Better safe than scary

Since getting the Triumph, I’ve been hanging out at my favourite garages around Mumbai. This is to install the various bits that I need to turn a Street Triple into Ferine. As you all know, hanging out with a mechanic and drinking his chai is the touchstone of motorcycling. Not drinking the free tea is a grave sign of great disrespect and you absolutely must accept every single cup.

But the extra sugar in the tea doesn’t scare me. The new conversation I hear does. A few years ago the talk was about bikes. About who imported what, which shade of grey it was, what this person paid for it and how s/he was a jackass/genius to be paying that for that bike.

Those days are behind us. The new conversation is altogether more somber and incredibly scary.
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