A classic red 1935 Austin 7 Ruby elegantly zipped through the leafy Southern Avenue.
A 1935 Ford 10 Tourer was just behind.
Guiding the men behind the wheels of the vintage cars were students who were moving their hands along a sheet.
They could not see and were using Braille-guided maps to navigate the vehicles in a treasure hunt-themed classic car rally.
Twenty students, just out of high school and with varying degrees of visual impairment, guided the drivers of vintage cars in the rally. Each of the 20 cars had a navigator and a driver. The participants were given clue sheets or road maps in Braille.
The rally was flagged off from ILSS (Anderson Club) around 10.30am.
The clues took the participants to the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Golpark, Rajdanga, Birla Mandir, Science City, Iskcon Temple on Albert Road and Kalamandir on Shakespeare Sarani before the finishing point, Saturday Club.
Finding the spots was not easy. The navigators had to solve a riddle to know each. Based on points accumulated by reaching each spot in the time, the winners were decided.
The rally was organised by the Classic Drivers Club, a Kolkata-based organisation with around 150 members.
“The owners of the historic vehicles pledge to serve society and bring smiles to everyone’s face. The rally has proved that blindness doesn’t dim the light of achievement,” said Ritabrata Mukherjee, a member of the executive committee of the club.
Deep Mondal, 19, who appeared in the just-over higher secondary exams from the Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys’ Academy in Narendrapur, was one of the navigators.
“It was a unique experience for me. I was a tad nervous, but my partner (driver) gave me confidence and I managed to solve the riddles,” said Mondal, who lives in Barasat.
Sarojesh Mukherjee, a member of Classic Drivers Club and one of the
participants, told The Telegraph : “Normally vintage and classic car owners bask in the satisfaction of driving their prized vehicles in rallies. The involvement
of the special navigators made me forget all that since my overwhelming feeling was one of privilege for having had the chance to have been a part of their lives, even if for a couple of hours.”
The navigators were brought by Ek Kadam Aur Foundation for Education and Health.
“These events greatly boost the confidence of the young boys and girls,” said Biswajit Ghosh, director of the NGO.
Each of the 20 navigators wrote their HS exams from various schools in and around Kolkata.