa-like predecessor.

My dad had a sky blue (if I remember correctly) Bajaj for a short period of time. Not sure why he got rid of it but he never let me ride it, perhaps rightly so since I didn't have a license. So, I grew up facing a combination of envy for classmates and friends who rode scooters. I occasionally got my fix by borrowing their scooters when they would let me. Perhaps Arundhati Roy describes it best in her new memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me while discussing the 23 year old assistant director of her debut film, "I thought he was a rich boy because he had his own scooter."

Dad was the youngest of five siblings. So I have a lot of older cousins. Specifically, my Tej bhuaji (aunt; dad's sister) lived in Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi, which was just a few miles from where we lived on the IIT campus. Her kids all rode Bajaj scooters. Specifically I remember that her oldest, Harkaran, would visit with the family and leave the scooter keys lying around on the center table in the living room while he socialized with everyone. I would grab the keys and take his scooter for an unauthorized spin. Those are some of my most memorable moments.

I feel ashamed whenever I remember the time that I drove Harkaran's scooter so hard that I either broke the throttle cable or damaged the engine or something. I walked the scooter back home and placed the keys on the center table but did not tell anyone. When they were leaving, Harkaran tried to kickstart the scooter and it would not start. When this happened, it was common practice to put the scooter in neutral and jog with it for bit and then put it in first gear and hop on as a way to start it. I remember him leaving the house to try something like that but I don't recall how it ended. I vaguely recall that he might have had to take it to a mechanic.

In my defense, I unfortunately grew up with a father who happily employed corporal punishment. So, telling the truth came at the risk of great pain and humiliation. It was, therefore, more convenient to act dumb when faced with a choice between honesty and guilt. One one occasion, when I must have been in my late teens, I held his wrist and stopped him as he raised his hand at me. And he realized that he could no longer physically overpower me. That's when the beatings suddenly stopped cold turkey. I guess he valued his wellbeing more than mine. In hindsight I should have stopped him earlier. I'm sure my younger brother benefited and got an earlier respite. Which might also explain why he remembers our father more fondly than I do.

In grade 11 or so I started riding my bicycle to school, which was about 10 miles from home. I was envious of classmates and seniors who rode their scooters to school. I distinctly remember a few occasions when I ran into schoolmates riding their scooters around town. One time that's etched in my memory is when we had just finished our grade 12 exams (known as Board exams, since they were administered by the Central Board of Secondary Education or CBSE) and were exiting the exam venue discussing the exam questions amongst each other. We spotted Kamaljit Singh Anand (a former head-boy) sitting on his scooter by the side of the road. He was curious to know how our exam went. We chatted for a bit and then he took off on his scooter. 

That was magical to me. He might as well have had wings. It was as if he could be anywhere he wanted to be whenever the need arose. Meanwhile us mortals had to wait for the bus or for our parents to pick us up!

On another occasion, I ran into my former classmate Asim Patel on the IITD campus. He had made it into IITD (which was a big deal) and he just happened to be passing by as I was riding my bicycle around campus. He pulled over on his scooter and we chatted for a bit comparing notes regarding the our experiences (him at IITD and me at IIT Roorkee). I gave him some tips on where to do fun stuff on the IITD campus since I knew all the spots, having grown up on campus (my dad was a professor of electrical and computer engineering at IITD).

(Turns out Asim wasn't riding a Bajaj at all! As he clarified, "Meri ‘Laal Pari’ Red IND-SUZUKI 100cc mobike DIX9541. Pehla pyaar 1985-1996 rode 400,000 kilometers/250k miles on it". Top speed 65 mph. 8 horsepower.) 

At Roorkee one of my batchmate's cousins (Sumit Malhotra) who wasn't attending at Roorkee but did happen to live in town became a close friend. We shared a common interest in playing squash on the campus courts. He would often let me borrow his Bajaj and let me drive around town to visit with friends at hostels other than mine or grab something from the market.

Autorickshaw

India's ubiquitous (and rather unique) autorickshaw is perhaps the third most common mode of public transportation next to trains and buses, especially in the Delhi region. It's the cheapest taxi for hire, often used for smaller distances. The autorickshaw is essentially a modified Bajaj scooter with an extra wheel added to the back (hence the autorickshaw is often also called a three-wheeler), an enclosure, and additional seating.

Overloaded Scooter

This blog post won't be complete if I didn't mention how enterprising folks are with their scooters in India. Who needs an expensive gas-guzzling car when entire families can board a two-wheeler can get around town like nobody's business! I don't think they check what the scooter manual has to say about its carrying capacity.

Royal Enfield Bullet

The final blow for me was when my best friend (Sandeep Sharma) got his mom (who spared no effort at spoiling him) to buy him a Royal Enfield Bullet (a 350cc motorcycle)! He lived just two houses away from me. So I was a regular witness to him riding that motorbike to school and everywhere else sporting that smug look. It was as if he got that motorcycle specifically to rub salt into my wounds. Even though I did ride with him occasionally, he, too (like my dad), did not let me take it for a spin. He said it was much heavier than a scooter and needed additional practice to handle appropriately. 

He might have been justified, but boy did I hate him for having that privileged smirk on his face every time he rode that dastardly motorcycle. I think I even felt secretly vindicated when he did not get into IIT (India's top engineering school system) and I did! "Serves him right for being a spoiled little brat," I must have thought to my teen self.

Genuine Buddy Kick 125i

And so it was that after years of pining for it I finally came across an ad on Craigslist one day and decided that I was going to try and purchase this beautiful aqua colored made-in-Taiwan Genuine Buddy Kick 125i scooter. As someone astutely observed in one of the YouTube videos I watched while researching this gem of a scooter, it is actually modeled not on the classic Vespa but on another Italian classic - the Lambretta!

I used to think Lambrettas (or Lammys, as I see them being referred to on Reddit) were rare, and they were/are, but every since I bought my Lammy I've been hearing about and remembering more people who rode Lammys -- Varun Awasthi's family, Preeti Mohet Lamba's family, Inderjit Claire's family.

The "kickster" -- as I call it -- is honestly just a nostalgia pill for the festering wound from my unrequited teenage dream of owning a "Vespa". Even if I only ride it a handful of times for grocery shopping and such, I now feel like I, too, have wings!