Me and my Drivers

After hiring the 11^th driver within last seven years, I decided that it is high time to chronicle my experience for posterity lest I forget the details. Strictly speaking it should be 12^th in sequence, if I consider two phases of employment of the same person as unique, but I have not done so. I am not even counting those who drove me to the office and left me with the keys in my hand, to drive back myself, if I wished to. Before you start forming an opinion about me as a monstrous employer - I hurriedly state that my cook has been with me for 19 years, gardener for 10 years and a multi-purpose handy-man for 15 years. In case you ask of what help the chronicle would be to posterity, I will simply say that I stand here to offer some solace and companionship to the tortured souls who are forced to repeatedly go through the rigmarole of interviewing, hiring, checking the backgrounds, and finally giving in to the vagaries of this special category of people who have taken up driving in Delhi and Gurgaon as their living - only to be deserted suddenly without as much as an "excuse me please".

My story was not really so pathetic to start with. I was quite happy and content to drive myself in and around IIT Delhi Campus in my first car, a very feminine, robust, a misty-lilac colored Maruti Alto - VX2 so long as it did not involve negotiating the mad rush of NH 8 - through which half of Delhi’s population goes to Gurgaon and an equal portion of Gurgaon’s population comes over to Delhi for work.  Those were happy days. Though the unique color of my car ensured that all my colleagues and students exactly knew when I was coming to or leaving office, I did not mind. Heard from a colleague, who over-heard a group of students discussing my car among them as follows - “Looks like Sir and Ma’am had a fight over the color. Sir must have said Blue while Ma’am wanted Red. Thus they mixed both.” Needless to say many of our students were common and this discussion later revealed to me what they thought about both of us.

The misty-lilac car did not go very well with my first two drivers, who stayed with me for 4 and 1.5 months respectively. The first one was unhappy but not very aggressive. He was unhappy to come at 8 am in the morning every day. A row about Diwali extras and before I could even make up my mind whether to give in to his demands or not, he was gone.  The second one, who took pride in driving a truck in the interiors of Haryana, prior to joining me, was genuinely offended by the pink beauty and broke the gear lock within a month. I bore the loss with a smile and changed it only to be informed by him the next day that he had secured another job as a truck-driver at some other remote part of Haryrana.

The next one in line - let us call him M, was a cute little guy who, I was told by the introducer, was a Commerce graduate and pursuing a Computer Course. It was mandatory to fill up a form for an I-Card to gain entry and park at our office building. Unlike my earlier drivers, M offered to fill it up himself. I was awe-struck by his hand-writing. Impeccable and neat - he was one graduate who justified his degree. However, my reverie was short-lived. One morning, M arrived late. When questioned, he simply resigned and left. He had served me for exactly three months.

The fourth one was God-sent or rather sent by M to replace him. He introduced himself as a native of Panipat, where M and he were apparently neighbors. He was also a cute little guy, but with no clue of driving or road sense. Though occasionally shoved to the navigator seat by my husband, who would simply become impatient if he happened to be in the car, he stayed.      

But all cute guys somehow mysteriously vanish from my life and this guy was no exception, though by this time he had become my longest serving driver with a little over a year to his credit. Thankfully nature abhors vacuum. So in came a guy with many references from neighbors' drivers. Here was a strapping guy - who was extremely humble and polite. Though I had trouble in correlating the appearance and behavior - I went by the references. The challenge with this guy was I would never find him near the car when it was time to come back home. Repeated phone calls later - he would materialize from somewhere - with absolutely no excuses to offer to my severe rebukes - just holding the door open for me very politely - thus shutting me up.  The situation became clear about two months later - when a security guard complained that he drank heavily and got into fights with them whenever I was not there. Only now I could understand his compulsion to not speak or retort. Of course this time I was the one who decided he had to go.

At this juncture M resurfaced again stating that his ventures in Panipat, whatever they were, did not turn out to be very successful, so he was willing to drive me around once again. Of course, he was reinstated without a second query. M was just too good. Friendly with my son, ever-obliging to my husband -  punctual and suave  - life was a dream, which lasted for about a year. Taking short breaks, ostensibly for Dadima’s precarious condition was one of M’s latest habits. Given my load at work and home, I could not remember Dadima’s medical history to great details. But when he vanished for a second time within two months, I sat back to think hard and realized Dadima had been in the death-bed four times and died twice within the last six months. Also, I remembered that the day before vanishing, M had been quarreling with a girl over phone for almost ¾ of the journey. I was not exactly eaves-dropping, but could not help notice the shrill voice that came through the phone and M’s anguish was also quite palpable. Well, M never came back. He did ring me up about a year later, to say that he had married and had to leave urgently for some inexplicable reason. He also mentioned the 2500/- he had borrowed from me just before leaving. I said he could keep it as a gift. And the chapter was closed.

Thus followed a period of one year in which I had four people driving me around. One of them for two days and another for five. Quite exasperated with the situation, my husband decided to step in and conduct an interview session for the next one who came. A short, thin Bengali fellow brimming with self-confidence was not one to be cowed down by anyone. So when my husband asked him in his deep baritone voice - “What are the models of cars that you have driven earlier?” pat came the reply - “To be truthful, I have never had the chance to drive a BMW or a Mercedes. Other than that I have driven every other model you see. What is yours?” “Alto - not mine, Madam’s”, quipped in my husband. This guy later confessed to me that he was from a traditional barber community. His heart and soul was in shaving and grooming men. He drove only to survive in this big bad world. Obviously he could not continue against his nature for long and left for home to pick up his family profession.

After another short ordeal with a very sweet-natured but hot-headed Haryanvi, who banged my cute little Alto into all kinds of vehicles, for the simple reason that they had dared to overtake our car, in came my longest surviving driver, another Bong fellow. He served me for three years. The major reasons for this long-service record could be attributed to the facts that he did not know the Delhi roads, did not know how to interpret road signals, did not know how to read or write - thus drove without any clue - simply following the instructions issued by the back-seat driver. This led to quite a few bangs - mostly from behind, but usually ended with my acceptance of fate, even though not exactly with a smiley face. The fact that I stuck to the car and the driver apparently was a point of discussion even among my son's friends - who would often be driven home from school in the pink Alto much against his wish. 

At last the car revolted and it was time to change the battered Alto. The driver was not happy with the new car. He preferred the small car. He did drive around for some more time but then three years seemed to have gotten on our nerves. Both of us were looking for new opportunities. We decided to part ways.

And thus begins a new journey with yet another new driver.