(From top) The Inaugural Run, the first motor sports event in India, on August 20, 1904; Desmond Rendell, founder of Calcutta Motor Sports Club, at the wheel on Red Road in 1950; Kinny Lal, India’s first international racing driver in both Formula 3 and Formula 2, seen here with the Q’marri Super Saloon and the trophy he had just won at the Barrackpore Dirt Track in 1965; At the Alipore Mint Airstrip in 1955

If your children refer to me as ?Barry Sir? and belong to the generation that I am so warmly welcomed into, though don?t belong to, do me a favour. Keep today?s edition of the paper out of their reach. I know that?s a difficult thing to do ? with so much of it and something in it for each one in the family ? but do try!

Right! Now that I have no reputation to keep, nor words to beep, here goes! Shakti Kapoor and I... don?t worry, you don?t have to hide the paper from your elderly parents too. Shakti Kapoor and I have two things in common: we get paid for being ourselves and have similar antecedents ? we are both descendants of a bandar! There is a difference though. He remains proud of his heritage and clings to traditional behavioural patterns, in an effort to make an ancestor of himself; I have stopped aping my primate forefathers, monkeys years ago.

Though I have never been a bullish stakeholder in Shakti?s genre of monkey business, I was, as a youngster, quite nutty. Our circle of friends ? all of whom have since been tamed ? was deemed ?WILD!? No, we didn?t have the monkey on our back (an expression to describe those who do drugs!); but we did jump from one of the many trees there were then, to the next, to pinch daabs. I remember dressing up as a woman and hanging around Park Street, smoking a cigar. No, I didn?t raid my mother?s cupboard because I was an experimental cross dresser; I did it because I was playing the lead in a St Xavier?s production of Charley?s Aunt, who coincidentally, was ?from Brazil ? where the nuts come from?!

Nothing stopped us! Nothing shocked us! Everything was cool, yaar ? till the day Niaz Ali invited us for a drive in his Fiat. We had just swum a race at the DI, which Nafisa, Niaz?s stunning elder sister, had won. We were drowning our sorrows over a double Campa Cola following our double defeat ? Nafisa had thrashed us and was rushing off for a movie with a guy who couldn?t even swim a stroke! Depressed, we decided to accept the treat. Goodness me, what a treat we had!

Before we could say Dum Dum, Niaz was revving all the way to the airport. We soon realised what dum-dums we had been to sit in a car being driven by a man who took turns like Niki Lauda and risks like Charles Sobhraj. I?m not sure what route he took ? one usually isn?t if you have your head on your knees and heart in your mouth! All I know is that when he finally jammed on the breaks the car did a smart about-turn and we were facing the other way. As we got out of the car scratching our heads, we noticed that there wasn?t a scratch on the car.

Niaz exclaimed that we had been christened and from that day forth, our faith would increase. It was quite like a baptism or mukhey bhaat at which adults have all the fun and Fish Orly, while the kid, who the tamasha is for, wants to get it over with. He was right, though. From that day on, we became drive-freaks.

On a serious note, one must conclude that Niaz was brilliant at the wheel. He, the Kumars and several Calcutta drivers before them, were good enough to go the distance. Formula 3, for sure! That won?t come as a surprise if you are aware that it is the centenary year of motor sport in India ? make that Calcutta! It was all of a hundred years ago when 11 of the 60 registered motor cars in the city ?raced? from Lord Dufferin?s statue, which was at the top of Mayo Road , to Barrackpore. It won?t come as a surprise if you are aware that India?s first motor sports club (CMSC) was founded right here in Calcutta in 1949; or that the Calcutta Grand Prix of 1953 was probably the first in Asia; or that through the sixties and seventies, Jaguars and Harley Davidsons burnt the Calcutta track. It won?t come as a surprise if you are aware of the fact that the Kanchrapara World War II airbase for Spitfires, the Mint Airstrip in Alipore and the RCTC track in Barrackpore, have all been raced on; or that in the seventies and eighties, Fiats and Ambassadors blazed the dirt-track at Barrackpore; or that Robbie Robertson, winner of the inaugural GP, built the first ?special? in India with a Jaguar engine and parts from, guess where? Mullickbazar, where else! It won?t come as a surprise if you are aware of the fact that in 1964, the CMSC built the first indigenous sports car in India, the Cheetah; or that the Kumars rebuilt their humble Herald into a race-winning brand, the Q?marri.

So, Calcutta was the obvious choice when Formula 1 was looking at India a few years ago. Not only did it have the richest heritage, the state has a CM who has his foot firmly on the pedal of progress. Buddhadebbabu manoeuvred every bend with Schumacheresque skills and hit the final lap to close the deal. He realised before anyone else, that an F1 track at Rajarhat would make the city a pit-stop for other commercial races and help zoom the economy nearer pole position. However, only months before the finish line was to be crossed, the Union government announced a ban on cigarette sponsorship in sport. BAT, the prospective sponsors, refused to bat on and retired hurt.

Now, with Karthikeyan in the big league, the time has come to turn the clock back. After all, this is where the very best have raced: from the tall Brit boss of ICI, Mike Satow, to the local lad who flew Dakotas for a living, Dicky Richards; from the passionate Peters, Cowper and Adams, to winners who are still around, nonagenarian B.P. Feroze Shah, Suraj Singh and Bishu Shah; and of course, the best of them all, Kinny Lal! He raced F2 (there was such a thing then!) and F3 cars on the British and American circuits in summer and was back in Barrackpore for the winter. Stalwarts say he was good enough for F1, but didn?t have the means. If he did, Karthikeyan wouldn?t have been the first Indian in F1. In fact, he may not have been the second or the third, because many others would have taken to the sport over these 40 years ? as they will now.

It?s now up to head honcho Ravi Kumar and the rest at CMSC to get things going. F1 looks tough, with a twentieth race being added to the circuit next year in Cancun, Mexico, but what about the rest? If Fiats took on Ambassadors, why can?t Esteems take on Ford Ikons? We could even go up to F3! There are loads of people in the city like my brother-in-law Jason and his wife Sabrena, who avoid friends and phone calls on F1 race days. I?m sure they and thousands of others will turn out; that means the sponsors will, too! As for the drivers, you bet there must be heaps of local talent strapped up behind many a steering.

Who knows, Niaz could take the first flight out of Perth!