Mumbai - An Addiction
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Share Cab
My usual return trip to home involves me taking a share cab from the highway near my office to Borivli. What that means is that taxi drivers who return home (I assume) in the evening and are thus travelling from the South of Mumbai to the North, take passengers at nominal rates along with them. The passengers necessarily have to get down somewhere the taxi driver is headed towards. But that’s a small inconvenience to the alternative mode of transport – chock-a-blocked local trains.
And it is not just the traditional taxis which ferry passengers in this share-cab business model, even the tourist cars, company buses and as on one occasion, an official BMC Sumo sort of a vehicle.
Only problem was that when the driver of the BMC car picked up the passengers at Garware signal, the car was not on official duty. However to escape potential questioning by the traffic police, he put up a sign of “On BMC duty” nonetheless. Obviously he wasn’t aware of the share-cab model niceties. No traffic police in the two years that I have been using share-cabs has ever stopped one. Putting up a “On BMC Duty” signboard achieved exactly the thing that the driver had set out to avoid. A traffic police who obviously realized that the car was carrying out public service under the guise of BMC duty pulled over the car. He peeked inside and saw a varied assortment of people – two IT salesmen (including myself), a couple of college students, two bricks and mortar laborers, a guy and his coy, obedient wife obviously returning from some kind of a marriage or a similar family function.
The cop then looked at the driver questioningly. And the driver committed his second blunder in the space of ten minutes. He told the cop that everyone in the car was on election duty?! The cop inspected the diverse crowd again. And said with a mocking tone: “Is mein se ek bhi election duty pe hai to main tere ko jaane doonga.” And asked for the driver’s license, took it and walked away.
Someone in the car berated the driver: “Abey jhooth to bheja laga ke bol”
Some wisdom in that. The driver probably thought that driving a BMC car made him above the law; a law which anyways didn’t bother about taxis carrying people to their destinations. And then, when the law apprehended him, he thought he was smart enough to lie through it. Any self respecting traffic policeman would have taken offense.
Anyways, I and my other IT sales colleague left the car and took another share cab. Maybe we should have stuck around and seen the hapless driver through his troubles. He was after all rendering a service to us. But the driver did not inspire a lot of loyalty in his customers. Everyone branched out and he was left to deal with his problems himself.
And it is not just the traditional taxis which ferry passengers in this share-cab business model, even the tourist cars, company buses and as on one occasion, an official BMC Sumo sort of a vehicle.
Only problem was that when the driver of the BMC car picked up the passengers at Garware signal, the car was not on official duty. However to escape potential questioning by the traffic police, he put up a sign of “On BMC duty” nonetheless. Obviously he wasn’t aware of the share-cab model niceties. No traffic police in the two years that I have been using share-cabs has ever stopped one. Putting up a “On BMC Duty” signboard achieved exactly the thing that the driver had set out to avoid. A traffic police who obviously realized that the car was carrying out public service under the guise of BMC duty pulled over the car. He peeked inside and saw a varied assortment of people – two IT salesmen (including myself), a couple of college students, two bricks and mortar laborers, a guy and his coy, obedient wife obviously returning from some kind of a marriage or a similar family function.
The cop then looked at the driver questioningly. And the driver committed his second blunder in the space of ten minutes. He told the cop that everyone in the car was on election duty?! The cop inspected the diverse crowd again. And said with a mocking tone: “Is mein se ek bhi election duty pe hai to main tere ko jaane doonga.” And asked for the driver’s license, took it and walked away.
Someone in the car berated the driver: “Abey jhooth to bheja laga ke bol”
Some wisdom in that. The driver probably thought that driving a BMC car made him above the law; a law which anyways didn’t bother about taxis carrying people to their destinations. And then, when the law apprehended him, he thought he was smart enough to lie through it. Any self respecting traffic policeman would have taken offense.
Anyways, I and my other IT sales colleague left the car and took another share cab. Maybe we should have stuck around and seen the hapless driver through his troubles. He was after all rendering a service to us. But the driver did not inspire a lot of loyalty in his customers. Everyone branched out and he was left to deal with his problems himself.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
On the Job Training
Being so used to traveling hither and thither in autos, I never thought that I would have a near-death experience in one of them. Ok, I am exaggerating. But ask any foreigners who travel in an auto for the first time. The way they swerve in and between cars and trucks and buses, you just have to hold on to anything within grasp real tight and pray. Larry Page and Sergey Brin probably got one of those calm, meditative drivers to have been so impressed with the machine.
So on this particular day, I took an auto from Bandstand to Vile Parle. The autowallah, surprisingly, didn’t know the route and told me to in a very pleading tone, “Sahab, raastaa nahin pata hai.” I asked him if he knew the road to the highway and he replied in the negative. I berated him for being so ignorant! What autowallah doesn’t know the road to the highway! I took the auto nonetheless and kept giving him directions.
It was on the highway that I noticed that something was amiss. The driver kept the auto on the extreme left and was riding almost at 20 kmph. While the drivers with the Schumacher trait can be scary, I didn’t appreciate such cautious driving. And plus there was a flyover coming up and the driver didn’t show any indication of taking it. I told him, “Boss, woh flyover lena hai. Itna left mein mat rakho gaadi ko.” And he changed to the lane on the right, immediately, and sharply. I rocked to my left. And then I gave him a piece of my mind.
The driver didn’t get aggressive or defensive in return. In fact he was shit scared himself. He meekly said that it was the first time he was driving on the highway. Shit! I couldn’t shout at him anymore. I didn’t want my life to be in the hands of a nervous-wreck auto driver. I told him to go slow. And soon we got stuck in traffic which made the rest of my journey safe. When I got down, I gave him some tips about how to go about learning to drive. Not that I have driven an auto, but be it a bike or an auto, the fundamentals of learning remain the same.
And then I thanked God silently that there wasn’t any truck making a dash past us when he had sharply changed lanes…
So on this particular day, I took an auto from Bandstand to Vile Parle. The autowallah, surprisingly, didn’t know the route and told me to in a very pleading tone, “Sahab, raastaa nahin pata hai.” I asked him if he knew the road to the highway and he replied in the negative. I berated him for being so ignorant! What autowallah doesn’t know the road to the highway! I took the auto nonetheless and kept giving him directions.
It was on the highway that I noticed that something was amiss. The driver kept the auto on the extreme left and was riding almost at 20 kmph. While the drivers with the Schumacher trait can be scary, I didn’t appreciate such cautious driving. And plus there was a flyover coming up and the driver didn’t show any indication of taking it. I told him, “Boss, woh flyover lena hai. Itna left mein mat rakho gaadi ko.” And he changed to the lane on the right, immediately, and sharply. I rocked to my left. And then I gave him a piece of my mind.
The driver didn’t get aggressive or defensive in return. In fact he was shit scared himself. He meekly said that it was the first time he was driving on the highway. Shit! I couldn’t shout at him anymore. I didn’t want my life to be in the hands of a nervous-wreck auto driver. I told him to go slow. And soon we got stuck in traffic which made the rest of my journey safe. When I got down, I gave him some tips about how to go about learning to drive. Not that I have driven an auto, but be it a bike or an auto, the fundamentals of learning remain the same.
And then I thanked God silently that there wasn’t any truck making a dash past us when he had sharply changed lanes…
