My driving lessons came from helping myself to the keys of dad’s car, while he took a snooze. But my very own car came to me one winter morning, wrapped in a big red bow. Everyone who loves me spoils me, and my gorgeous treat in red came after I graduated from Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi University). That was my parents’ doing and I remember my pout, and my thank-you smile, not quite reaching my eyes because I wanted a convertible, until we went for our first spin in it. Just imagine, the wind blowing through your long tresses, Kishore Kumar yodelling to us, the mind flying free, the world at our feet, not a care to keep us from laughing in glee. People staring at what seemed to be the only red Maruti Gypsy in the Capital! It felt like that then.
As far as memories of that car are concerned, it was more like a full-on movie. Your first car is like your first love. That excitement and that remembrance is something to cherish. Amongst my besties, I was the first one to get a car. So that was huge.
Not just for me but for all of us. We drove it together, all over Delhi, for short trips outside Delhi, with music. Any time, any season was a good reason to go for a drive. I drove it myself, as I loved to drive then.
I associate it with nomad days, my bunch of friends without whom a drive was nothing; open skies, and bhutta (corn) selling on the roadside. We’d criss-cross our way through the Ring Road to Connaught Place, and back via Colonel’s Kababz in Defence Colony.
I have always designed the whole evening, not just the clothes. So, I naturally dressed up Lutyens’ Delhi in my mind’s eye, while we meandered through its lanes. The buildings were aristocratic and rich. I imagined them like that.
Gleaming red, my car was polished to perfection every day, like in the Army. It was our looking glass! Driving my red Gypsy, open to the skies, with a bunch of friends tumbling out of it; it was a huge adrenaline rush!
I gave it away, the way it came to me, dressed in a red bow, to become another friend’s first love. Now, I mostly get driven. To drop Gia, my daughter, to school. It is her car which is a Toyota. To work, it will have to be my SUV Mercedes, and in the evenings, it is the BMW. To hop in and chase the sunset, it is a convertible, black, in keeping with a luxury style statement.
(As told to Madhur Tankha)
