Conversations with a Cab Driver
17 Apr 2015I looked at my watch, it was 5 PM and I hoped that the cab driver was on time so that I could beat the crazy Pune traffic and reach home early. To my luck, he was already waiting for me at the office entrance. I got into the cab.
A thin man in his mid-40s with a tired look on this face sat in the driver’s seat. ‘Hello bhaiya’, I greeted him as a brother. He some how managed to summon up a smile and greeted me back, ‘Hello sir’. This was followed by a few minutes of silence till we got onto the main road.
Now I’m usually more of a listener, but if both the people are silent in the car, it’s something that makes me feel awkward. I just don’t know why, it just does. So, I decided to have a conversation and maybe in that way make this 20 minutes of journey something worthwhile.
Our conversation happened in hindi but for the benefit of the wider audience, I shall translate it to english. Here it goes.
‘I wonder what will happen to Pune’s traffic!’ I said. Failing to come up with a better topic.
‘Yes’, he said. I’m sure he agreed with my sentiments and what I was trying to say. ‘Sir, it’s actually not that bad today’. I think he was trying to make the conversation more positive. ‘Today is Ambedkar Jayanti, many of the offices have holidays’. Aha! That’s good, less traffic! I told myself.
‘Bhaiya which cab company do you work for?’, I asked. ‘Optimus cabs’, was his prompt reply. ‘So, right now you are on duty for Optimus cabs?’, was my next query. ‘No, right now I’m on duty for Megatron cabs’.
‘I didn’t understand that. You work for two cab companies?’, my curiosity started to get the better of me now. ‘Sort of. Officially I work for Optimus cabs but I work on duty for Megatron cabs also.’, he said. ‘How is that possible?’ I asked. With a straight face he replied, ’The owner of Megatron cabs is a relative of Optimus cabs. So whenever he is short of drivers for his customers, he often asks for drivers from Optimus cabs to step in’.
’See, I’ll explain.’, he tired to help me understand how it works. ‘Your company is tied up with Megatron cabs for pick-up and drop services. So I do that duty in the morning while dropping you and then again in the evening when I’ve to pick you. Other hours apart from that I work for Optimus cabs.’
They say that confusion along with curiosity isn’t always the best combination, but little did my mind understand that and so I went on.
‘Bhaiya, tell me something. How many hours do you work in a day?’ was the next immediate question on my mind. I’d actually call it a concern.
‘I start my day at around 6 AM. Have breakfast & tea, wash the car and get ready for work. I leave my home by 7 AM. My first duty of the day is for Megatron cabs, which is your drop to office. By 9 - 9:30 AM I switch over to working for Optimus cabs. In the evening I switch back for Megatron cabs because I’ve to drop you back home. Then again after that back to Optimus cabs till might night.’
That took me some time to digest and then calculate the number of hours he has to work. ‘How many hours do you have to work for Optimus cabs?’. ‘Around 14 hours for Optimus cabs and another 4-5 hours for Megatron cabs. So in total I start at 7 AM and reach home midnight.’ he said in a firm voice, feeding my curiosity.
He continued, ’some days are worse as I might have to do over time also!’. By now I was dumbstruck. I think he saw that look on my face. He said ‘Sir, now you only tell me, if we are treated like this, we don’t get much time to do anything else. Then in you’ll hear about accidents and it’s the drivers fault because of rash driving, breaking the signal light, dozing off while driving etc.’. I didn’t know what to say.
‘If one has a choice, he should just opt for a security guard duty, than be a cab driver. At least he won’t be treated like this and get blamed for everything’
‘Here we are.’ he said with a voice full of energy. We had reached our destination. ‘Thank you very much bhaiya’, I said, this time it was my turn to summon up a smile. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning sir!’, he replied with a wide natural smile, contrary to the one before.
There was something about that tone in which he said this to me. It was as if he wanted to end this conversation on a good note. May be we was trying to motivate himself? We exchanged good byes and went our ways.
Honestly, if you ask me, I’m still trying to make some sense of this encounter. I guess I covered multiple topics in here. City traffic. Cab companies. Drivers. Working hours. I did ask myself one thing though, why is he doing this job if it’s so tiring? Is it the pay and he needs it? Family reasons? I’m sure he has valid reasons, which I’m not aware of. Fair enough. But some how, he still manages to do this day in, day out. With a smile.