Route 1: Lower Parel to Worli @ 1 a.m

The film was a bad one, even though it starred the Big B… well he isn’t guarantee for good cinema… As I sleep walked to find myself a cab, aching to close my eyes on my new lavender pillow, I was aware that I couldn’t have dreamed of taking a cab by myself at this hour in any other city in India… But even then I chose to pick the most elderly looking cab driver… I guess at a subconscious level I always know that mother in Delhi would never approve of this…

This was a night/morning a few days before the elections in Mumbai… and for the sake of keeping myself awake I asked the driver if he votes in the city. I could tell he wasn’t Maharashtrian and I was intrigued to know if the frequent MNS vandalism had had any impact on it’s targets. The driver’s first line was ‘yes, I vote for the Congress since the past 22 years in Bombay.’ My next question was if he belonged to the state. ‘I’ve spent three decades here but I was born in Amethi, you decide whether I belong here or there,’ was his retort.

I sensed this was a touché topic for the gentleman and I decided to give in to the beckoning sleep fairy…But he wasn’t done. Almost as if he was waiting for someone to uncork this conversation, he spoke for the rest of the ride home… with very few interjections.

Ram Suman Pathak ji had come to Mumbai with his chacha in 1980 when he was a 22 year old man. His father had passed away, his brothers had taken charge of the small piece of farm land and he felt that village life could give him no opportunity than farming. The city of dreams lured him as it had his chacha who was already driving a yellow black on the city’s less congested roads. So Pathak ji decided that he would look for work in ‘Bumbai’… his chacha accompanied him from the village where Pathak ji left his wife and a 6 month old boy.

Pathak ji did not know how to drive and so for two years he worked as an office boy at a small electronics shop at Crawford market. He would learn driving in the wee hours of the morning from his chacha, work at the shop during the day and dream of visiting home soon. After the two years Pathak ji made his first trip back home to Amethi. And this time he came back to Bumbai with his toddler and wife. He moved from his chacha’s chawl in Chembur to another one close by.

After another year of doing small jobs, Pathak ji had collected enough money to buy his own second hand cab… and so he did. He got a ration card made with the help of the chawl owner and then got himself listed to vote. Like his entire family in Amethi, he continued to vote for the Indian National Congress but in ‘Bumbai’…

At this point I asked him why?

‘It has taken time but every house in Amethi has electricity today, we get water for irrigation, the women of the family don’t have to fight or walk miles for the daily fill of drinking water, can you say the same for Mumbai?,’ he said. I said probably not. He carried on to tell me about his visit to Amethi two years ago when ‘Rahul baba’ had come down to the village. ‘Rahul baba’ had sat under the neem tree with the panchayat, had the food villagers cooked on the wooden fires and even helped in fixing the pulley of the village well. At night Rahul baba had slept on a charpoy under the same neem tree. The only thing he’d done which wasn’t like the villagers was asked for a mosquito repellant. The next morning Rahul baba had tea with the villagers and then left with the promise to return with solutions to the problems that his constituents faced in Amethi.
So far Pathak ji had been voting for the Congress because his family had been doing so for years, after seeing Rahul baba, it became a conscious decision.

My second interjection was to ask what he thinks of the MNS’ stance of ‘Mumbai for Maharashtrians’. He laughed. I wondered why. He laughed again and after thinking for a minute said ‘They attack helpless cab drivers from the north saying that these jobs should go to maharashtrians. That is how limited their vision is. They want Maharashtrians to be cab drivers.’

I don’t know if it was the sleep or it was the sheer amazement at this man’s thought process, but I couldn’t say a word. I could sense Pathak ji was amused with either his own wit or my lack of reaction. Silence ensued till I reached home. I paid 120 rupees including night charge and Pathak ji drove away with his last line ringing in my ears – ‘Madam ye Bumbai hai, yaha darr ke rehene ka nahi’