“No. It was the love of one man that brought me to Mumbai.”

(Before I could make sense of that, he quickly clarified.)

“My chacha (father’s younger brother), sir. We go back a long way.”

(By now I knew I would not have to ask him. He continued.)

“My chacha is 2 years older than I am. We grew up in Jaunpur together and were very close. In fact, if there was anyone I ever looked up to, it would be him.”

“The same chacha who accompanied you to the doctor’s buffet?”

“Yes. Chacha and I went to the same school. There was hardly any money in agriculture. On top of that my father had to sell most of our land to repay the local money-lender. The day I passed my 8th standard exams, my father told me that I should now work and help him run the family. So my chacha also stopped going to school and decided to work alongside me.”

“What work?”

“Odd jobs. Petty labor, part-time stuff. Then the day I turned 18, my father got me married. He needed the money.”

“What money?”

“The girl’s father paid my father 25000 rupees in cash.”

“Oh.”

“My father is a good man, sir. He had three brothers. Chacha was the youngest. The other two died young and my father was taking care of their families as well.”

“You lived in a joint family?”

“Yes. My son was born soon after. The year after that, my daughter was born. Those were tough times. You would know there is nothing called development in Uttar Pradesh. The m******od politicians and their goondas (goons) have built their havelis (mansions) by squeezing the poor farmer over the years.”

“It is sad.”

“It is their strategy sir. The m******od politicians will not allow the poor to study. So they stay ignorant. Then they fool them into giving up their land. Then they make them work on their own land as laborers. Uttar Pradesh is like this because the poor farmers are uneducated.”

(That, I have to admit, was a pretty accurate and concise analysis.)

“That is why I decided, come what may, my son will study. I admitted him and my daughter to the local school. The boy was bright. Topper in his class, every year.”

“That is good.”

“Not necessarily,” he smiled. “Chacha had bought a second-hand tempo with the money he had saved. So we made money transporting odd stuff from one village to another. It was going fine till my son topped his school in the 8th standard exams.”

“You see, we lived in a village near Jaunpur. The local school did not teach beyond the 8th standard. So the only way out was to admit my son in the senior school in Jaunpur. That meant spending 15 thousand rupees, which I did not have. I asked my father, who flatly refused. He said, put the boy to work – we need to make money, not spend it.”

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing. My father is the head of the family. His word was final and I could not disobey him. It was chacha who did everything. He quietly sold his tempo and used the money to pay for the boy’s admission fee, hostel charges – everything.”

“Sold the tempo?”

“Yes. Chacha said, if the boy studies, chances are he will have a better life than we had. So he went and did this on the sly. We were hoping my father would not find out.”

“Did he?”

“Yes he did. Bad deeds rarely get caught. But good ones get blown out of proportion.”

“What did he say?”

“Father had a showdown with chacha. He was clear. If you cannot live by his rules, you cannot live in the same house. So chacha left the house. Now I love my chacha more than anyone else. So I left with him. My father has still not forgiven us.”

“Then?”

“For 3 months we did odd jobs at highway dhabas (restaurants) and slept in the fields. Then chacha borrowed money and bought a tempo. We had just the two of us to look after. So we managed to save money. In one year, we bought a second hand jeep. I drove the jeep while chacha drove the tempo.”

“What about your family?”

“They stayed back with my father. It was better that way.”

“And your son continued his studies?”

“Yes, chacha had already paid for his fee. We were also doing better and managed to send him money from time to time. Everything was going well till chacha had a lafda (trouble) with some local cops. The m******ods wanted a big chunk of our earnings.”

“Why?”

“Permit charges for running our jeep and tempo on the highway. Extortion sir. It happens all the time there.”

“Doesn’t that happen in Mumbai as well?”

“Mumbai cops are the best sir. They don’t bother taxi drivers like us for big money. If you get caught, 10-20 rupees are all you need to pay if you plead well. But in Uttar Pradesh, the cops are different. They don’t leave you. You never know when they will trap you in some murder case that you have nothing to do with.”

(I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a barb. Compliment maybe.)

“That is when chacha decided to come to Mumbai. I couldn’t possibly stay without him. So we sold the tempo and jeep, took all our savings, caught a train and arrived here. Over the next 2 years we bought a taxi. Then the second one followed. We made enough money to send back some to my father. And to my son. We got my daughter married in Jaunpur. Then, in time, we bought a little kholi (room) where my wife, chacha and I live today. Chacha never married. He treats my son as his own.”

“So now that your son is getting married, you should be happy. The daughter-in-law will look after you.”

“I am a realist sir. She is a educated girl, working in Pune. When she visits us, you think I will be able to ask her for a cup of tea? I am an illiterate taxi driver. I will be the one who will make tea for her. The times have changed. She will go and live with my son in Delhi. I will drive my taxi here.”

“Why don’t you go and live with your son? He is doing well now.”

“Who will like to keep a taxi driver in the house sir. Chacha says, we should be happy that my son is well settled.”

(I was thinking about the irony of the situation when he spoke up again)

“So now that you know all this, tell me something sir.”

“What?”

“After all I went through for my son, am I wrong in taking 1 lac in cash and a Scorpio from the girl’s family?”

“Turn left and stop outside that gate.”

(We had reached my colony and I had been spared the agony of answering a truly tough question.)

“It was lovely talking to you. I did not even ask you your name.”

“You are from Lucknow, sir. So I will tell you. My name is Jeet Singh. Ask anyone at the cabstand. They will know me.”

(I paid him 500 rupees and asked him to keep the balance. The conversation was worth a lot more, if you ask me. Well worth a lot more.)

“Today I will tell you how we hotel cabbies actually make our money.”

(This was getting interesting. This I definitely wanted to know.)

“You see, the money we make from people like you is chillar (petty).”

“What do you mean?” I asked a tad indignantly.

“300 to 400 rupees is all I make from passengers like you in a day. What will that fetch you in Mumbai?”

(Good point, I thought. Though the chillar bit did hurt my ego.)

“So?”

“Well, 4-5 years back, when this hotel was coming up, some 30-40 of us wanted to set-up a stand here. But the hotel people wouldn’t allow it. So our association stepped in. Remember I told you our association has a setting everywhere? They cracked a setting with the hotel also.”

“Setting with a five-star hotel?”

“Yes. We paid the hotel people a lac. So they allowed us to set up a cab-stand here. Then the association people cracked an agreement with them.”

“What agreement?”

“Each one of us has card from the hotel. Like a membership card. We use that card.”

“How?”

He grinned.

“It is a secret, but I am telling you sir. See, these goras (foreigners/tourists) come and stay at the hotel. They eat their breakfast and then go out to spend the whole day roaming the city. And for that they need a cab. That is where we step in. Now I will not settle for anything less than the fixed rate when it comes to you. But with the goras, I will heavily discount. Full day, no waiting charge, only 600 sir, only for you sir, special hotel rate sir! – that is what I tell them.”

“You charge them less?”

“Yes. These goras, let me tell you, they love special treatment. I don’t think they get anything like that in their country. In their country, they have to do everything themselves. Cleaning, washing, everything. So they love it when I tell them I will take them around town all day, wait free of cost, not ask for lunch money and even guide them.”

(I was seriously not getting the point here.)

He grinned again.

“Let me explain sir. These goras ask the hotel people where they can purchase Indian things. The hotel people tell us. So I ask my passenger – you want leather shoes? Good quality shoes? You want Indian paintings? Antique? Jewellery? Sarees? Miniature Taj Mahal? Mughlai food? No waiting charge, you shop, I wait, only for you kind sir. Usually they agree, so I take them to these shops. They spend forty thousand, fifty thousand, sometimes even one lac rupees. I get 20 percent.”

“20 percent? How?”

“The hotel card sir. It is part of the setting. See the hotel has a setting with the shops. And we have a setting with the hotel. I take the gora to the shop. The shopkeeper knows me because I have a card. So every time the gora spends money, 20 percent comes to me. You can call it guide tax.”

“How much do you make in a day?”

“Who can live on daily wages sir. That comes from people like you. But this way we make the whole year’s earnings in 2-3 months. I once made thirty thousand in one day. Then there are the perks.”

“Perks also?”

“Yes. See we chadhao (put on a pedestal – roughly that’s what it means) the gora all day. Kind sir, good man, no worry sir, at your service sir etc, etc. So when he is done, he will give me five hundred as baksheesh. Then his woman will ask me who all are there in my home. I will say 2 children and my chacha. She will give me five hundred more for them. That is more than the actual fixed rate I would have charged if it had been you and not them. Perks.”

“So you make seasonal money?”

“Yes, in 2-3 months we make enough to send home and live comfortably through the year. The rest we invest.”

“Invest? Where?”

“There are 70 of us in this cab-stand now. Every year we put money in a fund that the association manages for us. It is our insurance. If something happens to any one of us, the family is looked after with the fund. Then we can take a loan from the fund at 6 percent interest. Education loan, home loan, we take from the fund. Who wants to take money from SBI? We have accumulated 15 lac rupees in the fund in only three years.”

(Home loan at 6 percent. I was feeling like a truly miserable fool now.)

“Our cab-stand has everything now. Food, sleeping arrangements, shifts. It is permanent now.”

“So life is good for you. You could buy a new cab.”

“There is no guarantee sir. The attacks last year drove all the goras away. Business was not so good. We are hoping it will be better this year.”

“Yes, we are all hoping it will be.”

“Mumbai is a tough city. But it has given me everything. This taxi, my kholi – it has also made my son a senior officer in the municipal corporation in Delhi.”

“Your son is an officer in Delhi?”

“Yes, I am getting him married this year. The girl works in Pune. I am getting one lac in cash and a Scorpio in the bargain.”

“You are taking dowry?”

“If I tell you the background, you will not call it dowry.”

“What background?”

“It starts with the reason I came to Mumbai in the first place.”

“To work and make money?”

“No. It was the love of one man that brought me to Mumbai.”

(to be continued)

“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)

I have to thank my driver for taking four days off.
It was late afternoon on a Saturday.
After a good chat with my colleague, I stepped out of the hotel and walked down to the cab stand.
I know that cab stand well.
The cabbies there are famous for demanding ridiculous rates simply because they operate from outside a five star hotel.
And I cannot claim to be a good negotiator.
I was looking for a new cab, preferably an air-conditioned one.
It was not to be my day – there were three ancient black & yellow ones, not a single new one.

(Ever since my near-death experience few years back, I have developed this phobia of old Mumbai cabs. I strongly suspect they will come come apart on their own at 40kmph.)

“350 rupees for Deonar. Fixed rate.”
“That’s too much.”
“I have been waiting since morning for a passenger. Why do you want to take away a poor man’s daily wage?”
“I only want to go as far as Deonar, not Lucknow.”
“100 rupees more is nothing for you sir. But I have to work really hard for my money.”
“You think I don’t have to work hard for my money?”

A brief argument later, I agreed and we took off.
The cabby looked like he was from UP or Bihar – most cabbies in Mumbai are.
So I asked him.

“I am from Jaunpur sir. And you?”
“Lucknow.”
“Lucknow? Ha! I knew it by the way you spoke! You are a good man sir. Not like the stingy chu***as who blow up thousands in the hotel, but sweat when a cabby asks for a 100 rupees extra.”
“This is your own cab?”
“Yes sir, have had it since 1989.”
“Isn’t there a law against driving old cabs this old?”
“There is one that says you can’t drive a cab older than 25 years in Mumbai. So I can pull this one for 5 more years,” he grinned.
“You could go for the Nano. It’s cheaper and nicer too.”
“Nano is a dabba (disaster).”
“Why?”
“Put four passengers with their luggage in it and run it on Mumbai roads, then watch it come apart.”
“But won’t you save more money if you buy a new car? This must be guzzling fuel.”
“Who told you that? It is cheaper to run this 20 year old cab than a Nano.”

(No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to fathom how that wreck could be more economical than a spanking new Nano.)

“You are from Lucknow sir. So I will tell you the truth.”
“See, our association has a setting with everyone. Cops, lawyers, insurance agents, RTO, brokers, mechanics, etc, etc.
If my cab has an accident, the association organizes insurance quickly. If there is a cop problem, the association sorts it out for me. Likewise our association also has a setting with some mechanics.
If my cab engine needs to be replaced, I go to the mechanic. He replaces my engine with another old engine, scrapes off the chassis number of that engine and replaces it with the chassis number of my old engine.
All done for 8-9 thousand rupees. No RTO problem also!
But the Nano has a rear-mounted engine.
In Mumbai someone will ram me from behind every 2 days and I will have to get the engine replaced.
Now tell me, which bhen**od mechanic in Mumbai will replace a Nano engine for 9000 rupees?”

The future of the Nano lay shattered.
With the pieces strewn across the Kalina-Sion connecting road.

I wonder how Ratan Tata would have responded to such rhetoric.
It was in-arguably the most simplistic argument I had heard in a while.
I was just about digesting what I had heard when he spoke up again.

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

(To be continued)