poseur pəʊˈzəː noun a person who behaves affectedly in order to impress others Le Poseur So the bike is running, and it is time to take out the leathers. The boots, the jacket, the open-faced helmet, the works, you know. Although the time after lunch on weekends is usually reserved for a siesta, today I forced myself to take the bike out. With nowhere in particular to head out to, I thought I would make a trip to Rockys (Ankh Creations), which also happens to be a bikers point. It is about time Rocky started a cafe there, I thought as I hurriedly checked the papers. The insurance was valid till Feb 2014, theres no PUC certificate, the Karnataka tax was paid as a fine in 2005, but that was another story, and the Registration Certificate says it is a Hero Honda 350 cc (ahem, Mr Pawan Munjal). But the RC having been issued in Delhi, nobody is surprised. You can blame it on the government ruling Delhi then, but I have a feeling it was forever Sheila Dixit. Between IIM and Indiranagar, there are many possible RTO checkposts and cops waiting to harass law-abiding bikers like me, so I had to make a quick plan in my mind as to which route can be reasonably less populated by cops. But it being a Saturday, the cops are probably taking their siesta too, just to get themselves ready for the late-night, drunken-driving action. Any road should be relatively safe, I said to myself, and set off. Despite Bangalores cool and romantic weather, it isnt really ready for leather. Soon I started perspiring like mad inside the jacket and started cursing Suchismita Guharoy for having gifted me something suitable for the typical London weather. However, the poseur value of riding a bike that announces its arrival from kilometers away is too huge to give up the jacket. Everybody is staring at me. It made me jut out my mandible and go for what some people call the Bruce Willis pout. I pretended to be very comfortable in the jacket and stood ramrod straight at the traffic junctions, where almost everybody turned around to see what made such a racket. A biker, a true-blue biker in leathers, they must have thought. And look at his determined jaw, some of them must have discussed among themselves. Now thats the real deal. I forgot the heat and kept going. Saturday traffic crawls at a very slow pace, and I had to often stand and search for neutral. Now once this bike has launched itself into one of the gears (hard to tell which gear you are in), finding neutral is often as mysterious as the quest for the Holy Grail. So you often stand under the sun, waiting for the signal to go green, invisibly pushing with your heel and toe to find neutral, as the clutch plates get heated and the idling rpm goes up like mad, drawing more attention, which had by now started looking embarrassing. Just as the traffic started moving, I found neutral. It was like finding god in the middle of a desert, and although it was time to move, I pretended as if this is what I wanted all my life: to wear a hot leather jacket and stand on the side of the road, with the bike idling in neutral. Did anybody notice that my hand was NOT on the clutch? Ha, now THATs how you ride an Enfield, you wannabes, learn from me. Till I reached Rockys place, I ensured my jaw was jutting out very firmly like that of a real bikers. It was tormenting, but a poseurs gotta do what a poseurs gotta do. Dont you have a full-face helmet? Pallavi asked. Go wash your face. My face? I thought in my Aviators and open helmet I looked like a European whos rented an Enfield for self-flagellation. She gave me a mirror and I checked out my face. It had gone black from all the soot and pollution. Please, somebody tell me you noticed my protruding jaw. Learned the trick from John Hall Photography.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 14:00:35 +0000
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