I And My Drivers

I AND MY DRIVERS
I bought my very first car, a green Fiat, forty one years ago at a price of Rs.19,000. Only three brands of cars were available in India at that time; Ambassador, Standard Herald and Fiat. Whereas the first two brands could be picked up straight off the showroom, one had to wait for five to seven years after registration to get a Fiat car; that was the popularity rating of this brand. But since I belonged to a Public Sector Undertaking, I was entitled to the Central Government quota; so for me the waiting time was only three months. I toured half the country with my small family in this car, thanks to LLTC ( Liberalised Leave Travel Concession) which I was entitled to, till I sold it off fifteen years later for Rs.40,000. Parting with this workhorse was painful, but I had to bid adieu to the green beauty as I had to purchase my first Maruti 800 car which was reputed to be having 80% imported components. Mustering Rs.19,000 in early seventies was absolutely back-breaking for me, but paying off Rs.50,000 for the Maruti was not so much of a pain, as I had to arrange only Rs. 5000 extra, having remitted the booking amount of Rs.5000 for the new car some two years earlier.
Driving a new car is always a pleasure. The controls are smooth, the purr of the engine is intoxicating and you feel the motive power of the vehicle at your touch. As my three sons grew up and could handle the family car on their own, there was always a fight amongst them for the driver’s seat. Eventually they all got the driver’s license, and during family outings I could never get to the steering wheel. The distance to the destination was carefully calculated, divided by three, and the three boys would take turn in covering the distance allotted to them to the best of their driving skill. We could never imagine that we will ever need a professional driver to handle the car. In course of time the three of them moved away to their own work destinations, had their own families to look after, possessed their own motor vehicles, and I was left with a car exclusively to myself. And having retired from the steel plant service, I got a new job with a private company at their Works some twenty eight KM away from my house.
Motoring down to work, and then back home fifty six KM every day was fun to start with, but became a pain after a few days. My employers agreed to give me the services of a professional driver, in addition to the free supply of petrol which I was already getting. The driver allotted to me was a young fellow, a daredevil to the core, who considered my Maruti to be much smaller than what it actually was, and used to maneuver it through impossible nooks and corners. I had a feeling that had my car wings, he would have certainly made it fly high up in the air. Average speed of the car used to be 70 KMPH, notwithstanding the usual potholes on the 2-lane road, herds of cattle ambling on the road every 100 yards, pedestrians and cyclists criss-crossing at will and other motorists trying to overtake us even at this speed. I used to keep my eyes closed, with lips uttering a silent prayer all the time the car was in motion. A month of being driven up and down to work broke my spirits and I requested my employers to withdraw their driver, and let me choose one myself. Another one month went off with me self-driving before I managed to get a driver, who approximately fitted my advertised specifications. This chap was an older man, and as a driver, an exact opposite of his predecessor. I think my sixth sense got him by rebound. He was caution personified. Any obstacle or unexpected obstruction on the road will make him bring the car to a complete halt. The horn switch was his favourite control device, and he would take not less than one hour to cover the 28 KM distance to my destination. I would comfortably go to sleep with him on the wheel, and wake up only when he would nudge me at the end of the journey. The arrangement worked admirably well for close to 18 months till I moved to New Delhi to join another firm.
On return to my home and hearth after a two year sojourn to the National Capital, I started my last innings of active service with a local firm. A colleague of mine named Mr. Banerji was living not much far from my house, and to economize on fuel, we formed a car pool. Three days of the week, I would take my car to the work site, and the other three days, his car would be used, driven by his driver, named Surendra. Surendra appeared to me to be a reasonably good driver, but my colleague’s chatter about his driving skill, or rather the lack of it, and about his uncouth habits was endless. “ Again you have come in chappals? How many times I have told you that driving in this footwear is not permitted?” With this, he would just peel off the prohibited footwear from the hapless driver’s feet, and throw these out of the car. Surendra was made to drive the car barefoot, thereafter. After having lost two pairs of chappals, he got the message, and bought a pair of sturdy boots. On way home after duty hours, we quite often took detours to buy fish and Mishti, of which this colleague of mine was very fond. Both these eatables were taboo to me, as I am pure vegetarian and a diabetic. But the compulsions of car-pooling made me tolerate the extra time spent in the car. This arrangement too got unstuck after one year as Mr. Banerji left for Calcutta (now Kolkata) in search of greener pastures. I took pity on the orphaned Surendra, and took him under my wings.
Surendra proved to be a dependable chap, although not much of a skilled driver, and a little deficient in his aural faculty. We discovered this hearing impairment of his soon enough in spite of his concerted efforts to hide it; and then started giving him some leeway to reassure him of his acceptance in our set-up. It occurred to me that most of the criticism he collected from his previous employer was because of Surendra not being able to properly hear his commands, rather than the lack of finesse as a driver. After about two years, I gifted Surendra to my son to assist him in his business, as a jack-of-all-trades. This guy has now become a valued member of his current employer’s team, the Man Friday for the Organization. I do use his services off and on; but he is no longer my personal driver.
I used to feel quite comfortable at the wheel, but my family members were not sharing my self confidence as a driver. Somehow a boy with a driving license was pushed to me for a driving test, on passing of which he could be attached to me as a full time driver. After having a cursory look at his driving license, I handed over the ignition keys to him, and sat next to him to watch how he drives. The car was moving in a zig-zag pattern, which I thought was the result of the fellow still trying to get the hang of the non-familiar controls. Before I could react to the strange movement of the car, he turned the car left, trying to go up an over bridge; when suddenly a motor cycle coming straight on the road in the same direction rammed head-on the right side of my car. The impact of the collision was so intense that the handle of the bike pierced the front door of the car, making a big hole. The bike rider fell on the road. When he got up, I noticed with a profound shock the policeman’s uniform peeping out of his jacket. As a class I am extremely scared of the khaki uniform, leather belt with the brass insignia, and the black cap which adorn this particular species of humanity. The policeman did a limp-walk for my benefit, and uttered a loud “Aah!”, although I was sure that he was not really hurt much. I offered to take him to the doctor’s clinic for the medical attention and get his bike fixed at my cost. He uttered another “Aaaah!!”, louder than before. I produced a red one thousand rupee note from my pocket, and suggested that may be this amount just could cover the cost of his and his bike’s repair. I saw flash of greed and a flicker of smile on his face. His limp vanished and he stood up to his full height with alacrity. He plucked the currency note from my hand, picked up his bike, turned and vanished down the over bridge. I left the prospective driver standing on the road, didn’t tell him a word, and took my car straight to the garage for repairs. The experiment cost me close to ten thousand bucks. With this, I mothballed the idea of having a personal driver, ever.
With the kids having grown up, their needs of moving from place to place have increased. They have to be taken for coaching classes, to their friends for studies and recreation and sometimes to the school, which is quite far away. Besides, a handy-man is needed for various domestic chores which arise from time to time. My son wanted to employ an odd-job-man-cum-driver to meet this demand. No suitable person was available at affordable price, in spite of sustained efforts. However, in late August this year Bhagwan appeared at Bhakta’s door. Ajay Kumar, an experienced driver was hunting for a job, and as he himself revealed, he had visited 25 houses without success. He appeared to be a smart young man, and my son decided to give him a chance. His driving license was verified, a short driving trial taken, and he was asked to report for duty. Again, I was appointed as the official driving-skill inspector, by popular choice. Ajay’s first action as a driver was to check all the CDs lying in the deck-compartment of my car, and take out the only CD with collection of contemporary songs, rest all being CDs of old classical and semi-classical numbers of my choice. He pulled out the MP3 CD of Lata Mangeshkar’s ever-green classics from the deck, threw it on the back seat with disdain, and inserted his chosen CD in the player. I brought down the ear splitting volume of music to a reasonable level, and ordered Ajay to start off the car, and take it to my grandson’s school. I got impressed by his skill at the wheel very soon. He was missing other cars, two-wheelers, pedestrians, bovines, canines and stationary objects by inches, and braking my car hard to make it stop behind the vehicle it was following by a whisker. I could not really see much of his driving feats, as my eyes were mostly shut out of fright. Waiting for the child at the school, I asked Ajay about his antecedents, for we were totally unaware of his bio-data till then. He informed me that he was an orphan, as his parents had died when he was an infant. He was married, and his wife was four months pregnant. He had left his previous job as driver of a school bus, as he did not like the job and particularly, the behavior of his boss. His house is about eleven kilometer from our residence, he informed, and he will have to walk this distance, up and down every day. He has no mobile phone or any other means of communication to remain connected to his sick wife. He is very poor, and just survives eating dry roti and pickles. Within next about ten days we discovered that he was a stark liar, and wanted only to extract from us as much money as possible as advance against his first salary. He had two elder brothers to look after him, he had a good bicycle, two cell-phones, and that he was sacked by his last employer because of irresponsible driving habits. I had by that time paid him Twelve Hundred and Fifty Rupees to let him buy a second hand bicycle, for the treatment of his wife and generally to keep his body and soul together, believing him to be truth incarnate. Meanwhile my car collected testimony of his reckless driving with two dents in the rear; first when he reversed the car without looking back and hitting a parked motor cycle, and second time, braking too hard to avoid a pedestrian while the car following us was not quick enough to stop in time. Things came to a head when he refused my wife’s instructions to water the plants, as he thought this type of work was far below his dignity. Next morning he informed us that he was quitting, as his brother had promised to get him a better paid job; and demanded that we should immediately pay him his arrears. I muttered under my breath, “Good Riddance!” and promptly cleared his accounts.
The present incumbent is named Bunty (not a generic name), and has been employed after lot of tb ( thok-bajao ). He looks to be a safe driver, and an obedient employee. I hope he will last.
I have dwelt on this story in some details to focus at certain precautions to be taken while engaging help for domestic as well as official assignments. I hope my readers will find these of interest, looking to my predicaments as mentioned in preceding paragraphs. These are:
**Never employ a person without references and without scrutinizing his antecedents in depth.
**Don’t entrust your costly assets, your life and that of your near and dear ones to a newcomer without a dry run and sufficient trials in safe environs.
**When the odds are loaded, don’t wait for the second mistake of the incumbent. Take
controls away from him/her immediately.
It is better to be safe than sorry.
Author: S.S.Seth