The iconic Mumbai black and yellow ‘Premier Padmini’ taxis are going to get off the streets from October 30 after serving the people of the city of dreams for six long decades amid defined age limits of 20 years for taxis in the city. These taxis have been a part of peoples’ memories of Mumbai and part of others’ imaginations of this city.
These vintage black-and-yellow taxis bid adieu to the streets of Mumbai for new taxis and app-driven cabs. A transport department official said that the last Premier Padmini, a black-and-yellow taxi was registered October 29, 2003, at the Tardeo RTO, which comes under the jurisdiction of Mumbai.
A local from Prabhadevi, Abdul Kareem Kaseka, the owner of Mumbai’s last registered Premier Padmini taxi of registration number MH-01-JA-2556, said, “Yeh Mumbai ki shaan hai aur hamari jaan hai” (this car is the pride of Mumbai and love of my life).
The decision came only a few days after the decommissioning of Mumbai another iconic mode of transport the double-decker buses of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking. The people of Mumbai with heavy hearts have to let go two historical public carriers of their city in a few weeks, following which people have even started demanding to preserve at least one of these legendary four-wheelers in a museum.
The Mumbai Taximen’s Union had even put forward a petition to the government a few years back pleading for the preservation of at least one black-and-yellow taxi, which didn’t come to any conclusion. A resident and art lover from Parel, Pradeep Palay said, “Nowadays, Premier Padmini can only be seen in artworks on the city’s walls along the roads”. He added, “Though it has slowly vanished, it has conquered a place in people’s imagination and hearts”.
The general secretary of Mumbai Taximens Union, AL Quadros, recalled how the journey of Premier Padmini started in the early ‘60s with ‘Fiat-1100 Delight’ model, a beautiful machine with a 1200-cc engine along with steering-mounted gear shifter. Quadros explained how it was comparatively smaller than the big taxis like the Plymouth, Landmaster, Dodge, and how often local used to call the Fiat-1100 Delight as ‘dukkar Fiat’.
In 1970s, the car was rebranded as Premier President and eventually as Premier Padmini, after the renowned Indian queen Padmini. Quadros added, “After this, the car manufactured by Premier Automobile Limit (PAL) never went through a name change until its production stopped in 2001”.
As many as 100-125 Premier Padmini taxis still remain unregistered because of unavailability of spare parts and other factors, after the production line was ceased.
These ‘Kaali Peelis’ also became a major part of Indian pop culture, which was screened multiple times in movies, some of which are ‘Taxi No. 9211’, Kaali-Peeli’, and ‘Aa Ab Laut Chale’.
