To be practical I don't think they would ever make a come back.
Geared scooters have a very special place in the hearts of several Bhpians. I "almost" learned how to ride a machine with a Lambretta li 125 Special back in 1988 atleast I thought I knew how to ride. The one we had was later fitted with a side stand which was common those days as the scooter was extremely heavy to get to on main stand. However, I was new to all this and I was too small and neither did the scooter have a side stand indicator. Forgot to station it and it almost crushed me while it came crashing. My memories of the Li 125 is vague but beautiful.
This is not a picture of our Lambretta, but was not difficult finding one as this was one of the popular colour scheme back in those days.
Image source -the internet
The Lambretta was sold off to our Milkman and he probably still uses it and has kept it in top notch condition back in his native.
Next in line was Bajaj Super. I was probably 5,6 years by then and joined convent school, my brother and I insisted on getting the Bajaj Super with the Nose indicators. It was a very new thing and we all thought indicators will be very useful. Chetak with indicators was launched probably a year later. Had a bigger headlight,tyres and diamond shaped speedometer.
The indicator bulbs went kaput very often and there was no concept of canbus error acknowledgement back then.
The spark plug accumulated carbon often , used petrol and fine sand paper to clean those.
Starting in cold weather was an art. The choke just above the fuel switch was mostly useless.
You could lean the scooter towards you and 99% of the time it fixed all the issues and started.
Scooters came with spring loaded foot rest and opening that was more difficult that a bio metric pass.
LML Vespa ( Select 150) was better looking and the engine was smoother too but we Bajaj Super guys never accepted that.
However it was a fun scooter no doubt. We had two half face helmets ( came with the scooter) and this 2 stroke beauty gave me the thrill of "speed" for the first time. I still remember air gushing in mouth and the cheeks inflating and deflating due to the wind.
The best part was when the clutch wire broke few times and we were just able to launch first gear. I call it launch because after getting it into neutral we knew clutch was not working yet had to shift to 1st gear and the scooter wanted to jump and run away from underneath. ( Taming the wild horse eh!) But I was able to tame that machine and then move slowly to a local mechanic .
image source - the internet
Fast forward to 2000, a friends father bought the Bajaj Legend. 4 stroke scooter with gear and I instantly fell in love after doing few inter city trips with that. The exhaust note was too deep and music to the ears. I had planned of getting one after I started earning but Bajaj discontinued.
Bajaj Bravo was also launched later with same engine, even Honda launched a 4 stroke geared Eterno later. I had moved over to bikes by then.
A picture of Bajaj Legend
image source -the internet
With introduction of Africa Twin, I just hope bikes don't go the same way.
But as everyone said scooters are all about the ease of use now but we never know !