बुलंद San Diego की बुलंद तसवीर

It's not often that I get excited spotting desi stuff in Amreeka, especially not in California, where you can expect to see almost any desi thing that you could ever want (or not). But last night I saw something so exclusively desi, that I just had to post up.

I was returning home with my roomie after a hearty dinner at PT. On the way back, we decided to stop over at Von's for a quick few that we needed to pick up. While my roomie was going back and forth trying to park his car in the straightest possible manner (almost an obsession for him) my eyes fell on a little red shiny thing paked in the lane right across from us. It was a scooter (not an uncommon sight nowadays) but there was something very oddly familiar about it and I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly it was. So still sitting in the car, going through the parking ordeal, I pointed out "अरे वो देख, Bajaj स्कूटर!" Bear in mind, that from where I was looking I could not see the front side of this scooter. I was very curious to find out what exactly was so teasingly familiar about the scooter, so as soon as the parking saga was over, I walked up to the scooter to check her out. To much surprise, Hamara Bajaj it was! A shiny red Bajaj Chetak!


After I got over the initial surprise and stepped into Von's a lot of questions ran through my mind. Who would want to buy a Bajaj Chetak in Amreeka? More importantly, why Bajaj? Could this be some desi guy who is so patriotic (?) that he wants to ride a 'Made in India' scooter no matter what part of the world he is in? Or could this be some gullible firang? If the owner was indeed desi, riding it would be a piece of cake for him. But would a firang know what it takes to start a Bajaj; the infamous Indian 'Tilt-A-Bajaj' trick? Would he know that the tilt could go either way, depending on the angle of the slope where the Bajaj is parked? Would he know that he'd have to clean his spark plug a gazillion times with the amount of oil oozing onto it? And the clutch wire? Who would replace that for him when it breaks every few months? Could a Bajaj consistently be driven atleast around the 45mph mark without the engine over heating?

Thinking about such inane things I walked back to the car after the groceries were done. The Chetak was still parked right there in all it's shining glory. For a moment I thought that we should wait to find out who the owner of that Bajaj really was ;)

PS: The snaps aren't the best quality 'cos they were shot with my Nokia 6233, but you can still see the Bajaj Chetak sign.