“THE TAXI DRIVER”
- Karthar Singh Duggal
“These damned rich!”
exclaimed Dittu contemptuously. As he parked his taxi opposite his kholi, he
noticed a wallet lying on the back seat bulging with currency notes. Evidently
it belonged to some passenger. Rather than feel happy about it - it was a
windfall - Dittu felt frightfully uneasy. What should he do with it? It was
already late in the evening. He had been plying his taxi throughout the length
and breadth of the town the whole day. His last passenger he had picked him up
on the roadside and dropped him at the railway station. Where could he look for
the owner of the purse?
Dittu was convinced that
money found like this was always accused. He had already suffered once. Some
hussy had forgotten her attaché - case in his taxi. They hardly have their wits
about them. These moneyed people. Every article in the attaché - case was like
the plague. It was then that his wife contacted leukoderma. She put on someone
else’s blouse and sari. The stupid woman! And was afflicted with the incurable
malady.
For a long time
thereafter, whosoever engaged his taxi, Dittu would first ask the name and
address of the passenger. People thought that the Sikh taxi driver was crazy.
Dittu explained to them, “You rich folk are most careless. You may leave
something behind in the taxi. And then it becomes a problem for the poor taxi
driver. He can neither return it nor retain it.”
Dittu had to give up this
practice because every time he asked this question, the passengers would start
arguing with him. And today it had happened again. Now if only he knew the name
and address of the passengers, he could have gone and returned the purse and
have done with it.
Whenever he saw the white
blotches on his wife’s face, he told himself, “I will never have anything to do
with what doesn’t belong to me,”
With someone else’s
wallet in his hand today. Dittu remembered an incident that had taken place
several years ago in the main bazaar of their home town back in Pakistan. He
was then not Dittu, the refugee: he was young Hardit Singh, son of well to do
parents. He had just finished his matriculation examination. One evening when
he was passing through the bazaar on his bicycle, he saw a parcel lying in the
middle of the road. He got down from the bicycle and picked it up. It was
properly sealed. It was also fairly heavy. He looked around. The traffic in the
bazaar seemed endless. The shopkeepers were preoccupied with their customer.
Nobody seemed to have noticed him. Without giving it any thought. Dittu put his
feet on the pedal and rode out of the bazaar with the parcel. At the very first
opportunity, he stopped in a secluded corner and started to open the parcel -
one layer of the packing paper, another, still another, and then layer after
layer. It looked as though someone had played a trick. The parcel was so many
layers of packing paper, and nothing else. The shopkeepers who are maligned day
in and day out were obviously testing the honesty of the common citizens. And
Dittu felt he had blackened his face. He felt like a bewitched hen. Every bit
of his body seemed to be disintegrating. Some shopkeeper had made a fool of
him. He ought to have handed over the parcel to one of the shopkeepers around.
The one who had supposedly lost it would have come looking for it and the
shopkeeper could have restored it to him. On the contrary, Dittu had picked it
up and hurried out of the bazaar riding his cycle.
It was a godsend for him
that the country was partitioned soon after and they had to leave their home
town, otherwise Dittu would never have been able to pass through that bazaar
again.
A similar problem
confronted him today. For a moment he thought he would leave the wallet as it
was on the back seat, but then that would be stupid. His little son would come
to clean the car the first thing in the morning. What would he think? Besides,
he himself would be driving the taxi all through the day. How could he let a
stranger’s wallet lie unclaimed like that? It was like inviting someone to
pocket it.
Lost in thought, Dittu
walked into his kholi, Banti was waiting for him, which as a devoted wife she
did every evening. Finding the wallet in Dittu’s hands, she pounced and in the
twinkling of an eye she snatched it from him. She could guess from the
predicament writ large on her husband’s face that the wallet had been left
behind by someone in the taxi. Her husband had never had any use for a wallet.
Whatever he earned he shoved it into his pocket. On returning home, he emptied
it for his wife who started sorting it out, currency notes on one side and
coins on the other.
“Didn’t I tell you it’s
not wise to keep money in a wallet? If the wallet is lost, all the money goes.”
“But who’s the blessed
one that has left it in our taxi?” asked his jubilant wife. If Dittu only knew
it, he would have long gone back and restored it to him.
“Banti, we should have
nothing to do with other people’s money.” Dittu told his wife.
There was agony on his
face. He knew his wife wouldn’t listen to him.
She never listened to him
in such matters.
“Who said I am going to
have anything to do with it? I’ll pass it on to the creditors who keep on
pestering me,” said Banti casually.
“She is an impossible
woman!” Dittu muttered to himself. “What is wrong with it?”
Banti had heard him curse
her.
“Is this hole of a room a
place fit to live in? Dark and dingy. How long are we going to languish here?
Not many days and my son would be school going age. The daughter is now small
but girls hardly take any time to grow up. Our neighbour started worrying about
the dowry immediately after she delivered a baby girl. Everyone says the only
remedy for my wretched ailment is good wholesome food.”
“I agree but why must we
think all this now - with money that doesn’t belong to us?”
“How does it not belong
to us? It’s our own money. We haven’t gone and robbed anyone. Someone left his
purse in our taxi: are we expected to throw it away?”
“Stop it, stop this
nonsense,” Dittu was trying to turn deaf.
“What’s nonsense about
it”, shouted back Banti, “Does anyone ever lose his honest earnings? Had it
been hard - earned money, do you think he would be so casual about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the fellow lost
his money the way he got it. It was our good luck that we found it.”
“Rubbish I’ll not allow you
to touch the money that doesn’t belong to us.” “May I know what you are going
to do with the wallet?” “I’ll offer it to a deity.”
“Deities are looked after
by cheats - the pujaris.” “I’ll give it to some needy person.”
“Who is needier than us?”
“Banti, I ask you not to
have anything to do with the money that doesn’t belong to us.”
“If I do...”
“I’ll skin you alive,”
Dittu shouted. He had never been so rude to his wife before.
Fearing that he might
lose his temper again, Dittu got into bed and went to sleep.
Dittu had not slept for
long when he started having bad dreams. He dreamt that he had hardly left his
house in his taxi in the morning when the sentry on duty on the main road
challenged him for no fault of his. He begged him to forgive him, again and
again, but he wouldn’t listen to him. When Dittu tried to touch his feet, the
wretched policeman gave him a kick in his belly. He arrived at the taxi stand,
as usual, long before the other, and yet no one turned up to engage him. He
waited and waited, all day, eventually, tired of waiting; he pulled out his
taxi and went out looking for a passenger on the road. He had hardly gone a
kilometre when a military truck speeding headlong rammed into his taxi crushing
the car and killing the driver instantly.
Dittu woke up from his
sleep. He was perspiring profusely. Banti was fast asleep in her bed; she had
the wallet held firmly to her bosom. Dittu tried to snatch it from her. She
woke up suddenly and grappled with her husband. In the struggle, Dittu lost his
patience and smacked Banti on her face. Banti gave a loud shriek. Dittu gave
her another blow.
Such scuffles were not
unusual in the quarters Dittu lived in. Taxi drivers were used to such scenes.
While none of the neighbours bothered about it, their son Gullu woke up.
Rubbing his eyes, he rushed to his mother. She was hurling filthy abuse at his
father.
Dittu felt ashamed of
himself. He should not have behaved the way he did. He had never lost his
temper like that in his life. In utter remorse, he slipped into his bed and
covered his face with the blanket.
“Why did Bapu hit you,
Ma?” Gullu asked his mother. Banti didn’t reply.
“It doesn’t matter,
child. Husbands sometimes beat their wives. “Banti tried to explain to her son.
And then, as if nothing
unusual had happened, taking her son into her arms, Banti put out the lantern
and went back to bed. A little later she got up again. Lighting the lantern,
she started counting the currency notes in the wallet Dittu had found. She
counted out the notes for long. Then she called out to her son who was still
struggling to go to sleep.
“Gullu, have you ever
seen a hundred rupee note?”
“No, Ma.”
“Gullu, have you ever
seen a fifty rupee note?”
“Gullu have you ever seen
a twenty rupee note?”
“No, Ma.”
“Gullu, have you ever
seen ...”
And then she found that
Gullu too had gone off to sleep, just like her taxi driver husband, fast asleep
in his bed across the room.
© Source: https://www.bcu.ac.in/documents/text%20book/English/I%20Sem/Confluence-I-%20Additional%20English-UG.pdf
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