It will be a disastrous day for south Indian roads when every motor-bike owner successfully aspires to own a car! Mind you, the launch of the Tata Nano, retailing at the time for one lakh rupees (R100,000) – around £1200 – was supposed to entice the motorcyclists away from their bikes, but you don’t hear so much of it these days.

Bikes are the transport of everyman, and carry everything. Tamils are a slender race, so three men fit easily onto a bike – and often do. Four men is feasible but a bit of a squeeze. Two men, with the passenger carrying something across their knees, is normal – I haven’t the photographic evidence, but I have seen any amount of amazing baggage – a goat, a small calf, a mattress, a bicycle, and once a large sheet of plate glass, which was really scary.

Bikes can be retro-fitted with a metal frame to carry six gas cylinders, for delivery down the small side lanes; bikes like the one in the photo are used rather as a donkey would be elsewhere. Our local milkman comes up the road each morning to the man with the buffalo herd carrying a huge churn and also the man to do the milking.

But it is as a family vehicle that the bike reigns supreme. I definitely remember seeing an advert from the family planning people recommending that Indians restrict themselves to two children. One very good reason, they said, is that “the whole family can then easily be carried on a bike”. The man drives with the older of the children sitting in front of him; the woman rides side-saddle behind with the baby on her knee (or when the second child gets a little older, between her and her husband’s back). I should perhaps mention that all Indian bikes are fitted with a sari guard over the rear wheel, to avoid tangles.