India Misadventures (Delhi 10/11 - 24/11 Part V)

What do you do when you find out that, as you do more for a person, you make her happy, and oh-how sincerely happy she is.

You know you're not being taken for granted.

You know from the touch of her hand that she thinks you've done much more than you should, and yet in you, you just want to do more.

And even after a few years, you know you both can keep going on.

Oh yes, I believe in the future =)

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On a different topic : 4 days ago, I finally fixed up a slow leak on the car tyre which I was supposed to do weeks ago. When balding marks started to appear on the side, I knew the tyre was calling for help desperately.

Memang lah, the damn thing goes flat every 2 days. Imagine all that wear and tear with every inflate and deflate lol. My poor tired tire. Haha.

So I sent it for repair at the local repair shop outside my house...and wham!a memory instantly flashed into my mind..Keke it's a memory of a tire puncture I had in Mumbai 2 months ago. Let's see..that was in Pune, about 2 hours east of Mumbai.

What do you expect..with all those stony roads and every Indian driver thinking that he's Michael Schumacher, I'm not surprised that a million tires get punctured every single day. Really.

So, back to the repair!

 

This is something we've all seen a dozen times while we repair Our tires. That's my tire being repaired.

 

The Tire-man probably knows more about this machine than his own TOOTHBRUSH. I'd think you know how this works: tire goes in, machine turns one round and the tire pops out almost magically.

 

For the Indian Tire-man, when it comes to removing a tire, there is nothing that works as well as his trusty wedge and hammer. And some body-weight.

 

Very systematically, Tire-man proceeds to the next step: removing the tube.

Yes guys, Indian tires do have a tube in it. FYI, most of Malaysian tires are tubeless. They've been tubeless for decades now, so imagine my surprise when he pulled out the tube. Something like the tire's UNDERWEAR.

 

Then he checks for leakages in his special leak-detector tire bath:

 

 

Tire-man's shop is not short of curious onlookers:

 

 

Our Malaysian Tire-man uses some blue paste to patch up the leak after a few minutes of grinding.

 

Our Indian Tire-man? I have no idea...somehow or other the hole was patched up and it worked. The technology still escapes me.

 

After patching is done, comes the part where the naked tire is dressed with its underwear again.

 

 

After some heavy banging, the tire is inflated and the pressure checked.

Don't play play, they really check the pressure. Even our Malaysia Tire-man doesn't do that.

 

Finally, the tire is fixed back onto the car. In Malaysia we have that trusty jack that lifts cars up in less than 1 minute.

 

 

For Indian Tire-man: who needs to spend money on jacks when you can use the emergency jack belonging to the car owner?

 

Such sound economic wisdom. No wonder Indians are such successful businessmen.

 

In Malaysia, our Tire-man uses this to remove the nuts:

 

Strangely, in India, even though they're already using compressed air to fill up tires, they don't have this little device that can just tap into the compressed air and remove nuts within seconds. Maybe doing it by hand is in true Indian Tire-man spirit.

 

Finally, when everything is done, it's time to pack up. Did I also mention that the tire that was just repaired is actually the SPARE TIRE? The main tire, which we were using all the while was actually punctured beyond repair, and when we tried to use the SPARE TIRE, that's when we discovered that it was also punctured. what the hell right haha.

 

Now this one is the main tire! LOL. It was conveniently tucked back in the trunk, unrepaired, waiting for the next poor unsuspecting driver to use.

 

Probably the best part of this whole process is payment. All that hard work, done manually by hand by the boss himself costs only Rs40 (Rm 3.33). He'll accept payment very happily with a big smile on his face.

 

This is our repairshop:   xD

 

A little old and not so hi-tech, but hey, it works for the average Indian.

For me, it was a good experience...hey, how often do you get to see something like this back home?

 

 

'Come out you goddam wheel!*

That's incredible India for you. And remember, you got it all here! ;)

Cheers!
-EVo-