Shovana Narayan, danseuse

nMy first car was an old 1963 Fiat. It had quarter windows and the doors would open up in the front. It belonged to my father who got transferred from Delhi to Mumbai and then to Calcutta. But the family decided to stay on in Delhi and the car was passed on to me in 1968. I was 18 at the time. From then on, I literally grew up with it and it became a part of the family. I even remember its number plate: DLI 5776.

My car was a light fawn colour in the beginning, which was later changed to a silvery-grey. In the late ?70s, the hand brakes stopped functioning. Maybe it was trying to indicate that its days were numbered. But even after that, it saw me through thick and thin.

There are so many memories attached to my first car. I brought back my son in it after he was born on June 18, 1985. Two weeks before he arrived, the car even got stolen. Surprisingly I got a call a week later saying that my Fiat had been retrieved. I finally had to part ways with my dear old car in 1988 after 20 long years.