Just two on the road..

I first learnt to ride a two wheeler at a fauji friend's place in Orissa when I went on leave after my Young Officer's course in Jun 1993. I was only into four wheelers till then.

The first four wheeler whose steering wheel I touched was the 1 ton truck in driving classes at Indian Military Academy, and it was only two periods of driving each of 40 minutes. With that little training, I was faced with driving a fauji jeep at Leh during my first posting to Ladakh Scouts (LS) - no luxury of learning or trials. Just few days after my joining LS, me and Maj Naik were detailed for a rafting expedition on the Nubra River to commemorate the 60th raising day of LS to be celebrated in Sep 92. Ajeet Bajaj from Snow Leopard Adventures (who conducts rafting camps near Rishikesh) was called to train us in the Indus River. Maj Naik, me, Bajaj, two of his trainers and few nunus (LS troops); all of us went to the mechanical transport (MT) area (essentially the vehicle yard) to board our transport. Maj Naik took the steering of the big Jonga and Bajaj climbed in with him. I am not much for back seats and I promptly went to the second vehicle - the fauji jeep. Narender, one of Bajaj's trainers took the passenger seat as he was closest and now I had to choose between the back seat and the driver's. I took all of half a second to decide to take the wheel. I started the engine, and rolled off the jeep remembering my brief IMA driving lessons. After a few seconds of little shaky steering control, I was quite fine all the way to the rafting point on River Indus. On the way back after the rafting practice, the driving was even better.

There were many government vehicles thereafter driving which I became a perfect driver... When it came to personal vehicles, I never owned a vehicle for a very long time. I only had a small black trunk and a few thousand rupees when I got married in 1997. Dowry was shameful and unthinkable for asking from an old friend - my wife was a pen friend from the time I was in grade 10th. It was a hard grind start for us. And our first vehicle in 1998 was the great Indian scooter - not 'Hamara Bajaj', but the 'Italian Vespa'. Mind you, a new Maruti car was only a little over 1 lakh then and few years used Maruti cars were as low as 50k. And the Army Group Insurance Fund (AGIF) gave loans for old cars too. But I aimed low, and bought for us a scooter. My poor wife was forced to work to supplement my small salary and no savings. To go to work every day of our one year plus at Chennai, she had to drive the Vespa scooter. She is 5'2" and with that tall-ish Vespa, it's a miracle that she did not have a major accident while driving the treacherous roads of Chennai for that long. 

The first car we bought was a second hand fiat in Chennai for 28,000 rupees. Water came leaking from its floor boards during the monsoons; but for that little inconvenience, it was a great car with hand gears and bucket seats - the best part was that I was after all driving a car. After driving it for over a year, we managed to sell it for 18,000 rupees when we left Chennai. I went on posting to J&K on 1999, and my wife lived in Army Separated Family (SF) quarters at Bangalore as she could not join me permanently at the forward area I was posted to. At Bangalore, we bought a second hand Maruti car in 1999 using AGIF loan. We sold it a few years later when we left Bangalore once I finished my J&K posting. We then went together to Pune, and there after a year of not having a car (I continued to own the Vespa scooter), we purchased a Hyundai Santro car at Pune in 2003. It was our first new car, and we did not find a reason to change for very long. I remember we used to take photographs of just the car...

I am not one for the largest, most glitzy or latest model; but one definitely needs a car on the great Indian roads, just for safety reasons. When I bought that first scooter, I could very well have taken a loan and bought a car instead .... but I could not think big enough.