All hail the taxi

The year was 2005 and I, an unsuspecting 18-year-old, had just moved to the big bad city. My accoutrements were a licence with the kind of photo you wouldn’t wish on your nemesis and the scarlet letter L (for loser or Learner, as you deem fit) burnt into the back of my white steed. The world was my oyster, which I, with my Maruti Zen, was going to open.

Driving on the sly since I was 16, ‘Z’ and I had been preparing for the day. Late at night on empty roads, early morning as a potential threat to those running for their health, and volunteering over-eagerly to fetch little things for the house during the day. It felt great, to finally be in control, be a grown-up, to command this marvel of engineering, and have a cliché — ’60s Rock ’n’ Roll cassette blaring, with the windows rolled down, as we fake-smoked menthols. We had made it and we were the cool ones.

But as with all good things… the euphoria started to die down. Slowly one started to dread the daily commute: the honking, the parking, and the unnecessary but compulsory U-turn that made me slower than people reaching college on auto rickshaws.

Plus, the special treatment meted out to women drivers. The all-too-common staring, for starters, becomes more blatant if it is a woman behind the wheel.

Second: The bullying by parking attendants. Yes, I was clearly struggling to parallel park in South Extension market while they huddled around like vultures, saying, “ladies hai ” (it’s a woman).

Third, the internalised misogyny you notice among friends when you recount your driving struggles. They will give you excuses for your failures, “Women make worse drivers not because they aren’t careful but because they are too careful, you know”, or complain when stuck behind another vehicle: “OMG! Will this person ever move? I bet it’s a girl”

Mercifully, the cops are far more lenient with the women, but that comes with the patronising ‘ beta , you shouldn’t be out so late at night, it’s not safe’ advice. Bribing them for minor incursions also becomes awkward. It’s a boy’s club, and you can only chill with them if you don’t look like a “Delhi madam”. If you do, make that a ₹100 extra.

Then came the fateful day on which, on my way back home from the nearby market, a fellow idiot did not use his indicator when turning and this idiot’s brakes were not at their 100 per cent. His car had four scratches. He stopped. We were stopping, I guess. He got out of the car, I did not. “What the… (insert colourful Delhi stock saying).” “Sir, this was not my fault and I am not going to give you any money.” A crowd gathers, as it is wont in the rustic locales of Zamrudpur. We have the drunks, the unemployables, and others joining in, siding with a guy they’ve never set eyes on until five minutes ago. His mother manages to reach the scene. Okay, now I need ammo. Luckily, Father is in town, the call is made. I am holding the dam together, threatening and scorning in equal measure till hotshot lawyer-father comes to my rescue. Cops have reached, his mother starts wailing, “Oh no, let’s solve the matter here, out of concern for the girl. I don’t want her to go to the police station. It’s not a place for our girls. Her life will be ruined.”

Umm, what? Meanwhile, illustrious father has been underwhelming, to say the least. Defused the situation and dispersed the crowd with the promise of paying a round sum of ₹3,000.

Looking back, it was the sensible, deal-with-the-situation kind of thing to do. Back then, though, I was seething at the thought that I had been doing a far better job of holding the hyenas back till daddy dearest arrived and ‘made a deal’ — as clear an admission of my guilt as any. Feeling completely let down that day, I swore that until I could pay for my own mistakes I would not make any. The memory of mob justice endures far more than the severity of the accident.

I gave up Z, my oasis in this new town — convenient shade, makeshift café, spacious locker and air-conditioned haven in the summer of a government college. The decision to stop driving was not one that I made on my own, but it came as welcome relief. The pay-as-you-go lifestyle of millennials, of renting rather than owning, is right up my alley.

There was a time when local taxis charged ₹30 per km, but competing taxi services have made getting around the city a no-hassle, easy-on-the-pocket, no-leasing dream come true. It’s far cheaper, too, than driving your own vehicle. Moreover, I don’t have to abandon a car every 10 years. Smaller carbon footprint and no drunk driving = adarsh citizen.

I am never stuck in jams because the drivers always know some back-alley short-cut. I don’t worry about taking days off to get my car serviced. Odd or even doesn’t faze me. I don’t wait in queues for fuelling. If there is an inescapable jam, I can choose to abandon the taxi and hop on to the metro any time. I don’t have to park in Aurobindo Market and walk down to Hauz Khas Village. Best of all, I don’t fight for parking space. My parking space lies vacant for friends who want to party in the nearby ‘club hub’.

My tyres and spirit are under no threat of being deflated. No petty junior is going to scratch my car with a key (oh! the number of times this has happened), and I sleep peacefully, not worrying that the most expensive thing I own is outside the house, vulnerable to forces and fiends alike. My chariot arrives in under five minutes and I am under no obligation to fix it/ take care of it if something goes wrong. I can just hail another. Of course, there are things to be mindful of — keeping your phone battery charged, for one, and not nodding off in the taxi.

I do not drive because I am against the hegemony of cars on the road.

I do not drive because we deserve a better public transport system.

I do not drive because one less car is more space for bikers and pedestrians.

I do not drive sometimes because a bestie who wants to see me coupled says, “If you drive, how will he drop you home, idiot. Think ahead.”

I do not drive because we deserve clean air.

But most of all, I do not drive because I can’t be arsed.

Shigorika Singh is a Delhi-based journalist

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