My first introduction to a motorised vehicle was in the shape of a sleek Jawa 250cc motorcycle, which my brother, an army officer, had purchased from the Polish Embassy in the 1950s. With a single kick the machine would come to life. It had power, elegance and could overtake anything else on the road those days. My brother taught me to ride it and I got to do so quite often. My real face-to-face with a four-wheeler happened in 1962, while working with Esso. The Aviation Station at Palam had all kinds of vehicles - from the small jeep pick-up and the one-tonne Chevrolet servicer units to 10-tonnes Dodge fuel tankers and the 16-tonnes International pumper units. These huge articulated, four-axle, 12-wheel vehicles carried 16 tonnes of fuel and had their own pumping and metering equipment. They could be driven to a remote parked aircraft for refueling, without any help from a ground power unit or an underground tank-pumping installation. These enormous machines were the pride of the station and only the experienced crewmen were allowed to drive them. As new management trainees, the closest we got to them was to sit on the extra seat in their cabin.
On a particularly heavy day – three simultaneous refuellings – my senior colleague and friend Chandru decided to drive one of the pumpers to the Aeroflot plane. He asked me to climb into the cab from the other side. On the way he suddenly felt cramps in his right leg and asked me to switch positions. Now, I had driven quite a few vehicles, but never anything like these gargantuan machines. I was sweating…on a December morning. But I climbed into the driver’s seat and started the vehicle. As I released the clutch, it moved forward like a tiger. To get to the apron there were two routes – a longer wide road and a shorter one through a narrow street - with hangars on each side. As I began to turn the power steering towards the wider road, Chandru shouted that we had no time and I must take the alley. As I straightened the long vehicle and entered the lane, the buildings on both sides appeared barely inches away. Mustering all my courage and invoking all the Gods, sweating profusely, sitting on the edge of the huge bucket seat with both hands firmly on the big wheel….I crossed that short lane and reached the apron. Once out, I got a thump on the back. “Congratulations, you’ve passed the ultimate driving test,” said a beaming Chandru, who had put his own job at stake just to make me overcome the fear of the mighty pumpers.
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