Most people have a list of their best, most memorable drives. I have no such list.

I have always hit it off with most drivers I have come across. More often than not, drivers are drivers because they like driving and they like cars. That gives us a common interest, a shared passion about most things that move. It is not a surprise then, that I like drivers.

(One must hand it to them for choosing their profession, and choosing to make money from what they enjoy most. Most of us ordinary people do not have such privileges. Or if we do, we don’t have the balls to exercise them. Drivers, then, are an entirely different breed.)

It is only fair then, that I compile a list of the most memorable drivers I have come across. What is not fair is ranking them this way. Telling them, “Hey, you’ve been memorable, but that chap there, he’s been more memorable”. Then again, life’s not fair either. So such it will be.

However, just to make it slightly less unfair, we won’t go 5-4-3-2-1. We’ll go in any random order, and end with So Mot (Number One).

Number 3

Bombay - Pune | April 2006 | Bhai from Mughal Sarai | Tata Indica

I was travelling from Bombay to Pune and I was in a spectacular rush. I had to make it to my destination in two hours. And that included a stop for some chores at Belapur. It was my rotten luck that I landed up in a taxi whose driver had just landed up in Bombay on a train from Mughal Sarai. He had since been taught driving in Bombay’s mean streets. For fifteen minutes. Then a set of keys had been thrown at him, he had been shown the taxi he was to drive, and asked to get a customer to be driven to Pune. We found each other.

His driving ability was suspect. Bombay traffic, merciless as it is, trampled all over him. Autorikshaws walked all over him, and motorcycles refused to acknowledge his presence on the road. On one occasion, a cycle overtook him. In a country where might is right, this was a mighty slap on his face. The most shameful performance any driver could subject himself to.

By Belapur I was fed up with the slow progress, and requested that I take over driving duties. He was shocked. The Seth-naukar relationship came into the picture. I told him I was younger than him, and hence not a Seth (I tried the age-platform of unsuperiority). I told him we were equals, because in a way, I was a driver too (I was working for the magazines then, and the statement wasn’t wayyy off the mark). He gave in, like a frightened hedgehog, unsure of what he was doing. I could have been a Bombay thug who’d drug him on the way, throw him on the highway and run away with his taxi. He took the risk…

…and I took the wheel. It was a battered Indica that had lived past its prime. On the expressway, it took some prodding before it got to 100. It wasn’t used to being driven that fast. Bhai (I don’t know his name, and Bhaiyya seems politically incorrect) told me that Seth had told him to not drive faster than 80; “Average kharaab hota hai..”

I took the liberty of explaining to him, how the faster we went, the less time the engine was on, and hence fuel efficiency actually improved. Soon we were doing 120.

After the ma-baap-bhai-behen bit, conversation steered on to serious topics. How much do you make, who do you work for, why do you work, why don’t you buy your own taxi, the likes. Some rapid calculation later, Bhai figured that Seth was making Rs 25,000 a month from one taxi. Bhai was being paid Rs 2,500. That was downright ridiculous, I told him.

We did some more calculation. One acre of land in the village could be used as collateral for a loan in the city. He could use it to buy a used taxi. Then he’d run the taxi on the Bombay-Pune highway, ferrying people this way and that. He’d recover the money, pay off the loan. Use the existing taxi as collateral, and get another loan. Buy another used taxi, hire a driver and do runs on the Bombay-Pune highway.

Soon he’d have a fleet of taxis. He’d be the Seth, someone else would be the Bhai.

We had reached. There was no time to think of the thorns. There would be, had I driven at 80.

The roses had been smelled, the thorns not tested yet.

Bhai left. He jumped the clutch, the car protested and shut itself off. He tried again, more gentle with the pedal, and this time he was on his way. I don't know what became of him.

Unsurprisingly, I never heard from him again.

A few weeks later, I joined business school. Smelling roses and not being stung was to become a way of life.