Racing towards costal Orissa, India

I

t was one of those Decembers when it seemed that the Sunshine would never end. The three-mile promenade of Jagannath Puri, backed by trim lawns emblazoned at intervals with tricolour beds of salvia, alyssum and lobelia, was bright with nags and, on the longest beach in the east of Orissa, the gay bathing tents still marched prettily down to the tide-line in big, money-making battalions. Music, one of those lilting accordion waltzes, blared from the loudspeakers around the Olympic-size piscine and, from time to time, echoing above the music, street urchins undulating their hips to the tune, a man's voice announced over the public address system that Sanjeev Panda, aged seven, was looking for his mother, that Namita Patnaik was waiting for her friends below the dock at the entrance, or that a Nalini Iyar was demanded on the telephone. From the beach, particularly from the neighbourhood of the three playground enclosures –Jai Hind', Ashok and Chokadala - came a twitter of children's cries that waxed and waned with the thrill of their games and, farther out, on the firm sand left by the now distant sea, the shrill whistle of the physical-fitness instructor marshalled his teenagers through the last course of the day. The honeymooners are trying their best to prove themselves how shy were they in their two piece bikinis. Vendors were displaying their merchandises; hot samosas, tender coconuts, Jhal Moori mixture all available while disturbing the coolness and serenity of the beach at that time of sunset.

It was one of those beautiful, naive seaside panoramas for which the Bay of Bengal beaches have provided the setting - and inspired the holiday makers as well as pilgrims for more than a thousand years ago.

To me, sitting in one of the concrete shelters with face to the setting sun, there was something poignant, ephemeral about it all. It reminded me almost too vividly of youthfulness - of the velvet feel of the hot powder sand, and the painful grit of wet sand between young toes when the time came for me to put my shoes and socks on, of the precious little pile of sea-shells and interesting wrack on the sill of my bedroom window ('No, we'll have to leave that behind,. It'll dirty up your trunk!'), of the small red coloured crabs scuttling away from the nervous fingers groping beneath the seaweed in the rock-pools, of the swimming and swimming and swimming through the dancing waves - always in those days, it seemed, lit with sunshine - and then the infuriating, inevitable 'time to come out'. It was all there, my own childhood, spread out before me to have another look at. What a long time ago they were, those spade-and-bucket days! How far time had come since the freckles and the Cadbury milk-chocolate Flakes and the fizzy lemonade & Vimto! Impatiently I pulled my shoulders out of slouch and slammed the mawkish memories back into long-closed file.

The sun was getting lower. Already one could smell the December chill that all day had lain hidden beneath the heat. The cohorts of bathers were in quick retreat, striking their little camps and filtering up the steps and across the promenade into the shelter of the town where the lights were going up in the cafes. The announcer at the swimming-pool harried his customers: Hello! Hello! Closure in 10 minutes!, Swimming pool is closing in 10 minutes!' Silhouetted in the path of the setting sun, the two rescue-boats with flags bearing a tri colour were speeding northwards for their distant shelter. The last of the gay, giraffe-like sand-yachts fled down the distant water-line towards its corral among the sand dunes; the night is setting fast here!

In a matter of minutes the vast expanse of sand - the tide, still receding, was already a half mile out - would be left to the seagulls that would soon be flocking in their hordes to forage for the scraps of food left by the picnickers. Then the orange ball of the sun would hiss down into the sea and the beach would, for a while, be entirely deserted, until, under cover of darkness, the prowling lovers would come to writhe briefly, grittily in the dark corners between the bathing-huts and the sea-wall. And now, up and down the beach, the Nulias/lifeguards gave a final blast on their horns to announce that they were going off duty, the music from the piscine stopped in mid-tune and the great expanse of sand was suddenly deserted.

ALMOST EXACTLY twenty-four hours before, I had been nursing my car, the old Rover 90, a 1966 model - the 'R' type chassis with the big 6 cylinder, side valve engine and a 13:40 back-axle ratio - that I had now been driving that vintage for two years, along that fast but dull stretch of NH5 between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar that takes the Bengali tourist straight to the Orissa coastal area crossing consecutive four massive rivers; Subarnarekha, Baitarani, Brahmini & Mahanadi. I was hurrying safely, at between eighty and ninety, driving by the automatic pilot that is built in to all rally-class drivers, and my mind was totally occupied in writing a letter with the fate of my partnership with my cousins in the business that we were associates and getting nothing in return.

Of course, reflected, as I nursed the long bonnet of my car through a built-up S-bend, I would have to rewrite a lot of it. Some of it was a bit pompous and there were one or two cracks that would have to be ironed out or toned down. But that was the gist of what I would dictate to my cousins when I got back to the office the day after tomorrow. And if they argue and talk sentimental non sense, to hell with them! I meant it. By God I did.

It was then, on a ten-mile straight cut through a forest that it happened. Triple wind-horns screamed their banshee discord in my ear, and a low white FIAT Padmini tore past me, cut in cheekily across my bonnet and pulled away, the sexy boom of its mono exhaust echoing back from the border of trees. And it was a girl driving, a girl with a shocking pink scarf tied round her hair, leaving a brief pink tail that the wind blew horizontal behind her.

If there was one thing that sets me really moving in life, it was being passed at speed by anyone; and it was my experience that girls who drove competitively like that were always pretty - and exciting. The shock of the wind-horn's scream had automatically cut out 'George', emptied my head of all other thought, and brought my car back under manual control. Now, with a tight-lipped smile, I stamped foot into the floorboard, held the wheel firmly at a quarter to three, and went after her.

100, 110, 115 MPH, and I still wasn't gaining. I reached forward to the dashboard and flicked up a red switch. The thin high whine of machinery on the brink of torment tore at my eardrums and the Rover gave an almost perceptible kick forward. 120, 125. I was definitely gaining. 50 yards, 40, 30! Now I could just see her eyes in her rear mirror. But the good road was running out. One of those exclamation marks that the NH5 use to denote danger flashed by on my left. And now, over a rise, there was a Temple spire, the clustered houses of a small village at the entrance of long bridge of River Mahanadi, the snake sign of another S-bend. Both cars slowed down - 90, 80, 70. I watched her tail-lights briefly blaze, saw her left hand reach down to the floor stick, almost simultaneously with my own, and change down. Then we were in the S-bend, on cobbles, and I had to brake as I enviously watched the way her de Dion axle married her rear wheels to the rough going, while mine own live axle hopped and skittered as I wrenched at the wheel. And then it was the end of the village, and, with a brief wag of her tail as she came out of the S, she was off like a bat out of hell up the long straight rise and I had lost fifty yards.

And so the race went on, I gaining a little on the straights but losing it all to the famous FIAT road-holding through the villages - and, I had to admit, to her wonderful, nerveless driving. And now a big Road sign said Cuttack 5, Bhubaneswar, Puri 75', and I wondered about her destination and debated with myself whether I shouldn't forget about Puri and the night I had promised myself at its Puri Hotel Restaurant for lobsters, sumptuous Diner and just follow where she went, wherever it was, and find out who this devil of a girl was!

The decision was taken out of hands. Cuttack is a dangerous town with cobbled, twisting streets and much slow traffic, Cycle Rickshaws. I was fifty yards behind her at the outskirts, but, with this big car, I couldn't follow her fast slalom through the hazards and, by the time I was out of the town and over the Bhubaneswar-Puri left hand crossing, she had vanished. The left-hand turn for Puri came up. Was there a little dust hanging in the bend? I took the turn, somehow knowing that I was going to see her again.

I leaned forward and flicked down the red switch. The moan of the blower died away and there was silence in the car as I motored along, easing my tense muscles. I wondered if the ‘Supercharger’ had damaged the engine. Against the solemn warnings of Rover, I had had fitted, by an expert at World Ford of Calcutta, an Arnott supercharger controlled by a magnetic clutch. Rover had said the crankshaft bearings wouldn't take the extra load and, when I confessed to them what I had done, they regretfully but firmly withdrew their extended guarantees and washed their hands of their bastardized child; forever. This was the first time I had notched 125 MPH and the rev. counter had hovered dangerously over the red area at 4500. But the temperature and oil were OK and there were no expensive noises. And, by God, it had been fun!

Foolish chaps are of the character for the reminiscences of old scenes! I was of no exception! That was 1972 and sometimes I used to feel that I made myself a complete fool enough to follow a girl driving madly. (Girls driving in city were rare scenes then and on highway a lonesome girl driving like hell was a rare scene.)

 

Decades after, driving my Opel ASTRA accelerating over 100 KMPH on NH 45 towards Pondicherry, I was overtaken by a car driven by a young girl once; I instantly remembered my foolish and fearless driving an old hog of a car, Rover decades earlier. Instead of switching on overdrive, I simply smiled and allowed the car (Lancia Fulvia) to vanish in the thin air!

So many changes! One does not get lemonade or Vimto cold drinks. Neither Rover 90 is seen anywhere, nor FIAT Padmini on highways! But the sleek Lancia was great, a rare sight in India. Opel Astra which can go up to 150 KMPH, at ease, is also gone to history.

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