Bombay Bad Boy

Bugattis and Lambos wouldn’t last a second on Indian roads. What you need is something fit for purpose...

- Jack Rix

IT’S A BRAND OF STRESS I’M QUITE UNFAMILIAR WITH. A kind that starts in your toes and bubbles up through your body until your skin’s itching on the inside, veins are emerging from strange places on your face and your bowels are playing the trumpet solo from ‘Penny Lane’.

The latter may have more to do with partaking in a particularly fiery murgh masala last night but, either way, I’m surrounded by mayhem and quite fancy a good cry. Driving in India is a high-anxiety activity at the best of times. Driving a supercar in India, it turns out, is marginally less relaxing than root canal without anaesthesia.

If you’re anything like me, your buttocks will clench and your blood pressure will rise at the mere sight of a width restrictor in the UK. Here, it’s like trying to squeeze yourself between those spiteful metal posts… at all times.

Except replace metal posts with rickshaws, bikes, motorbikes, cows, goats, cars, more goats, people and market stalls, and you’re closer to the mark. It’s as if every road user, livestock included, has utter faith that a higher power has preordained their destiny. Junctions are a case of liberal application of horn, sticking your nose into the fire and then jumping in, regardless of what your eyes are telling you.

If there’s one crumb of comfort, it’s that I brought this upon myself. If we’re going to drive India’s first mid-engined supercar, I thought, we need to experience this country properly, warts and all. This is why, despite Rowan’s wellgrounded objections, I insist on heading to Tulshi Baug first, the busiest market in Pune, a city three hours east of Mumbai. Population: four million.