Rallying for joy

It was a drive designed to delight the orphans who were the guests for the day. Sitting in an Indica with the all-ladies team of Pouruchisty Elavia, Kamalrukh Gotla and Gulzar Govewalla, the drive from Bombay to the Duke’s Retreat at Khandala brought young Juliet D’Souza of Our Lady’s Home in central Bombay road revelations she had never known before. And two prizes to boot – for the first placed all-women team as well as the best dressed team at the "Gulf Foster a Child Car Drive.”

"Kamalrukh, Gulzar and I are sisters and we had never driven in a rally before. We didn’t know anything! We took part for fun,” says Pouruchisty whose husband Freddy has taken part and won in several Gulf Monsoon Scooter Rallies. "Freddy had shown us how to read a tulip (route map) and how to go about things in a rally – watch the time and your speedometer to judge distances correctly, note the speed-breakers, etc. Once we got the hang of things it was easy,” says Pouruchisty who drove while Gulzar navigated.

Winning ladies at the car rally (from left): Kamalrukh Gotla, Juliet D’Souza, Gulzar Govewalla and Pouruchisty Elavia

Sponsored by Gulf Oil Corporation Limited, the 50-odd children were flagged off from the orphanage with the 39 families who had adopted them for the day on January 22, 2006, states a dispatch from Sportscraft, the organizers. A fast and furious pace was not the criteria for the rally. "We had to drive around the city quite a bit and it became a ‘Mumbai Darshan’ (sightseeing) for the child who got to see landmarks she had only heard about but never viewed in person. The tricky parts were the bylanes where one could have missed the control points,” elaborates Pouru-chisty. At these points, participants were required to pick the right answers to general knowledge questions on sports, politics, entertainment, etc.

The team’s chefs costumes with caps, scarves and aprons and their message promoting healthy food and no junk food obtained for them the green signal for the "best dressed team” prize.