Mumbai will honour oldest driving licence holders

MUMBAI: They've seen the city gain dizzying height from their windscreens, watched towers rise from their rearview mirrors and heard the din of honking cars grow around them. Mumbai's oldest driving licence holders, whose wallets have housed the yellowing paper for more than six decades, will be felicitated on January 16 as part of the Western India Automobile Association (WIAA) and Mumbai Traffic Police's celebrations of 90 years of motoring.

Nitin Dossa, executive chairman of WIAA, describes these senior licence holders as chroniclers of the changing face of the city. That's clear when J M Ashar, an 87-year-old Sion resident and retired insurance officer, fondly remembers sepia-toned days when he took his first ride in a two-door English make Hillman in 1951. "Roads were wide and there were few cars in those days. It was a joy," says Ashar, lamenting the state of traffic now.

Pravin Nanavati, an 83-year-old retired stock broker, too would rather drive down memory lane instead of the choked streets of Mumbai during peak hours. "I drive now in the mornings only when the traffic is slow," he says, remembering how he would drive his father's Morris and then his own Padmini every morning through C P Tank, Chowpatty and Elphinstone on his way to Dalal Street.

According to the WIAA, the first car landed in India in 1898 and was driven by a municipal engineer called B H Hewitt. "At the turn of the twentieth century, three Oldsmobiles were imported for Jamsetji Tata, attorney Rustom Cama (the estranged husband of political revolutionary Madame Bikaji Cama) and Kavasji Wadia of Bombay Garage. "Within ten years of the first automobiles in Bombay, there were 1,025 cars zipping across the city," says Dossa and adds that the WIAA started as a social club for the elite. "But the concerns were the same then too. Much tarmac has been poured on the roads since, but issues like demand for better roads and affordable fuel remain."

Some other issues remain too, like the stereotype of the woman motorist. Indumati Merchant, one of the licence holders being felicitated, has been zipping up and down since 1949 before she was married. "I used to drive a Baby Fiat and I was so short that people could not see me behind the wheel. They would think the car was moving by itself," she says with a smile.