A tip from a tipsy driver, and a lot more
Since my childhood, I have loved the company of barbers and drivers as I get a lot of punches out of their conversation, which I use in writing humour and satires. A barber or a paan wala in any nukkad of any small town is a source of multifarious information besides being the only guy ready with the breaking news of the neighbourhood.
Whenever I travel, I always try to sit on the front seat of the bus as the driver never sleeps nor lets you sleep with his continuous stream of anecdotes about passengers and police. This habit of sitting on the front seat almost proved to be my undoing when the driver of a Haryana Roadways bus fixed both his elbows on the steering wheel and tried to light up a beedi while simultaneously overtaking a Punjab Roadways bus on the highway at a high speed. Quite sure about the next destination, I closed my eyes tight and could open them in PGI, Chandigarh, only after a week.
Though our family owns three cars and three bicycles, I prefer the cab for local transportation ever since the app-based private taxi service became popular in town. Driving a car is boring, while cabs on sharing basis are both economical and entertaining. My endeavour remains to meet different people and interact with unusual persons, including drivers, from whom I generally learn a lot.
One day, when I was left alone by the co-passengers midway, the young driver started chatting with me. I responded enthusiastically to whatever he was uttering without any reference to the context.
His non-stop commentary halted abruptly when he noticed a long, haphazard queue of vehicles amid barricades set up by the police. The cops were taking their own sweet time with each vehicle. Then, there were altercations over alco-sensors, alcohol levels, et al. This smart chap calculated that we would reach the destination not before an hour. Switching off the ignition, he started narrating his own experience about one such naka (checkpoint).
He said, “Sir, last week, the police had set up a similar naka on the other side of this road. And I had just taken a peg before starting night duty. Fearing a challan, I rang up my friend to know how to get out of this problem as I could neither reverse nor drive ahead. It was aage kuan, peechey khai (like being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea). My friend told me if I had a water bottle, I could be saved. He suggested I drink the entire bottle immediately and be tensionfree because it would take at least 30 minutes to reach the naka. I borrowed one more bottle from a driver of another cab and consumed that too in one go. And sir, it worked wonders. By the time I reached the breathalyser and blew into the nozzle of the pipe, the device showed my alcohol consumption within permissible levels.”
Disclaimer: I neither drink alcohol nor support this tip.
DRIVING A CAR IS BORING, WHILE CABS ON SHARING BASIS ARE ECONOMICAL AND ENTERTAINING. MY ENDEAVOUR IS TO MEET PEOPLE AND INTERACT WITH DRIVERS FROM WHOM I GET PRACTICAL ADVICE