Hands that steer through the city

by Abhishek Roy (India)

Making a local connection India

“Your cab is 7 minutes away” I tapped on my phone. The driver was Arshad, rated 4.3 on the app. It was 19:20 hours in Mumbai yet, it was not completely dark. Rain drops were sprinkling from a mostly clear sky. The road was glistening in that spell of mild rain. Arshad stopped his SUV just beside me, rolled down a window to ask, “Are you Abhishek?” I nodded in response, entered the car and waved a goodbye to my friend, who I had forced to stay with me, till the cab arrived. Arshad was a middle-aged man. He was sporting a white shirt and blue jeans that was faded with washes it had gone through. The darkness settled in completely on the way to Khar. I was looking outside at people rushing to enter a bus when all of a sudden, Arshad brought the car to a stop and then, uttered his first words since the ride had begun: “You wait here, I’ll come back in a jiffy!” and saying this, he rushed away. Perplexed, my eyes followed him from the car till he entered the public toilet. He took more than 7 minutes to return back; most probably, his tummy was more upset with him than I was, for the delay. The second half of the ride was full of conversations. As we were going through the Worli Seaface area, he said that he lived in Thane with his wife and his son. His ancestors belonged to Nepal. With a wry smile, he remarked that visiting Nepal is a distant thought; he didn’t even know where Nepal lied in the map. He said that he had wanted to study further, but his alcoholic father didn’t let him. His father used to beat up his mother after coming from work, for no reason. While saying this, he choked. By then, a motorbike, with a gnawing sound, zoomed past in the curviest manner amidst a pack of cars lined up in haphazardly arranged columns in that traffic jam. It caught his attention. He blew a kiss towards the motorbike and said, “I always wished owning such bikes but fate, cursed me!” His eyes lit up on seeing the motorbike; they began to sparkle in that worn-out face of his. As we were going through the posh areas, the unfathomable contrasts of the city poured open. I remembered of the young kid in Mahim smiling cheerfully for a photograph, where the background was of dilapidated quarters and compared it with the worn-out faces of the people living in the uptown. As we reached the Sea Link, he inquired, “How many girlfriends do you have?” I was taken aback by it. Hesitantly, I replied, “I don’t have any girlfriends.” To which he persisted on: “Don’t lie, tell me.” I didn’t choose to respond to that. He went on after a brief pause, “I had my first, when I was in Standard V” I displayed a manufactured smile to that and then, I looked outside the windows. Silence prevailed for some time. Not able to resist the desire to talk, he broke the silence. Moving his head side to side, he said that this city is like a drug. Once you get entrapped here, there is no going out. The outsiders would feel that everything is good but, internally the suffering, esp. the poor. He said that he felt as if their souls are being sucked out as part of the ominous sacrifices to serve the tall skyscrapers of the city. I couldn’t respond to any of it, was at a loss of words. I looked outside for some inspiration to gather some words to be able to speak but couldn’t. I just leaned on the windowpane and began looking at the city as it was: Marvellous yet, full of misery. Suddenly, for the second time, he stopped the car. “You have reached your destination”, the GPS AI said on his phone. I paid him and wished him Goodnight. On way to entering the premises of where I was staying, I realized how we think we are growing and how we are actually growing. A ride with Arshad, was all it took.