2 months ago
1
Squatting connected the level wrong a store connected the roadside, 25-year-old Amritha deftly tightens screws wrong the motor assembly of a Royal Enfield Bullet. On the different broadside of the hefty machine, balanced connected a tiny woody platform,29-year-old Shruthimol is cautiously examining different component.
The 2 young women look astir dwarfed by the monolithic motorcycle they are moving on.Yet, the duo spell astir their task with a quiescent assurance calved retired of years of experience. For implicit 3 years now, their days person been spent amid engines, tools and the acquainted scent of grease and lubricants.
Amritha and Shruthimol are the daughters-in-law of Sivadasan, a seasoned motorcycle mechanic who has been moving the store ‘Ringoos Auto Works’ astatine Ponknnum municipality successful Kottayamfor much than 4 decades. The store present functions arsenic a adjacent knit enterprise, with each 5 work engineers belonging to Sivadasan’s ain family.
After marriage
When his sons, Harish and Girish, grew older, they joined their begetter successful the trade. After their marriages, their wives excessively stepped into the workshop, learning the trade and yet becoming mechanics themselves.
Every greeting astatine 9 a.m., the 2 women instrumentality their positions wrong the garage. In galore cases, it is they who archetypal inspect the motorcycles brought successful by customers and determine what repairs oregon servicing are required. “The enactment tin get hectic, sometimes stretching precocious into the night, adjacent till 3 a.m. the adjacent day. But this has go our passion, our assemblage and our life. We bask doing it together,” says Amritha.
With motorcycle repair inactive remains a tract overwhelmingly dominated by men, customers were often amazed to spot women moving confidently connected almighty machines. But curiosity soon gave mode to admiration.
Today, regular customers locomotion successful with implicit spot successful their skills. On an mean day, the store rolls retired 4 serviced motorcycles.
Both Amritha and Shruthimol are graduates and their involvement successful motorcycles grew lone aft marriage. “Being the girl of an autorickshaw driver, I had immoderate basal thought astir vehicles from a young age. I knew however to apical up lipid and understood immoderate basal motor mechanics. But during the pandemic period, erstwhile the store remained closed to the public, I began observing these machines closely. Gradually I started doing tiny repairs and learning more,” recalls Amritha.
Today, she handles astir mechanical enactment successful the garage, including good tuning engines, installing spare parts and repairing components. For now, however, the physically demanding motor overhaul enactment is handled by the men successful the family.
‘Physically strenuous’
“Working connected the motor of an Enfield Bullet tin beryllium physically strenuous. But we person started learning that too, with the enactment of our husbands,” she adds.
Soon aft joining the store arsenic an apprentice, Amritha gave commencement to her son, Sai Madhav. During her gestation she shifted to managing the beforehand bureau work. “After my station gestation period, I returned to mechanical work,” she says.
Both Amritha and Shruthimol unrecorded with their husbands successful a location located close adjacent to the workshop. Apart from their enactment astatine the garage, they person besides go members of motorcycle riding clubs. “Running a store means being disposable erstwhile customers request you. Since we unrecorded close adjacent to the workshop, we tin respond rapidly whenever idiosyncratic comes successful with a problem. That, perhaps, is our occurrence mantra,” the women mechanics say.
