Even before I could earn a driving license, and even before the elders could know of my newly acquired driving skills, I had once taken away a car (Landmaster -perhaps older version of Hindustan Motor’s Ambassador) of my father’s friend filling it to the capacity with small children of our neighbourhood (nearly 12 of them). The old car was entrusted to my father for finding some good customer for it who would be willing to pay Rs.10,000/- for it.  With all those children in it, I stationed myself at the driver’s seat and had a circular trip upto Kuthal Gate (between Rajpur and Mussoorie).  When the parents of all those ‘missing’ children came to my father to enquire if he had any clue as to where all the children could had gone, my father, discovered to his great horror that not only I was also missing but the Landmaster car also was not where it was supposed to be.

Today I can visualize how he must have been going through in those moments. When after an unbearably long wait of an hour, he finally saw the black Landmaster coming in the lane like a fat, pregnant buffalow, and then 12 children jumping out of it one after the other, giggling and laughing, he was red hot with rage. I had already seen him standing in front of his clinic in the lane and if I had any option, I would never have come out of that car but as I stood before him trembling with fear, he gave me good thrashing. As revealed by my father later, he was most perturbed because I had taken 12 children of different families of our lane.