My Father's Scooter

 As far back as my memory reaches, my father’s comings and goings belonged to an old scooter, the sort that carried middle-class men to and from work in the early years of this century. It belonged to a time when machines were allowed to age alongside men, when usefulness was a stronger virtue than appearance. It stood in the aangan of my house like a loyal pet, patient, uncomplaining, its metal body dulled by years of sun and dust. It had learned the shape of my father’s hand on the handle, the precise pressure of his foot on the kick-start, and the rhythm of his mornings. Together they formed a small economy of trust.

It was a dull, indifferent colour—neither proudly black nor whimsically blue—bearing the soft dents of a life lived fully. The paint had faded unevenly, lighter where the sun struck hardest, darker in places my father’s knees brushed against daily. Rust gathered near the footrest like moss, reminding you that nothing remains untouched by weather. The headlamp flickered sometimes, not out of rebellion but fatigue, and my father would tap it gently, as one might a stubborn child, restoring light through affection rather than force. Each scratch had a story, though my father never narrated them in order. A scrape from a narrow bazaar lane, a bent indicator from a bus that came too close, a missing screw that had long ago made peace with absence. Like many fathers of that time, the scooter carried its injuries without complaint. 

Every morning it coughed awake like an elderly relative clearing his throat before speaking, and once it did, the day officially began. That sound carried across walls and lanes, mingling with the clang of milk cans and the calls of newspaper boys. For me, it was reassurance. As long as that scooter started, the world was still in order.

As a child, I learned early that the scooter was not to be rushed. You did not kick-start it angrily; you coaxed it. My father would tilt his body slightly to one side, so that the fuel might find its way where it needed to go, listen, and try again. When it finally started, there was a small, private triumph on his face; man and machine were in agreement for another day. 

The scooter knew the geography of our lives intimately. It knew the route to school, the shortcut to the sabzi mandi, the sudden braking near the Hanuman temple where my father would slow down instinctively. Over the years, it had carried sacks of rice, steel trunks, and gas cylinders balanced with alarming optimism. On festivals, it carried bags of prasad; on ordinary days, it carried groceries and responsibilities, and on Saturdays, it carried boxes of biryani or kebabs my father brought home for dinner. Sometimes it carried us: two, three, occasionally four people balanced carefully, defying both physics and traffic rules. Helmets were optional then but trust was not.

Rain tested that trust. The seat grew slippery, the road uncertain, and yet my father drove with a calm certainty, as though rain was merely another opinion to be acknowledged and ignored. I remember clutching his shirt, smelling petrol mixed with damp cotton, watching the world blur into reflections on wet asphalt. My father’s back straightened then, his hands firm but unhurried. There was no drama in his driving, only a belief that panic wastes energy. Riding pillion on my father’s scooter, I learned that the courage of a strong man does not show itself in noise, but in how steadily he keeps going.

In those years, it was a common sight to see entire families travelling on a single, wheezing scooter: two children in front, gripping the handlebar stem with solemn responsibility, another perched between parents, a mother seated sideways at the back, carrying a baby in her arms. Cars were rare and expensive, reserved for the truly prosperous or the perpetually indebted. For most middle-class families, a scooter was not a stepping stone but a destination. It was economical, dependable, and forgiving of neglect. Public transport existed, but it ran on its own schedule and rarely aligned with the small urgencies of domestic life. Roads were slower then, traffic more forgiving, and rules bent easily around need. No one looked twice at such a sight; it belonged to the landscape, like handcarts and cycle bells. What was once necessity now appears reckless. Yet memory reminds us that human ingenuity is rarely about perfection, but about adaptation, about the intimate economies that shape everyday life, and about arrangements born of trust: in balance, in familiarity, and in the careful hands of men who carried their families not as passengers, but as responsibility made visible. 

The years passed, and at traffic signals, newer vehicles gathered around us: cars with tinted windows, motorcycles sleek and impatient. The scooter waited with the same calmness of my father, unconcerned with comparison. It did not aspire to be better than others. It endured through circumstance. And in that endurance lay its dignity. My father never spoke of buying something better. To him, better was an abstract idea. The scooter started every morning. That was enough.

Of course, there were days when it refused to cooperate, when the kick-start demanded multiple attempts. My father would not curse it. He would wait, wipe his hands on a cloth fished out from the storage compartment, and try again. Watching him, I understood that relationships endure not because they are flawless, but because patience and kindness were practiced daily. Eventually, the scooter would yield, its engine settling into rhythm, and my father’s face would soften in relief and gratitude.

As years went by, the scooter and my father aged together. The rides shortened. The kick-start grew heavier. The engine protested more often, as though reminding us that endurance has limits. Twice the brakes failed, causing accidents that marked the beginning of caution. Eventually, there came a day when the scooter was covered with a cloth and its daily duties concluded without ceremony. Some things end quietly, as if to preserve their usefulness even in absence.

Looking back, my father's scooter moved slowly enough for the world to register. One could see the faces of neighbours, the sway of mango trees, the puddles forming in the roadside gutters, reflecting clouds that would soon drift away. It is easy to forget that speed changes perception: when life moves fast, details are lost. But on that scooter, in its modest, steady pace, a child learned the value of noticing and the patience to linger long enough in a moment to contemplate on it.

To this day, the scooter rests in the same corner where my father left it every evening after work. It has outlived him, yet it is not idle; the maid drapes laundry across it as if it were built for that purpose. It lives on in the way I measure distance in my hometown not in kilometres but by familiarity. It lives on in my instinct to slow down near temples, to believe that machines, like people, respond better when treated gently, to know that reliability matters more than novelty. More than anything perhaps, it lives on in the persistence of the memory of my father.