The year was 2008. For 7 years, I had been serving as a palliative care owner to second hand two-wheelers. This included manually-powered visits to workshops every other day, to the extent I had called the original one Potential Honda, because it was Kinetic only occasionally! And that’s how I finally decided to take the bold step of buying a brand new two-wheeler for the first time in my life, at double the cost of my mobile. I bring that up because now Activa competes with the likes of Apple and Samsung for the share of wallet!
Fast forward to 2013, when D got herself a four wheeler, and a driver, I cajoled her into letting me use both, and stopped using the Activa for office commute. But it still was my go-to vehicle for chores. From about 2016, I became an Uber regular, but the Activa continued its role. I think it was the pandemic, and then the zoning out that separated us.
And thus, here we are in 2022, and I am wondering how does one say goodbye to a partner who has been with you in your 20s, 30s and 40s! But I have to. Unlike the foreign object and these guys, the maintenance effort is not trivial. It doesn’t help that it needs a fitment certificate later this year!
And thus this thank you post. To a relationship in which I cheated on you with another two-wheeler only once – when they insisted I use a wheelchair when going in for an angioplasty last year. To a relationship in which we got hurt just once – back in 2010 in Austin Town on a rainy night. I remember crying that night, as I picked you up and continued home, because a truckload of things made life seem so unfair. I am older and a little wiser now, and life doesn’t seem very unfair, but I thought of the lifetime we’ve been through and blinked back tears, when I stood gazing at you before I put you up for sale.
