I have four pages of scribbles that I scratched into the Moleskine as the taxi lurched from one end of the city to the other. In Bombay that’s easily three hours. Luckily, I had a taxi man with a story. Unluckily, I can’t read any of it. So all I’m left with is a couple of shots and a paragraph. The rest, like much else, has soaked through the mush of my brain and dripped out, with only a lingering stickiness and a dull dread.
Raja Barwe has driven and fought and sold lives and bought some in the rough underbelly of what some call a city. His father was a flute player and his friends gangsters who trafficked people to the Gulf. He wants to write all of this down and publish a book called Confessions of a Taxi Driver. I’d help him write it if I thought I’d survive the city long enough.
His stories were fantastic enough to wonder if he was making it all up. But no one could possibly rattle off stories like that without a pause. Not even a cab driver from Bombay.
5 Comments
Would he have taken me and Kalia in his taxi? That could have added a chapter for his book project and some hair in his taxi. He has to have strong nerves to do his job through Bombay and that day after day, year after year! What a life to fill a book!
Can I book a ride with the guy? I’m now wondering whether I’d prefer seeing Mumbai through his eyes or through yours…His face on the photo (brilliant shot, once again, mabrouk) is so inviting for discovery… Hmmm… Pinaki’s Bombay suddenly becoming this man’s Mumbai…. Hmmmm….
dear sibelle, yes, i think he would like that very much. but make sure kalia doesn’t behave like a pig and start drooling all over Raja’s rexine upholstery. also, no growling.
Hmmm, long time since you had taken us for a ride… Kalia stopped drooling in other people’s car. Well a growl or two is never bad, and is meant as a communication….
Raja’s eyebrows are unbelievable! great shot