PETITE Vidhya Jattan was used to the stares from her passengers.
Some people, males particularly, couldn’t just understand that women could drive a bus just as well, if not better, than them, stated an article published in The Fiji Times of Friday, April 10, 1992.
Vidhya was the first person to meet Sunflower Airline passengers when they emerged from the Adi Laisa Terminal at Labasa’s Waiqele Airport.
They would hardly miss her as she stood next to her vehicle — a brightly coloured three-tone bus.
Under a contract with the Nadi-based airline, she drove Sunflower passengers from the airport to town and back, free.
Driving a bus was no big deal for the 47-year-old grandmother.
“It’s just to town and back, no problem,” was how she put it.
But for someone like herself, who was just learning how to move a car, let alone drive one, her job was surely no mean feat.
“You have to cope with Labasa drivers to start off with,” she said.
“Drivers in this town seemed to take delight in breaking every traffic rule in the book, such as stopping in the middle of the road, parking on a bend, and overtaking on a bridge.”
And being a bus driver did not free her from all her other obligations.
There were household chores to be done, which included babysitting her grandson, 11-month-old Jaisheed Sen.
There was no house girl to help, and all her three daughters were attending school.
“Soon after dropping passengers, it’s back home for me,” she said.
“There is always a lot of things to be done, and I can’t spend too much time out driving.”
At the most, she did two trips a day.
The fact that her house sat adjacent to the airport made things a lot easier for her.
Vidhya took up bus driving at the encouragement of her husband, Ram Jattan.
“I was not able to do the job because I was then still working with the Fiji Electricity Authority,” Mr Jattan said.
“My wife agreed to fill in and she’s never looked back since.”
Any husband would have been just as proud.
Vidhya went through her driving test for a heavy public service vehicle licence with flying colours.
She passed on her first attempt, and where did she learn how to drive?
A seven-tonne bus belonging to Bulileka Transport — the type that carried you every day.
Asked whether she would have liked to try her hand as Fiji’s first full-time woman bus driver, Vidhya just smiled and said, “No, I’m satisfied with this.”
Yes, this Waiqele grandmother preferred bus driving part-time and housekeeping full-time.
