Indeed, Vishnu Naiko has been cycling through five decades in the same workshop, which is on the point of becoming legendary. You don’t have to say “bicycle mechanic”, just say Vishnu, and the adolescent or the old labourer will guide you to the same spot. The front of the workshop occupies a small one-meter-by-one-meter area open onto the main road. You would wonder how Vishnu disassembles an old cycle without additional breakage to parts that can be recycled, so to say, reused.

Vishnu at work would have fitted well in a medieval peasant village, neighbouring the ironsmith, the carpenter, or the horse rider. But the scene hereby set is contemporary, though the wheel is turned leftward or rightward with palms thickened by hard work. You would say the old metal spokes curve softly as he plies them under the pressure of his fingers.

But how did Vishnu come to this dynamic cycling industry? In the early seventies, like most young men, he joined the textile industry, which he left after ten years to collect tea leaves, guided by his motto that one has to earn and deserve an honest living. Three years later, Vishnu left the green tea fields of Dubreuil for greener pastures. He was recruited in the welding section of a sugar factory.

There, he had a laborious experience of three years hammering, measuring, and welding metals as per simple and complex diagrams or as repairs would require. The artisans considered him a “manev for” (a strong assistant). Like a bird hopping for better living opportunities, Vishnu made a radical decision: learn to “break” and “unbreak” a bicycle. And make it as new.

Fifty years ago, Vishnu boldly started his business, opening his workshop with a warm welcome from the people of Rivière des Anguilles and neighbouring villages of St-Aubin, Château-Bénarès, Camp-Diable, Britannia, Tyack, and cyclists passing by with an unfortunate puncture. He remembers one fellow villager – an exception – saying to whoever would listen, with assurance, “sa pou ferme dan de zour” (“This workshop will close in two days.”). Obviously, the man was wrong, Vishnu says, because he had thought the number of bicycle owners would not support a profit-making business in terms of repairs.

Vishnu’s hands have caressed bicycles of several generations, starting from the British makes – Raleigh, Hudson, Humber – and later moving to Chinese and Indian models. Today, he sells models that primary school boys are gifted at Christmas and New Year. The market dynamics are such that his workshop has turned into a popular sales point for the end-of-year period, the weeks preceding popular festivals, or the days preceding school holidays, when new bicycles are in high demand. Vishnu offers a before-sales and after-sales service, eyeing the parts like an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of a new cycle. He places his expert fingers on them, applies his screwdriver to size and diameter, and turns right or left to tighten the part to the correct millimeter – like a surgeon would do with all the nerves in a body, human or animal.

The number of bicycle owners with decades old bicycles is gradually discovering the pleasure of antiques. So, from time to time, Vishnu has to replace freewheels, saddles, spokes, tyres, front lanterns, and pedals and give a fresh coat of paint to revive an old canasson into a look-alike new bicycle. Of all operations, Vishnu cherishes brazing and debrazing, like a surgeon would join two pieces of a fractured tibia or an arm that holds the handlebar.

This is how the word is being passed on: Doctor Naiko, the mechanic who gives life back to old bicycles.