Of drives in Hyderabad

Every now and then, we meet a person who is a "character", as one may put it. I tend to come across a good deal of them. In Hyderabad, one man showed me that taxi drivers could be more interesting than what I had imagined. During a long drive, a driver taught me how diversity and enterprise make cities what they are, and how every small person is a cog in the ever circling wheels of the busy world.

When I first saw him, I thought that he was another one of those people whose business in life was about going through it. But that was before we started talking. It turned out that the person driving me to the airport was a chatty man, and as the sixty two kilo-meters meant a long drive, I settled in for some conversation.  I asked him about his family. He had two sons and a daughter. What do they do, I asked. All were married, they were in their early and mid-twenties. My face must have shown some surprise, because he proceeded to explain .

"These TV channels", he said, "made us believe that the world will end in 2012. And what's the use of living if you do not marry. One must have some one to spend his life with. Men and women may live singly for years and years , without happiness." And he went on with his marital philosophy, while I was internally thinking about the paradox of getting a life partner just before the world was going to end. "The channels scared us and hence, I got my children married off.", he said with a tone of satisfaction in his voice. And then added with a mixed tone of disappointment and self amusement, "Now the world is pretty much the same, but it is a good thing that one of my responsibilities is over." I tried to console and warn him by saying that 16th December was still away, but he just laughed it off. He was too happy with his son to think any evil of the world. 

As we drove on, he gave me a short story about the places we went through. Like how the dogs in a particular area vanished after a North-eastern regiment has camped there. I thought he was implying too much but I nodded along. Or how many villages were uprooted to make way for the swanky airport. About the people living in Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills (posh areas of Hyderabad), he said, "they are people who do not count money before putting it in the bank". He coupled the sentence with a shoving motion of his arm to show how they put money in the bank. When I remarked how diverse the people in Hyderabad were, he had an ingenious explanation. "Madam", he said in broken Hindi, "Earlier, only two types. Hindu and Muslim. When there are two communities, they will fight every other day. Then the Sikhs came, so if they all disagreed, they had to fight after three days, else how could they quarrel with everyone. So like that, people came from all over the country, and no one could quarrel with everyone. There were just too many types of people. And that is why everyone lives peacefully in Hyderabad." I found it both amusing and interesting.

However, the city and its demography were not his favorite topics. He wanted to talk about his family. His eldest son worked as a class fourth employee in some office. Much could not be expected of him as he was prone to epileptic attacks. He did not talk at length about his first son. His pride was his younger son. "Computer expert, hardware". And he began to tell me about his second son, easily falling into technical jargon himself. His son did not continue studies after his 'inter'. Inter in Andhra Pradesh refers to intermediate examinations which translates to the north Indian class 12th. So, after saying good bye to school, he was sent to a computer center to pick up enough skills to be able to do some accounts. He was required to go for an hour each day, for three months. His father paid the fees, and talked to his coordinator. For three months, the cab-driver's son went to the computer center, not for an hour a day but was the first to come and last to go. After three months he had a trainer's job at the same centre. When the centre closed down, it did not stop him. He was hired by the main office. I do not know whether his skills or his enterprise recommended him to the owner but he landed in the main office with a full time job. Now he went places installing machines and software.

Then one day, the taxi driver was driving some of his regular customers. They were from Bangalore. Their company ran a cement mixing plant in Hyderabad, and there was some technical snag. The driver drove them to their destination. Some problem with the controlling computers, the guys were discussing throughout the drive. He suggested his son, "hardware expert hai mera beta". But since his 'beta' had qualified only inter, he was not an interesting enough choice for the Bangaa-loure people. For two days they tried and tried. They called another team from Bangalore, but the sang was as snag had been. And then the taxi driver forced his son on them, and gave him one little advice. "Solve the problem quickly but make them dance for an hour at least". The obedient son did exactly that. He solved it, and went on connect-disconnect-connect for three hours, after which he got the plant running. And that is how he got his part time job as the cement plant operator. And the Bangalore people always recommend father and son - one to drive the cars, the other to drive the drives.