The other
day I chanced upon an awesomely awesome blog post where they were discussing
about the many benefits of being a man.Though I agree with most of their
points,I believe the most important perk of being one is the freedom to roam around in the city even during the wee
hours of night without actually bothering about the pits of moral turpitude
that the country has fallen into.Well,before you guys start dismissing this
post as pointless rants, let me make a small confession.This write up is neither
going to be an essay on gender inequality nor a commentary on the socio-political
implications of the rising manliness in Indian Men.On the other hand,this post
is about Raja Cheta(obviously name
‘changed’),my childhood friend.During the mid-summer vacations,I used to go
and stay in my grandparent’s place(since
in that pre-FB/PS/Whatzapp/MMS/era,there weren’t much options to kill boredom),
and it was during one of those stays that I first met him.
I was reminded of Raja cheta and my grandpa when I stumbled
across this website a couple of days earlier.(I will talk more about that site
by the end of this post,but I must admit
that it was of great help for me last Saturday when I succesfully made use of
it in finding a commute back to my place from Churchstreet in the middle
of the night.In addition to Cabs in Bangalore,these
'taxi for sure' guys also offer cabs in Hyderabad and New
Delhi and Call taxis in Chennai,I believe)
My
Grandfather was colour blind which made him ‘driving challenged’.So whenever he
wanted to go on a trip with his family (which
mostly happened during my once-in a-year mid summer visits to his place),he
used to call RajaCheta.He had his own
Taxi (an ’88 model white coloured Amby)
and would turn up in front of our house within a couple of minutes like a
dutiful girlfriend who had been anxiously waiting for her boyfriend.It was
quite surprising that RajaCheta had
actually managed to get into my grandpa’s good books for my muthacha was never known for his
amiability(RajaCheta was the 17 th
driver whom he had employed in a span of 5 years!).He used to tell me- “Beta,You have many things to learn from
Raja.He is such a well manneredboy,has no bad habits or greed for money and at
such a young age(the ‘boy’ was somewhere in his early 20 s at that time), he
has even managed to have his own Car”. A conversation like this wouldinvariably
would end in him showering some more praises on the young taxi ‘ówner’not
before me getting a lecture on why he always preferred Raja’s Cab Service to a
random ‘Taxi’ .Muthacha always ‘knew’ Raja’s was the cheapest one which was
available in the town.Thoughhe had never directly told muthacha about the cost
effectiveness of his service,he always managed to get his point conveyed
through his carefully crafted ‘neighbourhood stories’.(like, how his colleague
and fellow taxi driver ‘Vadivel’ lost a regular client when his customer came
to know that he had been overcharging him for quite long).
Grandpa
might have liked Raja for his lack of greed and good manners’ but I adored him
for something else.He had an uncanny knack for telling humorous stories(mostly laced
with innuendo).One of the many traits of Raja cheta which I distinctly remember even today was his peculiar trait
for crappy English songs which accomodated more than legitimate number of ‘baby’ s,’ooohhhhh’ s and ‘love me…’
s in their lyrics.I still don’t know whether it was his genuine love for
gibberish lines or his desperate need to impress his lady love (cheta had a crush on his neighbour’s
daughter Renu at that point of time.Once he had even enlightened me about his
well thought out plan to elope with his majnu to an Archipelago island)
that made him play them in a loop in his ‘Pioneer’ Car stereo all the time.
Things were
going well between Raja and Muthacha and my fears of him getting adopted to our
family were slowly but surely coming dangerously closer to reality with each
passing day.It was around that time,Vasu one of our distant relatives decided
to get married.More than the diplomatic necessity of attending a relative’s
wedding,it was the potentiality of a family outing that made muthacha seek forcheta’sservices.Asusual,hedialled
Raja’s number and was waiting for the arrival of his white Amby on our door
step.The car arrived precisely ten minutes later but instead of a white Amby it was a brown Fiatthis time.Just as grandpa was trying
to make sense of the weird situation,the short-stout Cab driver walked towards
us and spilled the beans.
The Driver-“Sir,I know
you are waiting for Raja...”
Muthacha(still
struggling to hide that ‘betrayed girl friend’ look)- “….?”
The Driver-“Sir,I am
sorry to say that he won’t be able to make it today as he had been taken into
police custody five minutes back for misbehaving with a woman client”
Before he
could complete the sentence,muthacha fainted breaking my grandma’s
beloved potted money plant during the course of his fall.
To this
date,I am not sure whether it was a genuine hypoglycemic attack(as my diabetic grandpa claimed later)or
the mental shock of realizing the true side of his ‘good mannered boy’ which
resulted in my muthacha’sfall.But one thing is sure and crystal clear,neither
he nor his family members (including me)
have met Raja cheta again.
And these
days,when you ask him whether he prefers Raja Cheta or a dedicated random taxi
service for his commutation,he will promptly reply-
“A Taxi for Sure”
Having been in Bangalore for more than a year
now and having fully understood the unpredictability of the auto wallas of the
garden city within this short period of time,I prefer taking cab services for
travels these days.I used to have a regular cabbie but decided to terminate
availing his services after having a bad experience with him.Though I had heard
about this 'taxiforsure' website
before,the thought of utilizing their services never struck me until I was
stranded in Church Street in the middle of night.Thankfully,my mobile still had
charge and I could use it to log into this website to hire a taxi,else I would
have had to walk all the way to Indira Nagar which would have taken atleast 5-6
hours!).The booking experience was quite nice for me and the website loaded
pretty fast without getting crashed/hung in between the transaction.The car
came a couple of minutes after me hiring it through the website and dropped me
at my destination without asking for any extra money or additional 'tip'. I’m
quite satisfied with their services and I would recommend them if you are my
type who prefers a safe,reliable taxi ride to a crowded,sweaty bus travel.
-nikhimenon
