And those of you who are familiar with the English terminology – with carburettor, with the air intake, with the mixture of fuel and air and the technology to send the spark in the right cylinder at the right time – you will readily appreciate there was a critical role for a contraption called the French equivalent of “platinum” there.
So that was my first contact with platine or platinum, and I am sure that’s what it meant for most Mauritians in the streets if you asked them about platine in those days. But those of you who are tech-savvy know that now carburettors have almost vanished as fuel injection has taken over.