Dilli sheher (the city of Delhi).
Bet you’re thinking about the Delhi metro – the city’s busy and bustling lifeline – crossing the iconic Hanuman murti.
If you lower your gaze a little and focus on the road, you shall find an array of white cars with yellow number plates. These cabs constitute the NCR’s other essential mode of travel, all thanks to apps like Ola and Uber.
From one of these cabs, a popular Punjabi song can be heard playing. The cab driver switches the channel on the radio and a romantic Bollywood number pipes in.
He says to the man sitting in the backseat, “Sir, aap tension mat lo! Meri cab main koi bore nahi hota” [“Sir, don’t you worry! Nobody gets bored in my cab”].
And just like that, the cab driver becomes your DJ for the day!
Being a DJ is among the many unacknowledged jobs that cab drivers do for you. Here’s looking at some of them.
Best Advice Ever!
Remember the time you had an awful day at work and just wanted to rant about it to a friend? Sadly, nobody was available because we’re all busy adults with full-time jobs and a bubbling existential crisis.
Or when you had a huge fight with your partner, jumped into a cab, and had no idea where you wanted to go.
In these moments and many similar ones, cab drivers have often been patient listeners and advisers.
The best advice that a cab driver has given to me is, “Madam, life is like this only!” Sometimes that’s all you need to hear, you know.
Recommendations for the Famished Soul
This one time, a friend and I were returning from the airport after a rather bumpy touch down in Delhi. We were famished but couldn’t agree on a restaurant.
That’s when our cab driver came to our rescue. He dropped us off at a restaurant saying, “My wife and I ate here last week, they have the best biryani in all of Delhi!”
The biryani was, as expected, delicious. From that day on, I made a habit out of asking cab drivers for food recommendations.
Let me tell you, they have better food recommendations than your favourite food bloggers, for they know the heart and soul of the city, including its rather diverse taste buds.
More Jokes, Please
From ‘yeh bik gayi hai gormint’ [this government is a sellout] to lengthy discussions about the rising petrol prices, I’ve heard it all. Cab drivers are often your one-stop source of news and opinions – but that’s not the best bit.
Cab drivers also have a pitara full of jokes, especially about political leaders.
Some cab drivers are great stand-up (or sit-down?) comics. If you’re lucky, you may find someone who can deliver dialogues in multiple voices from Sunny Deol to Arvind Kejriwal.
Nothing like a good joke to distract you from your monotonous routine, right?
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows all the time and cab rides can get a tad bit irritating, but thank God gaddis (cars) in Delhi often run more on people’s goodwill than on fuel.
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