The Drivers

Lobo was our driver, chauffeur being too elite a word. He drove us to school and back, and ferried the various tuition teachers to and from the railway station to our house.

That was what he was paid for.

The fringe benefit was spying on us, lucrative only in the thrills he got from reporting everything back to my father, who had left just basic driving instructions. Lobo, however, fancied himself part of the Special Forces of the Indian Secret Service. Every friend we talked to was eyed with distrust. Since we went to an all-girls school, and were not allowed to look at boys outside school, let alone socialize with them, his investigative skills were pretty much unproductive... until we hit the teenage years.

When I reached my teens, my sisters deemed it necessary to include me in their trips to the Astoria Hotel. The Astoria: a name ordinarily invoking images of marbled foyers, snooty receptionists, potted plants and mustachioed doormen at the entrance, and a gleaming Rolls out front. What the Astoria in Churchgate enjoyed instead, was smelly corridors, creaky lifts with no signs of doormen, greenery or even a desk at the reception. Its regular residents were dishdasha-ed, kuffiyeh-ed Arabs, often accompanied by women of dubious repute. Sharing the lift with them, we would keep our eyes on the floor, and with a sigh of relief, get off on the fifth floor and ring the bell at Serena’s Beauty Parlor. Why on earth Serena would choose a joint like this to have an institute de beauté, defies imagination. In any event, both my sisters had been frequenting Serena’s for a few years, before they noticed that their younger sister was showing signs of looking like Bigfoot, with a mustache even Stalin would envy. So to Serena’s I went, emerging a couple of depilatory, painful hours later and considerably several pounds lighter.

What's all this got to do with the driver? Well, this scenario played out monthly, and Lobo always sat waiting for us in the car. He eyed, with intense suspicion, the comings and goings of the risqué residents of the Astoria Hotel and came to nefarious conclusions. He decided it was his duty to report this and back to the Diwankhana it was, for a good dressing-down. Except this time, it was my father, who was embarrassed and cut short the conversation, not wanting to be enlightened as to the esthetic, or any other particularities of womanhood.

My dad’s driver was Jadav, who was, to put it extremely politely, ‘visually challenged’. Any spare time he had, he spent looking in the car’s rearview mirror, checking out his gold teeth, of which he had plenty. Whatever money he had left over from dental expenditure, he spent on his matka vice. Come seven pm, when he had to clock out to make it to the gambling kholi, his persona did a volte face and he would turn into a cantankerous race car driver. He would open up throttle like the Batmobile and hightail it back home at break-neck speed … which was exactly that: risking breaking our necks. No amount of pleas would slow him down. He would screech to a stop in the garage, grab his little cloth bag and sprint for the bus stop. We peeked into the potli once and saw little triangular packets of paan. For someone who had dental problems, you would think he would hold back on the betel nut and tobacco.

Now, before seven pm, he drove at the same speed as a bullock-cart, only much slower. On seeing a green light, he would slam on the brakes. When asked why he would slow down, he would give his gold-capped, toothy grin - a sight that did not make him any more endearing - and say “Abhi laal ho jaye ga!” (It will turn red soon!) Rarely had I seen my dad lose his temper, except for when he was in the car with Jadav. In an apoplectic rage, he would thump his fists down on the seat and shout Chalo! Jaldi chalo! The more exasperated my father got, the more terror-stricken Jadav became, now applying the brake with increasing frequency, until eventually, he would be forced to pull over and my dad would take over the wheel.

Not that Dad was any better. He would insist on driving, irrespective of failing eyesight. My nephew Ashir once told me of an incident with respect to my father’s driving. It was kind of a good news/bad news deal. The bad news was that my dad saw him at the bus stop and offered him a ride. The good news Ashir said, was that he was still alive. He had kept his eyes shut all the way to Colaba. When they were open, he would caution my dad by yelling “Island! Island!” and dad would say “What island?” and up and down they would go, careening over the median. After that, whenever Ashir saw our Fiat approaching the bus stop, he would bend down and pretend to tie his laces. Either way he would lose, he figured. If Jadav was driving, he would miss work, and if my dad drove, he would miss his life.

Years later, with my sisters out of the house and me having learned how to drive, Dad sent Lobo off to be a supervisor at the factory. In India, you can wear many hats. No schooling, no training, no cv, no orientation. One day a driver, the next Construction Supervisor.

When Dad didn’t need him, or he was out of town, Jadav had been given instructions to drive me around, in spite of the driver’s license I waved before him. Emerging from the lift, I would hold out my hand for the keys, and Gold Teeth would throw his head back arrogantly and ask me “Kyu?” Why? he has the gumption to ask me (his memsahib)? I tell him I want to drink the petrol from the tank, grab the keys and order him into the passenger seat. He pales. A fate worse than death, something bound to happen sooner or later, he thinks, given my driving skills. I laugh diabolically, in anticipation of seeing him hunched next to me, right foot pumping on an imaginary brake. With no restraining harness nor the comforting thought of an airbag, both futuristic concepts totally alien at the time, he sits cowering in fear, his hands straight out in front of him, clutching the dashboard. I drive at a marginally demonic speed and make sure I go through every red light (but then doesn’t everybody in Bombay?) and weave in an out of traffic with bumper car efficiency ... a kamikaze madwoman, getting an adrenaline rush playing a game of chicken and using scare tactics, primarily meant for Jadav, but unfortunately including some innocent bystanders.

With these wonderful Indy 500 skills - perfected over eight years - under my belt, it came as a rude shock when I almost failed my driving test in California. I was made to pull over and a visibly shaken instructor decided to pass me (with one mark). This, I suspect was not out of any compassion, but perish the thought, he would be chosen to sit in my car again. I was happy to have passed, but a bit peeved. There really was no need to shout “I don’t care what the fricking signal means in India!”

Plus I should bill the DMV for all the time it took me to get his fingernail marks off the dashboard.