The ‘kaali peeli Padmini’ was a metaphor for Mumbai

MUMBAI: After the Laal Badshah (double-deckers), Mumbai has lost another icon in quick succession, the kaali peeli (Premier Padmini cabs). As with the former, it’s curtains for the latter too after a run of 60 years.

The city’s last Premier Padmini -- an Indian version of the Italian model Fiat 1100 — went off the road from October 30 after completing its lifespan of 20 years. 

Reliable, sturdy, sleek and low-maintenance, the kaali peeli was a metaphor for Mumbai, a city that gets the job done with the minimum of fuss. The Premier Padmini was the workhorse of the city’s private transport. 

Today in the hatchback era, one yearns for the ample boot space of the old cabs, the convenient door handles, the large tyres with a white lining, the gleaming metallic bumpers and the solid built. The new cabs are all plastic and tin.

The heydays of the kaali peelis were in the nineties when Mumbai had over 55,000 cabs, almost all of them being Fiats. They defined the streetscape of Mumbai, just as the black cabs do in London and the yellow cabs in New York.

In the eighties and nineties, the roads too were not as congested as today. Taxi drivers knew the city and were nimble behind the wheel. I remember my cabbie racing against a fellow cabbie from Mahim to Worli, swerving through the traffic like a mafia get-away driver. At Worli junction, the other man acknowledged defeat with a salute. Thrilling. It must have been the late seventies when I was in school. That’s nostalgia though. By 2010, the kaali peelis were on their last legs, their production having stopped in 2001. The countdown for Premier Padmini though began with liberalisation in 1991.

Countless families lived on the kaali peelis which had a strong union led by the moustachioed A L Quadros. There is a Taximen’s Colony too at Kurla, not far from the Premier Automobiles factory where this 1089 cc, four-cylinder car was made. The factory has since given way to a housing colony. 

Abdul Kareem Karsekar, owner of the city’s last registered Premier Padmini taxi (MH-01-JA-2556) put it succinctly, “Yeh Mumbai ki shaan hai aur hamari jaan hai (It is the pride of Mumbai and my darling).”

The kaali peelis lasted so long that their owners got attached to them, decorating the interiors lavishly or rather garishly. In fact, Finnish photographer Markku Lahdesmaki’s 2011 snaps of kaali peeli ceiling now feature on T-Shirts and caps.

A Fiat model that sticks in mind is the ‘Dukkar Fiat’, the roly-poly Fiat Millecento with compact and cute, curvy lines. Despite the pig moniker, the model is much sought after by collectors.

It is not as if only taxi drivers owned Premier Padminis. Even matinee idols such as Rajnikant, Mammooty and Aamir Khan had this car. Hard to believe today when every Tom, Dick and Harry owns a Mercedes or a BMW. 

Paying tribute to Premier Padmini taxis, industrialist Anand Mahindra said that though they were clunkers, uncomfortable and noisy they carried tons of memories for many people. The topical Amul advertisement sums it up: Cabbie alvida na kehna.

(Anil Singh is an independent journalist based in Mumbai)