Around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Mohan knows he’s very close to closing a major deal for his airline, which would break him out of his unknown rut of low sales. Just before sunset, he loses to the opposing player, this after three days of persistent sweat and sweet talk. His calm expression belies a heavy heart as he bids the boys goodnight and he returns home at 5:46, nodding ever so slightly to his favorite JJ Cale playlist. It has been a hard day.

Mohan steps in and out of the shower, then takes the elevator down to the basement and walks over to a small flash of chrome in that unlit corner. As he approaches the two wheels he’s proudest in the world to call his own, a small smile melts all his previous descriptions of the day’s intestinal byproducts. One decompression and two kicks later, he leaves to buy bread at Satya’s bakery, twelve kays away, after deciding not to send it home. Because somehow that beat of his Silver Bullet orchestra never fails to calm stressed neurons.

Swallowing chicken and cheese sandwiches for dinner, you sit on the single sofa and place your prized book on the coffee table, feeling the familiar nirvana of slowly turning the glazed pages of a hardcover collector’s edition of Royal Enfield. .

… It was around the time that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Dr. John H. Watson to Sherlock Holmes that the gods smiled at the sight of a sturdy bicycle frame that would become quite a famous motorcycle. In the early 1880s, George Townsend Jr. had taken the “Townsend Cyclists Saddles and Springs” company from producing a local inventor’s single-coil saddle to making complete bicycles remembered for their sturdy scaffolding.

Some ten years later, after being awarded a valuable contract to produce precision rifle parts for a gun factory in Enfield, Middlesex, the newly named and controlled Eadie Manufacturing Company Limited marked the occasion by launching the “Enfield” bicycle. . The link to ‘royalty’ began when the specialist company producing these bikes became “Royal Enfield Manufacturing Co. Ltd”.

Royal Enfield’s initial foray into mechanized vehicle manufacturing began with three- and four-wheelers with an unimaginable 1.75hp. A very short time after the hype and hangovers from the biggest right-wing parties of the 19th century died down, French designer Louis Goviet penned the first Royal Enfield motorcycle. With the remarkably small Minerva engine mounted above the front wheel, it went into production immediately in 1901.

The front-engine layout soon lost ‘traction’, as the first wheel was overloaded with cornering grip due to excess weight at the front. The engine was moved behind the front wheel in the frame and temporarily rested under the rear of the driver. Royal Enfield then promoted a division purely for car and motorcycle production called the Enfield Autocar Company. Alldays and Onions Company took over the proceedings of Enfield Autocar, which soon ran out of money, from 1907 to 1924, when the name “Bullet” was first adopted for car models produced with “Enfield” badges and “Enfield-Allday”.

Where there is a wheel, there is usually a way to compete. In 1909, Royal Enfield produced a quality set of two wheels using a powerful 297cc Motosacoche V-twin engine coupled with a belt drive. The V-Twin became very successful, winning prestigious reliability tests such as Edinburgh to London in 1910. Two years later, the Royal Enfield Model 180 with a 770cc JAP engine and sidecar competed convincingly in acclaimed races. of Brooklands. Some versions were displayed with a sidecar-mounted machine gun to raise public awareness of its versatility. This publicity did not ‘stop’ the growth of the company in any way, because when the First World War came, the strengthened Model 180s were in great demand not only from the United Kingdom, but also from France, Belgium and Russia.

However, the motorcycle we know so basically here in India actually spawned in 1934, when 350cc and 500cc displacement iterations were released with the valve gear exposed – the first true Royal Enfield Bullets. After World War II in 1947, Enfield reintroduced the 500 Model J with kinder front hydraulic shocks. This inexpensive workhorse sold well; The revolutionary rear spring suspension was introduced on the Bullet 350 OHV and soon after on the 25hp 500.

It seems the wonders never ceased with Enfied around that time, as Royal Enfield is credited with producing in 1959 what was possibly the first ‘superbike’ in history: the 700cc Constellation Twin. Some Enfields even crossed the borders into the US, renamed Red Livery Indians. The Yankees, however, did not take the immigrants very seriously.

Efficient Japanese motorcycles would become all the rage when the world’s greatest concert was held at that ranch near Woodstock, New York. What was to follow could have been predicted at the time the first frugal import was tested. British Royal Enfield’s demise finally came in 1970 when its Bradford-on-Avon factory was closed, meekly mimicking the end of the Redditch facility in 1967…

Mohan pours himself a strong whiskey and lights his cigarette after the meal.

…India, meanwhile, was in her early twenties before becoming familiar with the instantly recognizable bullet strike. In 1955 the government ordered a shipment of 800 Enfields which were to be pressed primarily for border patrol service. Working to reduce production costs, the Redditch firm chose Madras Motors as a partner to assemble British-made components on virtually unchanged Bullet 350s under the “Enfield India” company name.

In the late 1950s, the Indian subsidiary was locally manufacturing Royal Enfield components after purchasing all the necessary tooling. Enfield India became a fully independent producer of the Bullets in 1967. The company continued to produce examples of these singles for nearly thirty years, until Eicher bought the company in 1994 and obtained the rights to the “Royal Enfield” name the following year.

Unfortunately, there was a long time when bullets weren’t “made like a gun” as their original 1893 mantra intended them to be. Worrying oil spills occurred anywhere the kickers were parked more than momentarily, and the urge to rid lube from any supposedly sealed joints had a knack for creating random shiny black streaks on freshly washed rides. There weren’t too many complaints at the time, as there really weren’t too many options on the market at the time to threaten to switch allegiance to another bike manufacturer.

Buyer demographics have changed especially in recent years. Younger and more “sophisticated” buyers in pristine Chinese who demand upgraded everything have added to the taken-for-granted older customer base of yesteryear, making Enfield sit up and take notice of their workmanship of poor quality. Something good for the company turned out to be.

Royal Enfield is currently unable to meet demand and is increasing production capacity. Steps are constantly being made in the right direction, and while most of today’s Bullets are still based on the basic 1960’s design, they are now exponentially more reliable and easier to use and live with. The gear lever is located on the left, as opposed to its previous unusual (and occasionally unsafe for beginners) position on the right side. Many buyers today even use them for their daily commute, something even the most passionate enthusiast could not have been bribed to do in the past.

The Royal Enfield Bullet has also been a favorite of the customizer to display his art. While the results haven’t always been entirely luscious since bank statements often take precedence over quality customization work, a handful of low-key mod-gurus keep the quality flag on the mast. Aftermarket modification, such as muffler replacements to achieve the perfect pipe length and achieve the correct acoustic personality, is an almost unwritten regulation of new Enfield owners today. Let’s not forget international names like respected Swiss Enfield dealer and tuner Fritz W. Elgi and Englishman Andy Berry, who transcend geographical boundaries to display their skill and passion on the Bullet canvas.

Royal Enfield’s portfolio today has a dozen single-cylinder models in 350cc and 500cc displacement variants, true to their unique mechanical upbringing. A notable longest continuous production run for any motorcycle in our spinning dial’s two-wheeled history belongs to the protagonist: the Bullet has become an obvious stalwart in the Indian Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

There’s simply no alternative to that iconic bass resonance that sends jitters through an efficiently characterless, underachieving new-age competition chassis during a careless pass on open tarmac. Given that phrases like ‘glorious history’ and ‘timeless heritage’ are often parroted at the same time as ‘Bullet’, this unflinching single-boat icon warranted a little digging in Royal Enfield’s time capsule…

Mohan takes the last sip of his second drink, slams the stubby glass down on the oval balsa table, and reads the epilogue to the Enfield story to which he always feels deeply rooted:

A family in the nineties,
A sick man in his fifties,
And a bullet from the sixties
They eventually went their separate ways.
It was an emotional goodbye
But the next meeting is on hold.

A stretch, a scratch, and a few steps later, he’s under the covers with the fan on full blast. It is one in the morning and he is exhausted, but with a supremely content soul. Mohan’s day was made better by the evening, as he used that precious couple of hours to wield a blessing he knew was his: to be able to taste and understand why only some legends are truly fit for royalty.