an eco-system on wheels !!

Sometimes enclosed ecosystems can be a reticent discourse on life or to a certain extent on human behavior. One such ecosystem is the ubiquitous office cab. It is supposed to pick and drop you off daily along with 6 or 7 more people harmlessly. But this supposition gets stretched with the distance and time taken to reach office. Coz then, various elements of this ecosystem start to act or rather react in inexplicable ways.

Here, let me introduce our cab driver. He is our Mr. Know it all, Done it all, Been it all and What not all!!! There isn’t any road in Delhi that he doesn’t know. All the traffic lights of NCR pay obeisance to him. ‘har shortcut jaanta hun main’   
He knows at least one person in each industry and in each country. ‘Mujhe batao, kidhar chahiye, main lagwata hun job, travel agency, bank, amex, SOTC ???’

If you want to learn driving, swimming, or even flying an airplane ‘oh mujhse poocha hota, main achhi rate dilwa deta’ Still more, however dense the fog, he can see through ‘ye to kuch bhi nain, yaad hai jab hum …’ he can tell the singer from a distance by listening to the song ‘tum batao kaun hai singer ….. are are ye bhi nahin pata’

Yet he is very adjusting. ‘kitna adjust karta hun main tum logon ke liye’ If the number of people in the cab dwindle, you bear the charge, if the new joiner stays a km off the route, he rejects to take in without batting an eyelid ‘pata hai rate kitne badh gaye hain, vo to main hun jo chala raha hun’ 
But don’t you dare set off this Mahatma fan, ‘gussa mujhe bhi bahut aata hai’

A man conned by Miss Destiny while on the path to become a rich man or so he tells every new cab entrant. It would begin just when the cab enters the embassy area, recollecting his thriving days and ends only when you get down. By then, you would have known all his ancestors, where they belonged, how they migrated (no, not from Pakistan, but from Daryaganj to Moti Bagh to Dwarka), settled, prospered, withered and resurrected.

Every morning he gives us a missed call five minutes before arriving, so that we get to our stops on time. But there are a few for who are always tricked by the clock. So while we attempt to enjoy the beautiful sunrise from behind the apartments, they would be gulping down their left over juice, rummaging their shoe shelves to get that matching pair, pressing the lift’s button while they rescue their limbs out of a pullover, all throughout supported by their nervous parents, who would be running around to find that id card or wallet and finally handover the final piece of toast as the lift door bids goodbye. Yes, these are all men and women deemed fit to cast their votes and work in IT industry.

Some clever ones get their breakfast to have it in cab or office, besides doing their hair, skin and nails. How else do you spend 2 hours each day traveling? So while we smell pohas, paranthas and pastas, it is time for some to finally take charge of entertainment for all along with our ‘bhaiya’. He has a formidable collection of bhajans, aartis and dohas in his cds apart from the Kumar Sanu and Zee Cinema hits, all of which are played when he and his team can’t get much out of nearly ten fm stations. If that doesn’t suffice, our ‘bhaiya’ has a ‘pen-drive’ (he is always ahead of technology!!) with songs literally meant for the fashion ramp.

But even from this out of the world collection you end up with the ‘choicest’ few that are repeated tell insanity does them apart. The volume varies with the mood (usually upbeat) of the team as we watch it being turned up from 18 to 36, sometimes even 48 for ‘favorite’ ones. Only for ‘official calls’ it is relented to humane levels; for the rest, you are at your own. The only good I see here is that one is saved from accumulating more news about one’s neighbor and his or her neighbors. Headphones are passé when one can’t even listen to ones’ own voice.

But all of this reached the tipping point when the movie ‘Hisss… ’ was played for our ‘entertainment’ on TV. Yes, we do have one in the cab. Alas! it lost its charm the day I realized that I had to watch Style, Aloo chat & Victoria No. 203 (I never knew such a movie existed!!!)

A few ‘out of this world’ souls manage to catch a few winks in this bedlam while I try to distract myself looking out, forecasting the next jam and its possible solutions. But, why to fear when ‘bhaiya’ is here? At the right moment he turns down the cab into an unimaginable alley that reminds more of the dirt track meant for four wheeled drives. Only that, here, it is lined on both the sides by single roomed, single storeyed (ground floor already beneath the ground level) shady shacks with at least one of the corners giving away the lives of people inside. For those few minutes, you feel like a part of a police - underworld chase sequence; every stone & every bump mocking at your bones.

Only when the wheels touch the roads again I promise myself never to sit on the back seat, at the same time wondering over the worthiness of the effort (mental, physical & spiritual) spent each day to reach a cubicle. I have been travelling like this for over ten months now and I am pretty sure that if I continue like this then I will be spending another good deal to get my back, back!

But I have gained a lot of other qualities hands-on. I now know that patience and thoughtfulness are wonderful virtues to have, but a little more and you become the ‘butter of every bread’. Mutual understanding becomes a potential mutant when fermented in the minds of self-obsessed individuals. And above all, time is a cultural concept. While some have been brought up to value it, others have been taught to bend it.

That’s it. So if you live in Dwarka and are motivated enough to be a part of this unique ecosystem, drop me a mail. We do give free trials to guests and prospective entrants provided you live on ‘our route’. On confirmation, you’d pay Rs3430/- only in advance for each month.  We will be more than happy to have you on our cross-country venture!