Letter: Driving lessons on India's roads

Sir: May I be a spoilsport and correct a tiny inaccuracy in Peter Hughes's hugely entertaining article on the Indian highway code ('Please fasten your garland of marigolds', 13 August). Ambassador (Morris Oxford) cars are built (and have been for more than 50 years) in Calcutta, not Bombay.

Earlier this year, I spent a few weeks' holiday in Kerala (on the south-west tip of the sub-continent), in the foothills of the north-eastern Himalayas between Darjeeling and Sikkim and in Calcutta. I used all means of transport, including buses, jeeps and the Ambassador. And I survived the experience.

In fact, Indian drivers are generally better than most of their British counterparts because they know how to improvise and are trained to cope with the unexpected, unlike British drivers who pile into the back of each other at the slightest hint of unseasonal weather. Snow, mists, floods etc are daily facts of life on the roads of India.

If you can drive in the rush- hour traffic of Calcutta, you will be able to drive anywhere in the world, no problem.

Yours faithfully,

KUTTAN MENON

London, N7

14 August

(Photograph omitted)