Thursday, May 6, 2010

Of Cab Drivers

You know how, in movies and music videos, cab drivers are always friendly? Well, that’s what’s on my mind right now. In the video of Dido’s song ‘Let’s do the things we normally do’ the cab driver in question is a woman (ka-ching!) and not just any woman but Shahana Goswami (once again, ka-ching!). She happens to be a witness to the lives of all her passengers. When one of them gets a call confirming a job that he had applied for, Miss Goswami joins him in a little jig of joy on the beach. In another instance of cab-driver-friendliness she leads an old woman into a coffee shop whose trail is littered with memories.

In the movie ‘Bong Connection’ Parambrata Chatterjee – the latest Sector V employee to be shipped off to ‘Aamerika’ – befriends a Bangladeshi cab driver who, despite being an illegal immigrant, gets to sleep with a bevy of gorgeous women. His story is supposed to be heart-breaking…He’s always on the run from the cops and all he really wants to do is earn a living ‘honestly’ so that he can go back to Bangladesh and see his daughter again.

But in real life cab drivers aren’t anything like that. They never tell you that life is a loom. They only play stupid bilingual Punjabi-English rap numbers when you’re desperately unhappy, dying to get home and take a hot shower and craving for some time to be alone with your thoughts on the way. It just breaks my heart.

1 comment:

  1. You have japanese comment on entry!!! How cool is that!!! =D

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