From past 20 years, Mr. Sharma, everyday enjoy his 30 kilometers ride on typical bumpy Indian roads and small narrow streets from his remote village in Haryana to New Delhi. He’s a milkman who carries the 2 big drums on the sideways of his motorcycle, which is the second love after his wife. He proudly depicts the picture of any self low profile entrepreneur but he represents the biggest chain of self entrepreneurs in India, who turnovers the economy every day with vastly shared percentile more than any big wealthy Indian tycoon who can take over the world’s biggest businesses. This is the middle-class of India.
It would not become a significant political force as it is still too consumed with itself. But in vast socio-economical scenario they matters a lot. The significance not only lies with their risk taking capabilities but they need a drive, the drive which droves their ideas, plans and deals with such a dare that they don’t rely on any Mercedes and believe me daredevils just rely on their adventurous roots which is only possible on bikes.
With one of the fastest growing economies in the world, clocked at an average growth rate of 8% India is fast on its way to becoming a large and globally important consumer economy. The Indian middle class, estimated to be 300 million people more than the population of US with a mix-ups of spenders and earners.
Nothing captured the complex reality of existence in India better than this hybrid creature called as “Scooter” that offered mobility and convenience though reluctantly.
Besides this the typical Indian road scenario where sometime the owner on 2 wheels has to pay the fine of not driving rashly or over speeding but to make the balance of the weight or the load which is the burden he’s carrying over his shoulders to drag his everyday life in the form of goods or his typical family, which on average comprise of 4 members, squatting on the seat with a belly going to pot, wearing a grey safari suit, undistinguished but resourceful. With a wife perched uncomfortably at the back, with one kid squeezed between & the second standing up front holding the bars of scooter’s handle.
I’m wondering; Like the German Volkswagen Beetle and Italy's postwar classic Vespa, designed to be affordable, accessible, simple-to-maintain means of getting to a job, shop or visit another town, the significance of scooter put a similar tool of middle class aspiration within reach.
It had a stepney, which provided a valuable and ready safety option on independent-minded Indian roads. It had space to squeeze in a full family, a place to carry vegetables, a dickey to store all the grocery s needs of the family- in limits. The other significant phenomenon is its modesty with shyness, as commonly seen factor in Indian middle class; it hid the machine from view. Unlike the bike which revels in displaying its muscular architecture, the scooter covered up the beast within.
Also, like any Bollywood movie, it portrays If John Abraham is the poster boy for bikes, Shah Rukh Khan twisted on his way to the ration shop with his dream girl riding the dream journey in crowded, curvy narrow streets of Indian bazaar as the abiding scooter role model in the movie, “Rab ne bana di Jodi”.
Although, the metamorphosis of scooter changes but still India is balancing well on these two wheels. With the trend of getting more mod, rocking the Indian young minds, the phenomenon of scooters is getting old but it didn’t ends. It represents the post independence struggle that the middle classes waged and won in spite of the governments, controls, corruption & sloth. The scooter celebrates the functionality of motorized mobility, not its recreational energy.
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