Adil Najam
This wonderful picture was published in the Daily Times (16 June, 2006) with the headline ‘Need for Speed’ and a caption that read “An employee of a filling station fills petrol in a bicycle that the owner has made a moped out of by putting an engine in it.”
To me, this is a wonderful example of Pakistani ingenuity and how necessity is the mother of innovation.
I remember distinctly the first ‘gas’ (LNG) kit that my father self-installed in our old Fiat way back in the late 1970s. Well before either environmentalists or economists were talking about LPG/LNG as an alternative fuel. I think the owner of this bicycle is operating on a similar motivation and innovative logic.
But what I do wonder is whether this is a souped-up bicycle (i.e., motivated by a ‘Need for Speed’) or a stripped-down motorcycle (i.e., motivated by a ‘Need for Economy’)?
