Delirious Delhi

by Dave Prager

  Ajit disappeared a few months into our stay. I assume he returned to his village to experience marriage and whatever that hand gesture meant to him. And while other drivers came and went, a few remained constant enough for me to recognize their idiosyncrasies. There was an older man who was similar in build and facial structure to Birender, but with blacker hair and a less pronounced belly, whom we think was Birender’s younger brother. There was a frail old man who hunched over the wheel with his hands impeccably at ten and two, driving slowly and carefully and, at the end of the ride, trying and failing every single time to get me to pay him thirty-five rupees for a nonexistent border toll he had a fake receipt for. There was Sanjay, a young man with stern Nepali features, who was always exactly twenty-five minutes late in the morning and always exactly forty-five minutes late in the evening, every single time. I politely tolerated his tardiness for months and then warned him a dozen times that “I’ll tell Birender if you do it again.” One day I actually followed through on what even I believed to be empty threat. I called Birender and asked him not to send Sanjay to drive me any more. And Sanjay never drove me again.

  But a few days later, I exited the office to find him waiting. Then I realized he wasn’t waiting for me, but for another co-worker. And then I realized further that he was working for a different taxi company. I was horrified to know that I actually got him fired, but relieved that he’d at least made some contacts among the taxi stands near my office on those rare days he was the one actually waiting for me.

  And then there was Ajay. About a year into my partnership with Birender, my rotating cast of drivers gave way to consistency, and Ajay became my daily driver. He was twenty-two years old and a keen student of popular fashion. His hair was long and styled and oiled to a gleaming sheen. He had an earring in his left ear, a mobile phone flashier than Birender’s, and a fashionable green jacket that I thought was an important brand until I read what its stylized logo actually spelled out: “Important Brand.” Ajay was trouble. He was always late. He was always disrespectful. He would mutter at me under his breath. He would snort at my Hindi. He would inevitably argue about the route, declaring that M.G. Road was “too jammed” and insisting that we should take the national highway. Not that he cared about making better time—he just wanted to floor it for the few kilometers beyond the toll plaza that were always smooth sailing. (As if I hadn’t tested the route a dozen times: it’s true that that one stretch of highway was always clear, but the off-ramp gridlock at Vasant Vihar invariably ate up any time we saved.)

  Ajay was visibly unhappy to be slogging to and from Gurgaon twice a day. (I think the other drivers foisted the “Mr. David duty” on him because he was the youngest.) But at this point I knew my time in Delhi was short, and I didn’t feel like finding a new taxi stand. So I endured Ajay. And since he clearly wasn’t interested in helping me learn Hindi, I’d spend the ride home with a DVD on my computer and my headphones on my ears, ignoring Ajay as he talked on his mobile or, as was surprisingly often the case, to himself. Sometimes he’d play music on his mobile. At first he’d surreptitiously insert a single earbud that he thought I couldn’t see, until he realized that I didn’t care. Then he just put his mobile on speaker. During the quiet moments in my movies, I’d hear “Om Shanti Om” or “Billo Rani” drifting from the front seat.

  Sometimes, if I’d forgotten my headphones, I’d play music out loud on my computer. Ajay would mock it from the front seat, repeating the lyrics in a mean-spirited wail. Periodically, though, he would grow quiet and listen, and I’d think that I’d finally reached him. So during one miserable jam, with Ajay staring silently at the unmoving tail lights in front of us, I decided to offer an olive branch by sharing something of my home culture. Stretching my Hindi as far as it would go, I said, “Ajay! Yeh ghanna subzi acha hai!” I thought I was saying, “This song is the best!” (I now know I was saying, “This dense vegetable is nice!”)

  He looked at me blankly in the rear-view mirror. So I just pressed play and cranked up the volume, and the sound of Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” filled the cab.

  I sat back and smiled with self-satisfaction at introducing Ajay to the very greatest rock album America has ever produced.

  It was during the lull between “Nightrain” and “Out Ta Get Me” when I heard the chorus from “Pappu Can’t Dance” coming from the front seat. Ajay was playing his music on his mobile as loud as he could to distract himself from the monstrous din I was blasting in the back seat.

  I got the hint. I put on my headphones and turned on my DVD. Ajay was much happier to be ignored.

  The Indicas in which I traveled were not designed for comfort. Nor was Birender investing the money I paid him into shock absorbers. So it would be a pleasant surprise those few times when I’d come down to find a shiny white Toyota Innova waiting for me, its deep bucket seat promising a luxurious ride. On these occasions, Birender himself would be at the wheel. Birender spoke decent English, so we’d chat about mundane things for the first part of the ride until he’d focus his attention on his mobile and I’d enjoy the comfort of the seat and the convenience of a seat belt I didn’t actually have to dig between the crumb-strewn seats to find.

  One time, though, I came down from the office to find Birender waiting in the Innova with a stranger in the front passenger seat. Birender assured me, with an uncharacteristically boisterous voice, that we’d just be dropping this guy off on the way home. They chattered happily as we drove into an unfamiliar part of a nearby residential neighborhood, and when we reached his friend’s house, Birender produced a bottle of whisky. He poured them both a plastic cup. And then they stepped out to buy an omelette from a nearby vendor.

  Still belted into the back seat, I watched him walk his exaggerated swagger and laugh his rowdy laugh. And I realized just how he’d spent his day in Gurgaon.

  Birender returned ten minutes later and offered me a whisky-filled cup of my own. I declined. And then he looked at me, as if realizing for the first time that his best customer, sitting in his best car, might not be so keen about being driven home by a drunk.

  “Mr. David?” he asked through the car window, his friend watching from the darkness behind him. “Are you unhappy?”

  He paused. And then again: “Are you unhappy?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound curt. I was unhappy. And I knew that in the employer/employee hierarchy, my next step should have been to give him a rigid dressing-down in front of his friend and the omelettewallah and anyone else who passed by. But I am at heart a timid American who always ascribes too much consideration to the history of Western colonial oppression, the reputation of foreign tourists, and the self-esteem of those over whom I may hold power. Even in this instance, when all justification was on my side, I passed on the opportunity to assert my indignation.

  Instead, I retreated into passive–aggressive silence. I hoped that staring vaguely out the opposite window would communicate my feelings. Also, I refused his offer to share some of his omelette.

  Finally, they finished their whiskies and parted ways. Birender drove us back towards M.G. Road, breaking the silence only to inquire repeatedly as to whether I was unhappy. (I still was.) I pretended like I was ignoring him, but I was watching him quite closely to evaluate his driving faculties. Inwardly, I rehearsed what I’d say if I decided he was too drunk to drive. Should I command him to let me out, and then hitch-hike home? Or should I insist that he let me take the wheel myself? (Although it was probably more dangerous for me to drive sober on M.G. Road than for him to drive drunk.)

  I was so focused on visualizing my heroic leap forward—picturing myself wrestling the wheel from his hand and steering us out of the way of an oncoming water tanker—that I didn’t even realize we’d stopped moving. We were parked at the tollbooth on M.G. Road. Birender was staring at the tollbooth collector. The collector was staring off into the distance. Behind us, cars had begun to honk.

  I normally pay attention when we
approach tollbooths so I can pass money to the driver before we reach the window. But I’d missed this one, wrapped up as I was in my own imagination. And Birender, clearly eager to get back on my good side, had already pulled a roll of bills out of his jacket and handed forty rupees to the collector. Birender was now due five rupees change.

  The tollbooth collector was making no motion towards his change drawer.

  I couldn’t blame the collector for trying. Birender doesn’t dress like a driver, he dresses like the businessman that he is. (“I own two mobile stores,” he told me on one of our more pleasant rides home. “I have two buffaloes and one cow in my village. I’m buying a plot near the ISIC Hospital bus stand in Vasant Kunj—one hundred square yards, twenty-five lakhs!”) So the tollbooth collector, seeing Birender’s wad and Birender’s finery and me in the back seat letting my driver do the paying, must have assumed that a rich driver driving around a rich passenger isn’t going to care about five measly rupees.

  The tollbooth collector stared straight ahead.

  With a cold lack of emotion that belied none of his intoxication, Birender stared at him and waited.

  There was no anger on Birender’s part. Nor did the tollbooth collector pretend to hunt for change. This was another pantomime: one simply stared at the other, while the other simply stared straight ahead. Behind us, more cars packed into the toll lane and leaned on their horns. And suddenly I had a new worry, beyond Birender’s drunkenness: would the drivers behind us grow angry? Would their honking turn into shouting, and would their shouting turn into one of those riots I read about in the papers and in Shantaram, in which the Indian mob makes snap decisions of guilt and innocence and exacts bloody revenge on whomever they decide is responsible for whatever travesty they’ve beheld? Would they surround our Innova, rock it, overturn it, ignite it, and dance in the light of our flaming bodies? Or would Birender’s silver tongue convince them that we were the victims, turning the mob to pelt the tollbooth collector with stones the size of five-rupee pieces while the khaki-clad cops rested on their beating sticks and watched without expression as he writhed on the floor of his tollbooth and begged for mercy?

  The pantomime continued. The honks grew louder.

  And then, suddenly, the tollbooth collector conceded. Five long minutes after we got there, five rupees magically materialized in his hand, and we were on our way.

  When we arrived home, Birender asked me one last time if I was unhappy. I didn’t respond. I just handed over my fare for the day, plus thirty-five rupees to cover the toll.

  I didn’t expect an apology, and Birender never offered one. The next day, I called for my pickup. Birender sent a driver in an Indica. Things were back to normal. Birender knew that unhappy or not, I wasn’t going to seek a new taxi company. It was far too much trouble to teach a whole new taxi stand to recognize a voice on the other line when it whispered, “This is Mr. David!”

  1. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/a-club-ofhonourable-auto-rickshaw-drivers_100141685.html

  2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3541394.stm

  3. This changed in mid-2010 to Rs 19 for the first two kilometers and Rs 6.50 per kilimeter thereafter. See http://www.delhitraffic police.nic.in/auto-taxi-fare.htm

  4. http://www.nyayabhoomi.org/auto_general/income_expense.htm

  5. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/90-delhi-rickshaws-ingrip-of-automafias-ngo/430333/

  6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7035826.stm

  7. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/delhi/Delhisflyovers-cant-cope-with-rising-traffic/articleshow/4961488.cms

  4

  Culture: The Inscrutable Indians

  It was that sweltering August Saturday, my first afternoon in India. My company’s head of HR, Mahua, had picked me up at the airport, deposited me at my new flat in Greater Kailash-II, bid farewell until Monday, and disappeared into the flow of traffic. Jenny wouldn’t be joining me for eight more days. Aside from the flat’s landlord and its servant, I did not know a single soul in India. I was on my own.

  And it was lunchtime.

  After getting lost, getting sunburned and eventually getting over my fears, I finally found myself in GK-II’s main market with food on my mind and my landlord’s money in my pocket. I took a few laps to evaluate my eating options and decided that Nathu’s Sweets was the least intimidating of the market’s restaurants.

  Intimidating? Yes. I was intimidated by the restaurants.

  I’ve always been nervous walking into a restaurant for the first time in a new country. In Panama, in Egypt, in Vietnam, even in the UK, I’ve always hesitated at the door of the first restaurant of the journey, always afraid I’d commit some terrible faux pas in my ignorance of the local customs, and that the whole restaurant would stop in midchew to laugh at me. It’s a silly fear, and it’s unsubstantiated by any actual experience, but I nevertheless endure it. My mind is always racing as I walk through the door: should I sit and wait for the waiter? Should I order at the counter? Will they be able to understand me? Will I be able to understand the menu? Will I accidentally order something disgusting? Will I accidentally insult them, and if so, will they spit in my food?

  I feigned a casual walk past Nathu’s Sweets a few times, peeking in the window for any behavioral clues. Then I bravely walked in and courageously sat down.

  A waiter handed me a menu. So far, so good. But though the menu was in English script, it was full of Hindi words I didn’t recognize. What if channa meant “rotten turnip”? What if gobi meant “goat anus”? What if aloo meant “spatupon chicken liver”?

  Eventually, I settled on something that sounded exciting, delicious, and unlikely to contain the brains and eyeballs that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom had conditioned me to expect from authentic Indian cuisine. Now my only worry was that I’d do something stupid while I ordered.

  The waiter came over to my table. I swallowed and pointed at the menu. “One ‘south Indian thali,’ please.”

  The waiter cocked his head at me . . . mockingly?

  “Uh, one south Indian thali?”

  “Gee,” said the waiter, who looked about fifteen years old. He cocked his head again, a sharp jerk to the right. A gesture that seemed to drip sarcasm. A gesture that seemed to say, Nice order, asshole.

  What was wrong with my order?

  I looked down at the menu. “And . . . a ‘sweet lime soda.’” He didn’t answer. He just jerked his head again. Sure, his head jerk told me, that’s just what a douche bag like you would order.

  “Uh, a sweet lime soda?”

  “Gee,” he repeated, moving his head in a manner I could only interpret as, Ha! That’s the whitest order I’ve ever heard. He walked away, leaving me wondering what I’d done wrong and exactly how many members of the kitchen staff would spit in my food.

  The food was delicious, fortunately, and free of both goat anus and human spit. I called for my check and paid without incident. But the question of why the waiter had hated me hung over my head as I walked home. And he wasn’t the only one: in many of the subsequent restaurants I’d visit over the next couple of days, the waiters would treat me the same. I’d give my order and they’d jerk their heads as if an epidemic of neck spasms was going around. One thing was for sure: whatever I was doing wrong, at least I was being consistent about it.

  Jenny and I began studying Hindi as soon as we got settled into our Hauz Khas flat. And the more Hindi we learned, the better we could decipher the country around us. Once we discovered that “dil” translates to “heart,” for example, we understood half of the Bollywood song titles that came out. And once we learned a few curse words, I understood what my drivers were saying about me on their mobile phones as they took me to work. (I’ll assume they used “choothia” to mean “heck of a guy” like Michael Jackson used “bad” to mean “good.”)

  To supplement my taxi drivers’ lessons, we took formal Hindi instruction from a tutor named Manoj, a college student studying German and Sp
anish who peppered his Hindi lessons with examples from his other passions. (“Repeat in Hindi,” he’d instruct us. “‘Chancellor Merkel is in the market.’” “Chancellor Merkel market may hay,” we’d intone back, our pronunciation as accurate as my spelling.) Learning the language proved to be physically exhausting for us; I’d end each lesson sweating from the complexities of vocabulary, conjugation, gender variation and word order, never mind the subtleties of semi-silent n’s and rolling r’s and everything else Hindi had to trip us up. With much practice, we grew capable of carrying on grade-school conversations—“Aap guessa hai? Mera naam Dave hai. Market kaha hai?”—that evoked polite indulgence on the part of passers-by before they’d respond to our questions in English. Their English was always far more proficient than our Hindi.

  Strictly speaking, it wasn’t necessary for us to learn Hindi. Enough people spoke English that even if the local tailor couldn’t explain what had happened to the shirt I’d given him to mend, he could easily grab someone off the street who knew the English translatation for the words “lost forever.” But we’re proud we made the effort.

  And we’re delighted to share some key wisdom we learned: that there are three Hindi words that every traveler should know.

  The first word is “chalo.” It means “let’s go,” or “get going.” It’s the imperative form of the verb “to go”—a command that’s conjugated to imply that the speaker respects the status of the person to whom he’s speaking. It’s what polite children say to parents when it’s time to leave for the movie, to drivers when it’s time to hit to road, or to coworkers when it’s time for the meeting to start. “Chalo” signifies that the time for talking has ended, and that now is the time for action. The doctor will see you now. We’ll move forward on that proposal. I’m finished with my meal. Chalo.