For actress Roopa Ganguly, a car is synonymous with desire. “I have always yearned to drive a four-wheeler ever since I was a child. My jethu (paternal uncle) would take me out on long drives and I’d watch him intently as he navigated the wheel,” she recalls dreamily. It’s another story that Roopa did not restrict herself to merely driving a car but rallied ahead to participate in two TSD (Time-Speed-Distance) rallies ? one in Calcutta, the other in Santiniketan.

“I learned to drive in three hours flat,” she says, reminiscing how a college friend taught her for an hour each over three days. “I already knew enough about the mechanism of a car, so I picked up very fast.” Her wish to take part in a rally came true when she was invited to participate in one sponsored by Good Year in Calcutta six years back. She didn’t win a prize then because she was unable to answer a few questions on the city. But the next one in Santiniketan saw her bag the Best Lady Driver award.

It was, however, by no means a smooth ride as both the car’s as well as the driver’s sustainability were put to the test. “Taking part in a rally is not so much about how fast you can drive. It has more to do with your control over the car. That, to a large extent, depends on your skill at ‘crawling’ [see bottom],” she says, adding, “And then I remember, half way through the rally, the speedometer stopped working, so my navigator had no idea of the distance we had covered.”

As though that wasn’t enough, there was a point when the car ? an Esteem that Roopa had bought herself just a few months ago ? was hanging in mid-air. “Having traversed some miles, my car fell into a huge pothole and none of the wheels touched the ground. A few desperate attempts at manoeuvring bore no fruit so I jiggled vigorously in the car to make it tilt to one side. It did, and finally the two wheels on the right found some ground and I was able to steer out,” she says, laughing.

At that instant, however, laughter was the last thing on her mind. And thereafter, she has never participated in a rally. Not because she would not like to, but because she would rather not invite accidents. “As an actress, you cannot afford to have a scar on your face or turn up for a shoot with a broken tooth. Besides, I love my Esteem too much and cannot afford to have it damaged,” she says.

But Roopa hasn’t given up completely. She is still hooked on to the Grand Prix and keeps track of champion Formula One driver Michael Schumacher. “He is such an intelligent driver,” she observes, a trifle wistfully. “He has a rare instinct and knows exactly when to change tyres, when to go in for refuelling and all of that.”

Nonetheless, Roopa isn’t quite willing to trade places with him, not now, not ever. Changing gears on screen is satisfying enough.

Need to Know

Crawling: The art of driving in such a manner that the wheels move just about half a millimetre without stopping even for a moment. This demands expert control over the clutch and accelerator.

Navigation: In a rally, the navigator’s role is crucial. Much depends on his calculation of time, speed and distance and his assessment of the situations that arise.