A farewell to Billo

May 14, 2009

IT-BHU

                Standing in front of the foundry shop with a bunch of smirched papers in his hands he checked another tick on the No-dues form after getting it signed from one more shop. It was a long, crispy yellowish form made of a very thin sheet that easily caught wrinkles. He held it firmly with both his hands and checked it again for left out spaces. There was one blank space left. It was against the I.C Engine lab. He has tried to defer it so far, thinking of avoiding it forever, but now had no other department left un-checked to further delay the confrontation.

At the I.C Engine lab, after Vijay dropped him there with a wooden box, two bags full of castings of aluminum, batteries, wires, a tool box and many other items, in the left hand and Billo in the right one, he stood there for a while. He didn’t remember for how long. It was a silent afternoon at the laboratory; a shaft of sun ray lit the far end of the corridor where three rows of benches were arranged with a black-board in front of them for the small lectures that were read there to the students. On the left side immediately as one enters was the office of Prof. H N Gupta opposite to which was placed a rotary piston engine with webs all over it dictating that it has been untouched for many years. The space that followed had rows of cut-sections and working models of different aggregates of an automobile on both the sides. The lab attendant, who was still un-familiar to him even after the 4 years that he had spent in the mechanical department, looked at him with a questioning brow through his glasses.

“I am here to get the No-dues signed”, he declared.

“Very well, do you have any dues from in here? What’s your roll number?”

“05000625, I have a model car with me to submit”

“Well than hand it over to me”

“No, I will keep it myself. Show me the place”, he moved towards the store room.

“There you go, find a place and keep it. Lock the room when you are done”, the attendant said as he opened the door and went back to his seat.

    After arranging all the items carefully in the wooden-box, he went back to sit on the bench with Billo placed on the table. It’s front left tire resting on a metal piece, slightly above the rest of its chassis. That’s how he has always liked it standing.

“So this is it. The time has finally come when I have to leave you here little friend. It has been the most wonderful time of my under-graduation working with you. I know that I have rammed you, thrashed you, overhauled you and even threw you off the table many times but that was only because I believed in you. I trusted that you won’t fail against any obstacle and of-course you have failed me many times but in the end we’ve won a few races. I hope you know that it was not winning the races that mattered for me, it was participating in the event and improving and understanding you that was of prime importance to me. And we have had a good time all along”, Billo kept staring as he went on talking.

“Remember on those cold nights of January, when you would refuse to start at all even after incessant cranking. We had to play your favorite song ‘Bhool Bhulaiya’ and then you would start at a single try. And once when we didn’t have that song with us out in the street, we had to get you warmed up on the left-out heat in the stove of Limbdi Corner.”

“Aren’t you done yet? It’s time to close the lab. Please make it fast”, exclaimed the lab attendant. He waived at him and asked for one more minute and continued his farewell biding.

“Anyways leave all that. Here are some points I want you to remember. I have prepared the correct mixture of fuel and stored it in a bottle in your box. It’s enough to last one more season. The rear right shocker is broken which I had plastered with M-seal so don’t go off-road too often, it may come off completely. And you know why your front shockers have gone stiff since last month? After we rammed you into that pole at full speed a month ago, both the front suspensions leaked out. I thought of filling them again with Castor oil but then I felt that ketchup would be more fun, so when Vijay would ram you next time it would look like you were bleeding ;). I hope you won’t mind it at all, the stiffer suspensions have given you more height in the front and I suppose you have liked it. The carburetor’s settings are currently perfect as per Varanasi’s humid weather and the fuel ratio with NO nitro. Please don’t let anyone disturb them”, he felt a stab of regretful pain when he failed to find a look of assurance in Billo and realized that it was but a mere machine. All these precautions were futile. Students of next batch have shown interest in working on this project but they intended to fabricate a bike using its engine and differentials. He nonetheless acted as if it was all untrue. That car was all what he has thought about and worked upon for the last two years, understanding all the sensitive settings that changed its behavior vastly. And now the knowledge that it would be dismantled forever hurt him deep inside the heart.

He threw the car into box from his natural height. It was not an act of disrespect but of honor because he knew that he had worked on the suspensions and chassis to handle that much load. The car fell on the front two shockers and rested the rear tires subsequently; the chassis didn’t touch the ground. No harsh sound was produced as the suspension took on the impulse bravely. A leaf of paper followed the car on the ground. It was checklist and precautions that he had prepared for the car. As he handed over the keys to the lab attendant, he stamped the form and had it signed from the Lab incharge.

“What do you think will happen to this car”, he asked the attendant.

“Some students have been inquiring about its availability. I think it will be issued to them within a week”, the statement had confirmed what he had been afraid of since long. His hold of the un-finished spur gear that he has kept as a memorandum in his pocked went tight. It was inevitable; the model had to be destroyed so that the next batch could work on it from scratch again. This didn’t bother him, it was his possessiveness that kept pinching him in his chest. He knew that this feeling was supposed to be unlooked at, so he took a deep breath and walked out of the lab at an increased pace without stopping or looking back at the first love of his life.