SHIBANI KASHYAP
HONDA CITY 1.3 DX

Delhi-based playback singer Shibani Kashyap has grown up with cars and owned quite a few. P Tharyan gets talking to the lady with the golden voice.

"A LOT OF PEOPLE BUY IMPORTED CARS BUT I DON'T THINK THEY MAKE ANY SENSE HERE."

How do you describe a dainty lady, slim and exotic- looking, patiently posing for photographs on a hot summer day? And, don’t forget, she’s sitting atop the uncomfortably warm bonnet of her car with a fine layer of make-up and a dress that hugs her lithe figure. No, she does not have a skin that’s thick as hide... Yes, you have guessed right, the lady I met up with had an attitude prettier than herself. And as she spoke along in her singsong voice, I discovered she had loads to tell me about her passion for cars.
“It’s kind of therapeutic driving cars on long uninterrupted stretches,” she told me sitting in her room that has a projection television several times bigger than the set I have back home. Therapeutic? Well, that’s an original as far as I knew. No one had ever told me that driving on roads in India could evoke sublime feelings!
Shibani loves good music, colourful clothes and cars. Her current car is a Honda City 1.3 DX she bought a year and a half ago. “I drive it a lot, especially on Sunday evenings. My City is fabulous. It’s got extremely low maintenance, gives good mileage of around 12 to 13km per litre and has a wonderful shape,” she said.
I thought she had finished singing paeans about her car. “Oh yes, it’s got good leg space at the rear and the engine is responsive,” she elaborated. What about the new Honda City? I enquired. “The new one lacks the classic look of the old Honda City,” she chipped in. So when did Shibani’s association with automobiles begin? “My father was in the army and I grew up in places like Pune, Srinagar, Kolkata and Dehradun where we travelled extensively in the army Jeeps and Jongas. My father owned a Standard Herald and I used to travel a lot in that too,” she recalled.
Shibani’s first car was the Maruti 800 that she bought out of her savings. “It was painted red and I bought it second-hand. Cute and compact, it was easy to drive. I felt very safe and secure in it,” she fondly remembers. From the 800 she moved on to the ‘Tall Boy’ Santro, a car she felt had “the best of both worlds”. “By that I mean that it is not only affordable but you also feel good driving it,” she explained.
“But then one upgrades a car as one upgrades in life,” she added. So does that mean she hopes to buy some of the sizzlers, like a BMW, a top-end Mercedes or perhaps a Jaguar? “A lot of people buy imported cars, but I think they (the cars) do not make any sense. Where are the roads in India for these marques to perform?” She had a point, I thought. “But then if I had lots of money I would go for a sturdy sports utility vehicle like a Pajero that I would be able to manoeuvre easily on Delhi roads,” she remarked.
During her professional tours in Dubai, Shibani has had the opportunity to travel in some of the SUVs which have truly impressed her. Shibani had almost exhausted herself talking about her interest in her cars and I could fathom that she could go on for a much longer time. I glanced at my watch. We had schmoozed for more than my share of time. As I took my leave. I gave her one last admiring look. Well, it’s not every other day that a pretty lady sits atop a hot bonnet of a car without squealing or cussing.