In the most impossible of traffic gridlocks — horns blaring, headlights flashing and no one inching any closer to their homes on Delhi’s jammed roads, with the extremely real possibility of raging tempers resorting to violence — my driver turns to me and says, “Sir, I have to use the bathroom!” Perhaps he is just scatologically challenged. His references to how cold it is are calculated by the temperature of water in the taps. “After bathroom,” he begins by way of greeting, “when I was washing my hands, the water was very cold,” assessing it at “around nine degrees today”. When I upbraid him for failing to respond to mobile phone summons to bring the car around, he retorts sullenly, “I had gone to the bathroom,” which might just be possible for he has been unable to hide his enthusiasm for the loos in the luxury mall where I have recently been spending at least a part of my working day. “Italian marble,” he sighed the first time he experienced such hedonism, “imported tiles, just the kind I would like to have in my drawing room some day.” No doubt, to remind him of his favourite bathroom…
In any case, he’s less driver than chauffeur, a role he’s promoted himself to with great elan. Every day, it falls to me to provide him with his choice of newspapers to read while he waits in the car; he doesn’t like my daughter to switch on the radio while he’s chauffeuring, nor speak overtly on our mobiles, as a result of which we end up whispering almost covertly instead of talking into the instrument. And any implied criticism earns a psychological reproach. Reprimanded by me for being in the wrong lane one day, he parked the car to one side, turned to my wife and said, “Madam, I am very upset, I have had a fight with my wife,” at which she made soothing noises, and we were able to carry on to our destination, but amidst silence. So, even though he might choose the longest route to a destination, or drive like he’s on the Grand Prix and not Delhi’s potholed roads, we bite back any comments for fear of being held up to his wife’s shenanigans. Besides, he might just want to go to the bathroom again…
He’s also a stickler for time, reporting off-duty by the clock. Delayed by 15 minutes one day, he reported with a long face the next. “I was mugged on the way, my watch taken from me,” he said in sepulchral tones, “it happens every time I’m late.” I hastily found him a replacement watch, but that evening I was unfortunately delayed again, and just as surely he was “mugged” too, losing, he said with a sense of satisfaction, his mobile phone, which proved more costly for me than for him.
He doesn’t mind going off-duty in whichever part of Delhi we happen to be, as long as he is compensated for his transport home, though he won’t settle for a ride by either bus or metro. The last time I was delayed in office, his duty hours ran out while driving home. He steered the car to a slip road, shut it, got out and stood there quietly. I knew what was coming, but I was loath to pay for him to go home by taxi, while I drove to mine. “Get in the back,” I said, “I’m driving.” And so, roles reversed, I took the wheel, with my driver in the back seat. “Please sir,” he said, “I hope you will drive fast, I have to go to the bathroom.” And so, taking a detour, I dropped my driver off at his house before making my own way back home.
