Encounter with Uncouth Taxi Driver

Many times I found myself entrapped, confined in a car, sitting next to the person on the wheel, painfully listening to his blurting, since there was no chance for me to jump out of the moving car and escape the verbal barrage.

Lately, on way to Ludhiana, the driver of my hired Taxi, Keshav, was somewhat a comical, though awkward for my mention. He hurled abuses in chaste Punjabi to every bit of incident that occurred on the road, be it the vehicles that overtook him, sped passed from the wrong side or didn’t give pass for his genuine overtakes. His utterances also contained his driving lessons for offending drivers.

The comical part of the uncouth utterances of the driver was the innovation of adjectives with which he laced his standard abuses. After every utterance he looked at me through the front mirror as if seeking appreciation of his expressions. Containing my laugh, I faked a cough to conserve my soberness when he hurled a startling expression of abusive language for the inert fog, while passing through the densely foggy patch.

On the return Journey from Ludhiana, he was mostly quiet except for pronouncing almost a fatwa, in his usual expression, for levying a heavy penalty to drivers who use mobile phones while driving.

On reaching the destination, when I was counting money as per the meter, his mobile rang. I handed him the fare, adding Rs.50 as tip, while he was still talking on the mobile. I had just entered my house when he pressed the horn to call me back. He returned the excess amount and refused to take, even on my insistence.

Conversely, that reminded me of the driver of a Cab in Manchester who drove me to the Railway Station. The driver engrossed me with his part of the stories of Air Raids on Manchester during the World War-II when he lost all his possessions. Slowly, he rebuilt and now was the owner of five Cabs. He interspersed his woeful narration in local dialect with abuses hurled at the destroyers, using profusely ‘Bastard’ and ‘Sons of Bitch’.

On reaching Station, I paid him the Taxi fare. Saluting he asked for the ‘Baksheesh’. That expression used during British Raj in India astonished me. On insistence, I paid him one extra pound. Unsatisfied, muttering he turned back. I am sure he must have babbled out his all-inclusive abusive vocabulary. Actually, he was the one who was uncouth, I thought