The Instagram Project: Lens and Piston

Lens And Piston(@lensandpiston)

One of the early memories Fayaz recalls from his childhood is of him crawling under a Maruti Gypsy. He viewed the underbody of the Gypsy with as much fascination as someone seeing the stars in Milky Way for the first time.

“It runs in the family,” Fayaz said “the love for automobiles.”

With time the toddler’s fascination grew. He identified cars by its bumpers before he could count numbers.

Fast forward a few years, the teenage Fayaz pined after bikes his father couldn’t afford. Undeterred, he saved up for his first bike, doing odd jobs. He bought his first bike, a Yamaha YBX 125 in his second year of Engineering. The depth of love and pride he felt for his hard-earned bike knew no bounds. If he could cuddle it in his sleep, he would have.

But in his final year of college, the trend of owning a Royal Enfield Classic gripped Fayaz, just like everyone else. Everywhere he turned the exhaustive sound of the Bullet bikes followed him like a ghost. A lack of funding and his unwavering loyalty to his YBX prompted him to push the Enfield to the back of his mind. Somewhere in the middle of all the cluttering exhumes of the motorbikes, Cupid didn’t miss out on his target on Fayaz.

Like millions of engineers flooding the already saturated Indian economy, Fayaz roamed about in search of a job, landing one in Chennai two years later.  One fine day while heading back home, he passed by a Royal Enfield showroom. The old yearning locked away in the back of his mind sprang forth inside of him. The showroom was offering a test drive on what would later on become his one true love, the Himalayan.

When Fayaz explained the exhilaration he felt at riding the bike for the first time, I saw the little toddler who examined the Gypsy coming back to life.

“I felt this was a bike that was made just for me,"  he said “the height, the handles, the seating position, everything felt perfect. And when I rode it, it was another love story altogether. My heart just floated.”

But once again the funding proved tricky. However, this time his dad stepped in to lend him a helping hand. He signed him up for a loan.

I would like to end the story here by saying Fayaz rode out his Himalayan into the sunset and lived happily ever after with his dame, paying back the loan in time.

Unfortunately life had something else in store for him. The heart that elatedly drove down the Himalayan through rocky mountain patches was hit by a heartbreak.

Life as he knew it turned upside down. It overwhelmed him. The longer he stayed around the longer he felt being drowned into the depths of darkness.

“I just wanted to be away. That’s when I chose to leave the country.” The pain evident in his words.

Fayaz decided to trade his free-spirited rider life for a migrant one in Qatar. He wanted to get away before his life turned to shambles. The only asset he owned to fund his survival in an unknown country was his beloved Himalayan.

“I had sold the Himalayan and was entering back home. My mother was finishing her prayers and looked over at me from her prayer mat with as much pain.” he said

“You had to give up everything you loved and earned for, didn’t you?” His mother asked him.

Everything he had been holding together until then came crashing down on him. He cried his heart out before his mother.

When I asked him if he was happy now in the alien country and a higher paying job he replied

“Happiness is something we make for ourselves. I feel we would never achieve a complete sense of happiness”

Did he miss home?

He did. One day he hopes to come back home. His supportive dad and loving mother will be waiting for him. So will be his Yamaha YBX.