"The Fall of a Sparrow" is the autobiography of celebrated ornithologist Salim Ali; and contains a couple of paragraphs about his first car, an Austin Seven purchased new in Bombay in 1927. Possibly of interest to some...
"One of the first things we did on shifting to a flat of our own, after my father-in-law's death, was to purchase a small car. It was a seven horse-power Baby Austin, the collapsible canvas-top model with wire-ribbed (cycle) wheels. It cost Rs 1700 brand new, shock absorbers and screen wiper extra. It did forty-five miles to the gallon when the price of petrol, thanks to cut-throat competition between the two main oil companies, Burma Oil and Shell, was 11 annas per gallon. Roadside pumps were few and far between, and petrol was available mostly in two-gallon cans - green for BOC and red for Shell. An entry in a tattered pocket notebook of the time reminds me that petrol for a Shikar trip to Lonand, beyond Poona, and back to Bombay, three hundred miles plus, cost Rs 13 and 8 annas.
We usually drove to the fort together and I dropped Tehmina at her office (Women's Council) in the south wing of the Town Hall on my way to the Prince of Wales Museum. 'Jane' (as the car was named by Tehmina after one of her favourite authors, Jane Austen) was driven up parallel sloping planks and parked for the day on the raised open verandah outside the then Natural History gallery. The little car provided great fun on Sundays and holidays for picnics and for bird collecting or small game shooting trips in the Bombay neighbourhood - in Salsette, and on the mainland, and beyond. It also provided thoroughly enjoyable leisurely motoring holidays to Poona, Aurangabad, Nasik and other places within 200 miles or so of Bombay. The roads were untarred, usually full of pot-holes and very dusty, which inhibited venturing further afield. With such a lightweight car one had to pick one's way slowly and carefully and there was the constant nuisance of trucks and heavier vehicles overtaking and covering one in a pall of dust. Many of the rivers and nullahs were unbridged and impassable for the little car during the monsoon. I remember our once getting badly stuck in the sandy bed of the unbridged Bhima river on the main Poona-Aurangabad road, the engine stalling mid-stream when half under water and being dragged out quite casually, without any apparent effort, by a supercilious pair of bullocks being led back to the village after the day's ploughing! The lightness of the car had another great advantage: if it ran out of petrol in the city it could easily be perambulated single-handedly to the nearest filling station or depot."
"In the Unity Hall flat we were often visited by Sarojini Naidu and her daughter, Padmaja. they frequently stayed on for pot luck and we drove them back to their hotel in 'Jane' afterwards. Four well-grown adults made a snug fit in that tiny frail-looking car, but never so snug as on a memorable occasion when the ponderous Maulana Shaukat Ali overflowed the front bucket seat, with me driving and Sarojini and Tehmina jammed against each other in the rear. Loaded thus the car presented a comically Maulana-oriented tilt. But the sight would have gladdened the heart of its makers; it demonstrated what the midget could do at a pinch."
Tehmina and 'Jane', the Austin Seven, Bombay, 1927
Bullocks extricating 'Jane' from difficulties, October 1927
Tehmina and 'Jane' with 'dead deer', Solapur, 1928
"One of the first things we did on shifting to a flat of our own, after my father-in-law's death, was to purchase a small car. It was a seven horse-power Baby Austin, the collapsible canvas-top model with wire-ribbed (cycle) wheels. It cost Rs 1700 brand new, shock absorbers and screen wiper extra. It did forty-five miles to the gallon when the price of petrol, thanks to cut-throat competition between the two main oil companies, Burma Oil and Shell, was 11 annas per gallon. Roadside pumps were few and far between, and petrol was available mostly in two-gallon cans - green for BOC and red for Shell. An entry in a tattered pocket notebook of the time reminds me that petrol for a Shikar trip to Lonand, beyond Poona, and back to Bombay, three hundred miles plus, cost Rs 13 and 8 annas.
We usually drove to the fort together and I dropped Tehmina at her office (Women's Council) in the south wing of the Town Hall on my way to the Prince of Wales Museum. 'Jane' (as the car was named by Tehmina after one of her favourite authors, Jane Austen) was driven up parallel sloping planks and parked for the day on the raised open verandah outside the then Natural History gallery. The little car provided great fun on Sundays and holidays for picnics and for bird collecting or small game shooting trips in the Bombay neighbourhood - in Salsette, and on the mainland, and beyond. It also provided thoroughly enjoyable leisurely motoring holidays to Poona, Aurangabad, Nasik and other places within 200 miles or so of Bombay. The roads were untarred, usually full of pot-holes and very dusty, which inhibited venturing further afield. With such a lightweight car one had to pick one's way slowly and carefully and there was the constant nuisance of trucks and heavier vehicles overtaking and covering one in a pall of dust. Many of the rivers and nullahs were unbridged and impassable for the little car during the monsoon. I remember our once getting badly stuck in the sandy bed of the unbridged Bhima river on the main Poona-Aurangabad road, the engine stalling mid-stream when half under water and being dragged out quite casually, without any apparent effort, by a supercilious pair of bullocks being led back to the village after the day's ploughing! The lightness of the car had another great advantage: if it ran out of petrol in the city it could easily be perambulated single-handedly to the nearest filling station or depot."
"In the Unity Hall flat we were often visited by Sarojini Naidu and her daughter, Padmaja. they frequently stayed on for pot luck and we drove them back to their hotel in 'Jane' afterwards. Four well-grown adults made a snug fit in that tiny frail-looking car, but never so snug as on a memorable occasion when the ponderous Maulana Shaukat Ali overflowed the front bucket seat, with me driving and Sarojini and Tehmina jammed against each other in the rear. Loaded thus the car presented a comically Maulana-oriented tilt. But the sight would have gladdened the heart of its makers; it demonstrated what the midget could do at a pinch."
Tehmina and 'Jane', the Austin Seven, Bombay, 1927
Bullocks extricating 'Jane' from difficulties, October 1927
Tehmina and 'Jane' with 'dead deer', Solapur, 1928
