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My baker’s… a biker
American movies have depicted “bikers” as frightening, unshaven hoodlums with tattoos who ride into town on motorcycles and raise havoc with the police. Well, the worst havoc my baker raises is the catastrophic sputter of his dilapidated motorcycle, which is so chewed up you can only tell the front of it by the direction the driver is facing!
“Most of his 75 clients have learned to sleep through the ruckus as he barrels down Royal Road” at four in the morning to deliver their orders of fresh baked “baguettes” and “pain maison” buns right to their doorstep.
He doesn’t have a tattoo that reads “Mama” or a black leather jacket. And he’s not Peter Fonda in “Easy Rider” by about 50 kg. He doesn’t really send chills of fear down your spine, although some Parisian fashion designers might be traumatised by his battered black helmet, goggles with one glass missing and his bright green plastic “flip flop” sandals.
But you have to hand it to him. You have to be physically co-ordinated to balance a bag of 100 “pain maison” on your left, 100 between your legs and 100 in a satchel on your back. Not to mention the 20 baguettes, bananas and a few dozen eggs in a “vacoas” rattan bag hanging on your right handlebar.
By finishing his route by 8 a.m., he would have completed a routine in the family business that has been going on for over 40 years. Oh, and he’s not really a baker. He purchases the bread and resells it – his brothers and sisters each taking different delivery routes.
In 365 days (yes, he even works on Sundays) he has only missed 2 days due to severe flooding. He’ll tell you this with soft-spoken pride as he takes out his tally sheet(scrap pieces of paper stapled together into a makeshift ledger)from his “briefcase”(an old plastic bag that looks worse than his motorcycle)and gives you your total for the week.
So, if you’re driving early one morning and can’t make out what’s in your rearview mirror, please move over! This is a Mauritian “paradise angel”. He’s a “baker”, he’s a biker and he’s a man on a mission!
<B>Angela KEESSOONDOYAL</B>
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