Letters

FIXING THINGS

In 2014, while walking around the docks at Mangalore, where every truck seemed to be an Ashok Leyland and every motorcycle a Royal Enfield, I stumbled across a man sitting in the dust of the road in front of the open mouth of a tipper lorry.

Surrounded by the carcass of a gearbox and with taper roller bearings laid neatly on rags by his side, he was rebuilding the machine’s drive, as vehicles trundled past kicking up a fog of ochre. “He is very strong man,” announced a portly, suited gent standing over him.

I love my Royal Enfield, and for the price it’s a great bike. But I’m not deceived into thinking that the marque is comparable to other modern incarnations of the classic genre. To the visitor, India is a wonderful, unique, sometimes baffling explosion of new and old. It has aircraft carriers and a