Black & Yellow Chronicles – 2

Posted on | May 30, 2009 | Comments

(continued from here)

“I don’t think doctors are as har**mi as people make them out to be.”

“What??”

“Doctors. I always thought they were real har**mis, but they are not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You are from Lucknow sir, so I am telling you. It is like this. Two days ago, I was at the stand, waiting for a passenger. The hotel doorman called me. He does that when a hotel guest needs a cab. So I drove into the hotel to see this gentleman standing with the doorman. Indian only. He had three bags with him and wanted to go to Dadar station.”

“So how much did you ask for?”

“Fixed rate sir, not a single paisa more. Ask the doorman, he knows the rule.”

(Good, I thought. I wasn’t the only one to suffer.)

“That is when it all started. See, the gentleman put all three bags in my cab, got in and then said let’s go. Now I know how people are. So I told him beforehand we had a fixed rate. He started shouting. First he said it was illegal and then he called me a dacoit. Then he said he was a doctor and that robbing a doctor was crime in God’s eyes. Now you only tell me sir, demanding fixed rate from a doctor is a crime in God’s eyes, but robbing a poor cabby of his daily wages? What will you call that?”

(Inarguable again, I thought. He continued.)

“But I didn’t budge. Fixed means fixed. So the doctor got down and told the doorman to take his bags out of my cab. It was becoming quite a scene. That is when the doorman came to me and said, take him, if he doesn’t pay the rate, I will pay you the difference from my pocket. Just get him out of here.”

“So you agreed?”

“Yes I did. The doorman is my friend. But that is not it. I was taking the doctor to Dadar thinking what a har**mi he was. Doesn’t he know his job is to save lives and not fleece poor cabbies? And just then guess what he says to me?”

“What?”

“He tells me he is a Brahmin and I should not have argued with a Brahmin!”

(I couldn’t help but smile at that.)

“If he is a Brahmin, I am a Thakur sir.”

“You are a Thakur?”

“Yes sir, Thakur. I could have stopped my cab, asked him to get off then and there in the middle of the road. But I did not do that. I stopped the cab, turned around and very respectfully told him that had he told me he was a Brahmin, I would have touched his feet and taken him to Dadar free of cost. But he should not have called a Thakur a robber.”

(Good point there, I felt.)

“What did the doctor say to that?”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes. It was not him, it was high blood pressure.”

“Meaning?”

“See, it was like this. He told me the whole story. He had come to Mumbai for three days to attend a conference at the hotel. You know the ones where all doctors come and basically eat and drink together. Now every day, for two days, the poor man was eating rich food twice a day. Then in the evening they would all have to drink whiskey and rum and celebrate. So when he felt he could not handle it anymore, he decided to leave before lunch on the third day. You see his high blood pressure had become very high. That is why he shouted and took it out on me.”

“Ah. Now I see.”

“I dropped him at Dadar station. He did not pay me the fixed rate. But he gave me a food coupon and said I could go and eat at the conference.”

“You took it?”

“I asked him for two. One for myself and the other for my chacha (father’s younger brother). So he gave me two. You see he had another coupon saved for dinner.”

“You went?”

“I went back to the kholi. In the evening chacha and I wore our best clothes, sprayed lots of scent and went. The doorman let us in from the back entrance.”

“How was it?”

“Like heaven. These doctors have a good life. There was music, there was liquor and there was food. And you could have as much as you wanted! Chacha and I had some good imported whiskey. Just two per head. Then we ate. Paaplet (pomfret), kekda (crab), chicken, meat, fish, biryani. How much we ate that day. Tell me sir, doctors must be really rich to have such big parties?”

“No, actually companies who make medicines organize these parties for them.”

“It is a dream life sir. The clothes some women were wearing there…I cannot even begin to tell you. I would have never enjoyed all this had it not been for that good doctor. I know some really har**mi doctors. They treat you like animals. But now I know they are all not like that.”

“But he still didn’t pay your fixed rate, remember?”

“That’s not where I make my money sir.”

“Meaning?”

“You are from Lucknow and a good man sir. So listen. Today I will tell you how we hotel cabbies actually make our money.”

(to be continued)