Krishnan Pritam: Managing a beauty parlour for vehicles
It’s not either a salon where ladies would seek to come out transformed in their facial expression with a haircut intended to catch the eye. Yet it is a beauty parlour. This parlour is simply a workshop spacious enough for three vehicles, cars and vans most in use in the region, to be washed, undergo fresh coat of paint to look as bright as new, elegant and an embodiment of hopes and better prospects.
The owner is Krishnan Pritam who has given his name to the workshop. Krishnan hasn’t been fortunate to attend secondary school after bright studies at the Riche-Mare Primary Government School. At 12, he took to apprenticeship with a patron, Mr Sanjay Appadoo, on the prompting of his late father, Daram. He has all praise for his father who had expected the number of vehicles to go on increasing at least in the district so there would always be available work to attend, a decent living to get and a bright future to secure. Daram would not toil and labour the sugar cane fields, so much back-breaking is the nature of the job even if you don’t need skills to cut canes. You need only the energy to spend and the muscles to sustain the weight of tonnes of a plant that yields sugar but requiring you to sweat physically and suffer mentally.
The initial tasks in the learning process were ‘lav masinn, poli latol’, wash the vehicle’s body, polish the surface of the body, at first manually and much later, he was given to use a polisher. This machine eased the process by avoiding a repetitive movement of the hand and palm and ultimately ensuring quality in the output. The apprentice had to leave his trainer. As a matter of natural growth and consequent to a mutual agreement, Krishnan left to pursue his career as an independent professional. Today, he has helpers instead of apprentices. They are two who just receive instructions and they execute the tasks mechanically, no contradiction, as they are occupants of a workshop.
Krishnan works in a perfect relationship with a paint supplier in St-Remi, Flacq. They compare the paint codes, discuss and agree that the rendering would enhance the look of the vehicle. The polishing, washing and application of quick fill to even the surface where a stone or a hit might have bashed complete the preliminary before the paint is sprayed on the surface. Be careful to avoid marks or traces of paint cascading behind the top layer of the paint. There is no place for error. You would say Krishnan applies his techniques with a mixture of intuition and experience.
Garage Pritam is well known in as far as Quatre-Bornes and PortLouis. He takes the time required and never deceives his clients of whom some have not settled their full accounts though. Krishnan, with a slight touch of philosophy, would say, “Sa bann kalite dimounnla pa pou fer progre.’ Well, he is all set to keep live the reputation of his workshop as a Beauty Parlour for Vehicles, inside Riche-Mare, keeping at hand the paint compressor his father gifted him. “Go my boy, Go,’’ the pater had told him. So, he got going providing quality education to his son and daughter.
At 42, Krishnan is ambitious, of right, but remains modest.
