A Glimpse into the Life of a Motor Racing Wife, Daughter-in-law and Mother

What happens when a studious MBA graduate working in a conservative American Bank, marries into a family of race and rally drivers? Hilarious mind-boggling, life-changing experiences, of course!

The combination of Tam-Bram Chitra with Punjabi-Jat Vicky created cultural waves. It was 1982 when Vicky proposed to Chitra. They went out for quiet romantic dinners in Madras and waiters, teenagers and pretty girls all came to Vicky for his autograph. Vicky knew everyone! Chitra knew nobody! Chitra wanted to quietly fly back to USA, cancel the wedding and go back to her anonymous life.

Independence 'lost'
15 August 1982, Vicky and Chitra gave up their independence on Independence Day and got married. The previous night the entire MMSC family had a wild bachelor party with Vicky till 4 am. Chitra woke up and after a quiet pooja, waited for Vicky to arrive.

An inebbriated bridegroom's party with a severely hungover groom arrived and it seemed the entire MMSC was there to witness this wedding. Ravi Mammen of MRF, V Chidambaram, K V Srinivasan and Muthukrishnan, The Patels, Madhavans, Prabhakars, Bhatias, Pramod Chandok - the list was endless. Chitra realised a great truth - she was not marrying just Vicky - she was marrying the MMSC for life.

Time - Speed - Distance
The only comment from most of the guests - "Poor Vicky, he is missing the Karnataka Rally and his anniversary will be during the K1000 Rally every year!" A few kind souls said, "Dont worry, you'll get used to it." Get used to what? Chitra thought. Very soon Vicky had prepared a schedule for the next ten years of their married life! The honeymoon was spent purchasing motor parts and an F2 car in Scotland and UK. The first child had to be conceived between two rallies in '83 and delivered just before the All India Race Meet in 1984. All future birthdays, anniversaries, operations, illnesses must be timed to perfection, preferably on a calendar of motor sports events. The second child had to be born between the monsoons in November and the new year of 1988.

Chitra using her MBA training prepared a project report and future forecast for Chandok Family Inc. Vicky and Chitra met the deadlines and Karun was born in January '84 and Suhail in December '87, exactly when Vicky had circled the dates on the calendar (at 5.56 am and 11.05 am respectively in Rally Time).

Family support
Finally Chitra reached her limit and decided to complain to her in-laws Indu and Indra. "I am tired of adjusting my whole life to Vicky's race and rally schedules," she complained. There was pin-drop silence in the room. Indu and Indra looked shocked. Sacrilege!! In this house the Racing and Rallying Gods must never be insulted. Immediately they performed a Havan and cleansed the air of all non-motor-sport energies. "Dear girl!" said Indu, "both of us have spent our lives racing and Indra has won many ladies races herself. My wife has never complained and she is the ideal Race Car Driver's wife; so you must please learn from her."
Well, next Chitra turned to Vicky's sister Archana for some support. All in vain! Archana who had idolised the Maharaj Kumar of Gondol as a child, was determined to be a race and rally driver herself. From her teens till today with her two children, she continues winning races and rallies. In fact, in Motor Racing circles, she is known as Vicky without a beard!

Baby Karun's first words!
Vicky and Chitra's son Karun was born with the blessings of all the Motor Sports Gods in Heaven. His first word was "Car, Car", much to the disappointment of Chitra who had been training him to say "mama, mama" for weeks! "Car, Car" said Karun and Indu, Indra, Vicky, Vibu and Archana clapped with glee. The smell of petrol and the sounds of the Formula cars made baby Karun smile happily.

His baby ayah was trained to recognise Senna, Prost, Mansell, McLaren and Williams. If the ayah did not watch Grand Prix videos with Karun 200 times a day, she was considered incompetent and a new baby ayah who was more motor-sport friendly was immediately recruited. Karun's diapers and feeds were timed with a stopwatch. When Vicky travelled on races and rallies, Karun, Chitra, the ayah and a van full of baby things followed. Race ear plugs were put into Karun's ears as he stood next to the Formula cars with Kari uncle and his father. Karivardhan uncle taught him the sounds of the gears being changed at each corner of the track and Sathi uncle and the mechanics made sure Karun played with every single motor part.

Prayers answered
Chitra was thinking, she was trapped in another planet. "Oh God," she prayed, "I hope my next child is not blessed by the Gods of Motor Sports." Then along came Suhail with his own destiny - he had been blessed by the Gods of Cricket! Everything in the house became a bat and a ball and of course, his first words were "ball, ball." The cook, watchman and household staff were never available as they were all part of Suhail's cricket team. If a staff member could not play cricket, then he or she would not be employed.

Next, Vicky began training his family. Everything was timed with a stopwatch, the meals, the hours of sleep, the time in the toilet. When he came home from work, his staff were trained to bring chilled bottles of Kingfisher "diesel" at 18.52 hours exactly. The beds were shaped like cars and tables made with wheels. Meanwhile Chitra after tripping over tyres, steering wheels and cricket bats would run for cover into her pooja room. Maybe the chanting of mantras would drown out the sounds of the F1 cars. Occasionally she peeped out of the pooja room to check if the diesel was flowing and the children had made their pit stops.

Study material
"What about the children's education?" said Chitra rather timidly one day. "No problem, darling," said Vicky. He educated the boys to sit patiently for millions of kilometres in a car, to hold on to their bladders until the exact time of the pit stop and to never check the speedometer. Every TV show, newspaper and magazine article on Motorsports and Cricket were studied and Vicky swore the boys passed their exams with flying colours.
"What is 2+2 Suhail?" asked Chitra, "No problem ma, 2 runs and 2 wides make four runs for India," answered Suhail confidently. "Karun, have you finished your homework in Maths?" asked Chitra, "No problem ma, I made out the navigation chart with time, speed and distance for the South India Rally this morning," said Karun. "Amazing," thought Chitra, "these boys know much more than I do", and she relaxed and left their education in the hands of the Gods of Racing and Cricket.

Soon the Chandok house could change a tyre in 7 seconds, cook meals for the entire rally workshop and all the JK drivers of 60 people and provide JK Tyre t-shirts and caps of all sizes to all the homeless people of India. If the children's school needed a new venue for excursions, they were taken to Vicky's workshop and taught to change an engine in one hour. Kingfisher beer was given away as freebies to the teachers.

Vijay Mallya, Karivaradhan, the Singhanias, mechanics from UK, race car drivers, rally drivers and engineers were regular visitors, who broadened the horizons of the family. Go-Karts, Dirt Bikes and Cricket equipment were littered all over the house and finally Chitra made a secret tunnel underground from her pooja room so that she could escape for a while.

The weather bureau regularly checked the diesel, petrol adn testestorone levels around the Chandok house for excess air pollution. After 17 years of intensive training, Vicky wanted the entire household to wear overalls as the household uniform. The maids immediately quit and Chitra got a medical certificate from Dr. Cherian to be exempted from this rule, so finally this dress code was not enforced. Only the cook Raju seemed to be thrilled with his fireproof overalls from the UK and refused to return it.

Family heir-zoom
The millennium year arrived and the heir to the Chandok throne had to be crowned. Indu had abdicated to Vicky and Vicky handed over the family steering wheel to Karun in 2000. Zoooom - the Chandok family balance went from very comfortable to dangerously low. As Karun drove faster and faster, the bank balance dived down equally quickly.
Chitra prepared a graph and hung it in the family room. A black line marked Karun's increasing speeds and victories. A red line marked the downward swing of the bank balance. Then the family were saved by the sponsors in yellow, blue and white so there was a third line drawn on the graph marking cash inflow from the sponsors. Indu and Indra performed Havans and propitiated the Motor Sport Gods. Vicky would meditate daily at 4 am in front of the graph and Karun kept driving faster and faster. Then Suhail proudly announced that he was "the Good son" of the family. His entire Cricket expenses cost only as much as one tyre for Karun's F3 car. Therefore he wanted to be included in the graph as the least expensive line in green $ sign. Next Hardy of JK Tyre wanted an exclusive line in yellow because their company had been the main sponsor who had saved the Chandok Racing Lineate. Immediately Vicky posted a sign under the graph saying graph sponsored by JK Tyres. The graph became the Holy Grail of the Chandok family.

... and finally it comes to-get-her
Chitra's family watched the 22 years of her marraige to Vicky with a mixture of surprise, shock, admiration and finally dead silence. But Chitra had slowly changed without being aware of it. She had become a Chandok. If her family were zooming around in cars or playing Cricket she was relaxed. If they sat at home and watched TV, she jumped up in concern, checked their temperatures and called Dr. Cherian for emergency treatment. Sometimes her comments on F1 were actually sensible and the family smiled at her in approval.

Then arrived the announcement that Vicky was to be made President of the FMSCI. Chitra began to wonder - would they live in a White House and would she be First Lady. No way! Only more phone calls, 24 x 7, at all odd hours from Nazir Hoosein, Max Mosley, Bernie Ecclestone, Kushru Madan. (A Jew, a German, a Britisher and a Parsi - sounds like the beginning of a joke). The staff would barge into their bedroom at unearthly hours and announce phone calls from Burnee saar or Maxi Mosee saar!

"Ma, what is FMSCI?" asked Suhail. "Its like BCCI for Cricket and your father is the President," said Chitra. "Oh, lots of talk and politics," commented Suhail and walked away. But secretly Suhail watched his father Vicky on the ASEAN Rally and announced proudly, "FMSCI is not so bad, they have made history with this ASEAN Rally."

For MMSC's Golden Jubilee Souvenir, Indu asked Chitra to write an article. "You have 3 hours, 15 minutes and 32 seconds to complete it," he ordered, "and your time starts now", he said and punched his stopwatch.

"Well, readers, this is what you get to read when I am given such little time, no fuel and no sponsor. Not even a pit stop was allowed. Hope you could catch a small glimpse into our lives as one of India's racing families."

Chitra