A treasure hunt car rally Drive Hridaya saved forty-eight lives, released a calendar of legendary personalities with their cars
The ‘Drive Hridiya’ car rally organized by the Rotary Club of Calcutta Old City is one of the biggest car rallies in Kolkata. The fifth year of the rally witnessed a turn-up of near about two hundred cars.
One of the attractions of the rally was the treasure hunt. It has become a powerful medium to touch the lives of financially backward children. Through this heartwarming initiative, they have been successfully raising funds for the heart operations of these little superheroes, ensuring their well-being and happiness. Debashis Sen, Debojyoti Mishra, Anjan Dutt, Debashish Kumar, Priyanka Sarkar, Mir, Debolina Dutta, Sudarshan Chakravorty, and so on have been standing by the initiative in these five years. To make this initiative more attractive, an eye-catching calendar ‘Car-nival’ has been released in collaboration with Surojit Kala. It comprises rare moments of celebrities from the film and music industry with their favorite cars. Participants and even celebrity guests join the drive with their cars, keeping in mind that they have chosen moments in the calendar that will inspire the participants. These moments show how much passion the legends of the past had for cars! On January 21, 2024, the journey of this fancy car rally started from Spring Club. The calendar was released by eminent actors Vikram Chattopadhyay, Tathagata Mukherjee, Raj Bhattacharya, eminent dancer Sudarshan Chakravorty and others.
Be it Kishore Kumar with the vintage car of Chari Ka Naam Gadi, or the moment Amitabh Bachchan and Anil Kapoor pose with a big Rolls Royce, Satyajit Ray with the 1930 Chrysler that he used in Abhijan, R.D.Burman in front of the car. Seen sitting on the road with both doors of his Fiat open, Mohammad Rafi and his wife Bilquis Rafi are seen with their Chevrolet Chevelle. Rafi Saab sitting on the bonnet of the car, with his wife standing next to him, Uttam Kumar posing with his beloved Maurice, Dev Anand with the Chevrolet Flip Master from Chetan Anand’s classic film Taxi Driver and many more such moments. Alongside them there are moments with Charlie Chaplin, Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Prosenjit Chatterjee, and Rituparna Sengupta with cars This calendar is truly a collectible. Through this unique calendar Rotary Club of Calcutta Old City aims to spread awareness about their initiative “Drive Hridiya”. So far forty-eight children are living a healthy life as a result of this initiative. In the future, the aim is to provide this opportunity to more children.
Surojit Kala, Chairman, Hridiya said, “Our aim is to keep the hearts of financially backward children strong, and it is to bring smiles to their faces through this car drive. Around two hundred cars participated in the rally this time.”
