Saturday 19th January

Saturday 19^th January

My latest taxi driver story is a bit sad…

I clambered into one of the big maxtaxis recently, and recognised the driver, Rob, immediately.  Last time I had been in his huge vehicle he had only been driving it for a few days and he was quite enthusiastic.  He had been made redundant from an IT job which he liked very much, and he was hoping to find similar job satisfaction driving maxitaxis.

A few months down the track…not so much.  Taxi drivers don’t earn much money at all, and there is a lot of boredom involved, waiting in taxi ranks only to get a small fare, just a few kilometres, just a few dollars.

I said, “Oh I remember you, how are you going?” and he looked very wary.  I told him where I was going, in South Hobart, and he just said, “Mmm hmmm,” noncommittally.  I don’t expect drivers to remember me at all, but they usually do remember the narrow country road we are aiming for.  The old codgers allay, “Oh yes, I used to ride me billycart there when I was a boy!” while the younger ones say, “Cool, man!  And the newly arrived immigrant drivers look terrified as they negotiate the potentially icy bends and the plethora of hoppity wildlife.

Rob warmed up after a bit of chat, and said that he no longer lets people know when remembers where they live, or where they might be going in his taxi.  Recently he picked up a young woman and said, “Hi, how are you, are you going to Boa Vista Road?”  She froze and looked terrified and asked to be let out at the next corner.  Now when she comes up to a taxi rank and sees his cab, she makes a wide detour around it and looks all hunted.  He said, plaintively, “Do I LOOK like a stalker?”  Well yes maybe he does; maybe we all look like potential stalkers!!  Poor Rob…

India #71

We had dinner, our last meal with the Sharmas for a few days, in the rooftop restaurant of our resplendent hotel.  There was a bit of a floorshow.  I think there were two lots of Rajastani dancers.  They have a particular style of dancing which involves lots of twirling around, wearing colourful skirts and balancing an ever-increasing number of pots on the head.  As well as dancing there was a puppet show, done by a man with his two young sons, who gave it all their very best.  We watched and clapped and enthused, and Vish and Mary, good people that they are, bought several beautiful string puppets.  The performers were very happy with us, because we not only applauded, we also put money in their hat.  We were not impressed with some of the other diners who seemed very rude, didn’t watch, didn’t applaud, talked loudly through the performance.  It only went for about ten minutes; they could have been less offensive. 

It actually reminded me of a Tupperware party I went to once about 25 years ago in Margate.  One of my neighbours had only just started selling.  She wasn’t very confident, and decided to try out her skills on the women of Nierinna Road.  About 15 of us gathered and sat around sipping tea and watching her demonstration.  All except for one in our midst, who obviously thought that Tupperware was far beneath her.  She sat with her back turned to poor Sue  telling long stories punctuated with shrieks of laughter.  Because she was such a dominant person in our little community, most people smiled and laughed and listened to her, while Sue held up salad bowls and egg slicers to an unresponsive audience.  I could understand that maybe Tupperware wasn’t to everybody’s taste, but in that case why come at all??  Our rudeperson could just have stayed home with a select group of friends to listen to her stories and laugh loudly; why inflict it on poor Sue?  I felt the same about the puppet show audience; we were well and truly warned that there would be a floor show, and if we hadn’t wanted to watch it, there were lots of other restaurants in Jaipur we could have gone to.