PUNCTURE KA DOCTOR

 

A flat tyre in NDA meant extra fatigue. One had to lug the bicycle even if the tyres were flat. The main culprits were cadets who used to ‘manage’ valves. Punctures were there but a valve going missing was very common.

 

I still remember the number of the Bicycle when I joined NDA. It was numbered ‘C-5’. She was a darling. Many cadets must have ridden it, but she served me as new.

 

One day, I fell into the trap of the ‘missing valves’. The squadron cycle repair man, who had taken a liking towards me and gave me a handful of spare valves. Thereafter, one never had to go on a hunt for cycle valves throughout my stay at NDA.

 

When I was about to leave for my second term break, the repair man told me that “cadet aap ka cycle main overhaul kar ke rakhunga”. He did a fantastic job. I must thank that man from the bottom of my heart. He was a real “bicycle doctor”.

 

I noticed that NDA bicycles have gone tubeless when we visited for a course get together recently. Wow!

 

When I got commissioned, I graduated from a scooter to a motorbike and now I ride a ‘Thunderbird X’. This girl is my ‘work horse’ in the narrow lanes of the Sun City or the old and walled Blue City. Taking the car there is like driving a BMP through Connaught place.

 

I recall, on the first long drive on my motorbike, it got punctured. My wife was the pillion. A fellow biker brought it to our attention that the rear tyre had gone flat.

 

We were in the wilderness of Raigad Distt of Maharashtra. Finding a puncture shop close by was not easy. We decided to keep riding the punctured bike till we reached a repair shop.

 

Luckily, we found one not far from there. He pulled out a four-inch iron nail from the tyre. My heart sank. That is when he told me that one can ride on a  tubeless tyre for some distance. I saw a tubeless tyre being repaired for the first time.

 

That puncture kept pace with me. Every week, the tyre would deflate.

 

I found a good bullet mechanic in the city. I shared my concern with ‘Babblu Ustad’. He just could not find where the air was leaking from. The problem continued for about two years.

 

When I went for my routine bike check-up, I suggested to Raju Bhai to replace this tyre. Being a thorough bred Marwari advised me against it. He did a ‘Jugad’ by inserting a normal tube in the tubeless tyre and it worked. The contraption was effective for a year. Then one day the nozzle flew off. I was back to square one.

 

Luckily the place where we stay has now become a hub centre of vehicle repair workshops and puncture repair joints due to the proximity of the main highway. I found a good repair man and apprised him of the untraceable leak.

 

He removed the additional tube and reverted back to the tubeless state again. The problem still persisted. Every week, one had to get air filled. The frequency kept increasing.

 

It was time to take a fresh opinion from a new ‘tyre doctor’. ‘Pap-sa’, a puncture super specialist and an expert in treating tyre and tube diseases, had opened his shop close by.

 

I poured my heart out to him. “Abaar check kar lewan, hathon haath theek kar dewan” was his reply. I watched him do a CT scan with his eyes, his “Eyeball Mark II”.

 

He opened a shampoo sachet and poured it into a jet spray bottle. Inch by inch he went over the tyre after over inflating it. ‘Nozzle aur purana puncture theek hai’, he told me as he turned the rear wheel to check. The shampoo was like the dye inserted while doing an angiography.

 

As we chatted, he told me the tyre change would be costly. He now had a chalk in his hand to mark the place of the leak and then kept turning the tyre. Half an hour into ‘tyreography’, he exclaimed, ‘Mil gayo’, excitedly, as if he had discovered a block in the heart.

 

The leak was at the rim, quite common in tubeless tyres, said Pap sa. In case some dirt gets accumulated on the rim before the tyre is put back again, air leaks very slowly from there. It was a revelation for me.

 

He then thoroughly cleaned everything and fixed the tyre back again. “Ab leak hua to free hawa” the expert assured me. He saved me a ‘fatka’ of 3500/- and charged me only 50/-. The bike keeps smiling as it doesn’t limp again.

 

Have you come across such proficient people? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND
© ® NOEL ELLIS