Black & Yellow Fever

Whole of India in general and Mumbai in particular is afflicted with this Black & Yellow fever. This malady comes in two forms. One is a three wheeler aka Auto-rickshaw and the other is a four wheeled apparition called Taxi.

The taxi has been around from time immemorial. Though the auto-rickshaw descended upon the Indian roads much later, it has taken over the roads and has almost pushed the taxi to the edge of the road.

Till a few years ago, the taxi driver was an humble, honest, trustworthy and helpful being who made his living through transporting the needy. Here the allusion is towards Mumbai taxi drivers in particular. The exceptions like Billa and Ranga were small enough to be discounted. In general, the taxi was a safe means of transport even for ladies when required to commute alone. This impression was strengthened by films like Dev Anand's "Taxi Driver" which eulogized the taxi driver as a virtuous, sensitive and kind human being.

But things have changed of late. I am not very sure of the reasons of change.

Before I go into the hypothesizing the reasons of the change in the behaviour of the taxi drivers, I shall cite three instances which I was directly involved in and because of which I am writing this piece.

1. I happened to engage a taxi from the Mumbai Central station. In this case, the taxi driver was one of those typical ones, who hang on the platform and /or crowd on the exit and solicit customers directly as they descend from the trains or cajole the coolies to take the customer's luggage to their taxi where after the engaging of their taxis is a fait accompli. In general, I shun such people because they violate the discipline of the queue which used to be the distinctive feature of Mumbai life. By some quirk of fate, I found myself in the taxi. The driver was dressed in the white and was wearing flashy goggles and feigned being a gentleman. After he came on the main road, he stopped the taxi and got out and went somewhere. He returned after some time and resumed driving. I was aghast to find that he had a lighted cigarette pressed between his lips a la Dev Anand and was puffing in style. This is not done; certainly not in Mumbai. I immediately chastised him for the same. He showed his annoyance but extinguished his cigarette. When we reached our destination, I again got a rude shock, when he told me the fare that I was supposed to pay. I realized that I had been duped. The Taxi meter was tampered. And on top of that, he demanded an unfairly large sum as luggage charges. I had a little argument with him and threatened to report him to the traffic authorities. He retorted that he gave a damn to the authorities and was bent upon creating a scene. I paid him off. And did nothing after that.

2. I engaged a taxi from the air port. The driver was a skinny, clumsily clad, famished looking man. He brought us to our destination after patiently wriggling through the traffic jams. I admired the fellow's patience and behaviour. But perhaps I had erred in speaking out of turn. He asked for an amount as fare, which was totally unimaginable. We are regulars on the route and know to the last rupee the amount of fare. When I protested and asked him to show the tariff card, he promptly produced one. I immediately knew that the tariff card was a forged one. Though I must admit that an unwary passenger would be taken in. Again there was argument. At the end of it all, he accepted slightly lesser amount but left cursing me not so silently. I wrote a complaint to traffic police, got the acknowledgement for the same. But ----.

3. Yet another time, I had to engage a taxi from the airport. This time round, I was careful to ask for the tariff card and examined the same before boarding and found it to be in order. In this case, the driver was a young, skinny but rude looking person who had dyed his hair a vulgar red and golden. He looked very much the part of a minor underworld functionary. The moment he started the taxi, he took out his cellphone and started talking to somebody. He continued yapping on the phone while driving in the thick of traffic at an immoderate pace. He seemed to revel in winding through the traffic at undiminished pace while the cellphone was still glued to his ear. The tone and tenor of his conversation smacked of his obstinacy and criminal inclinations. I had a premonition of the trouble ahead. My foreboding came true. First of all, he refused to take the shorter route in spite of my bidding. Then on the way, he narrowly escaped hitting a number of other vehicles. And finally when we reached the destination, he dropped a bombshell by asking for an exorbitant fare. The taxi meter showed a reading which was around 2 1/2 times the usual reading.

I realized that in spite of the precautions I had taken at the time of boarding, this man had pulled a faster one. I recollected that when we were boarding, his taxi meter flag was half turned and he must have put the flag down without making the reading zero. When I pointed out this to him he started showing his true colour. I asked him to take me to the traffic police and promised to pay if the police confirmed that the meter and the reading were correct. He refused to budge. Luckily for me, some other people turned up and a settlement was arrived at. I paid slightly less but even then it was more than the actual valid fare. The stare that the taxi driver gave me was nothing short of a warning that any kind of bodily harm may come my way.
The experience with auto-rickshaws is quite similar. It is an acknowledged fact that auto-rickshaw meters in most places are spiked. It is a small mercy that not all the drivers are rude. But the number of rickshaws, their manoeuvrability and the urge to upstage others is a constant threat on the road.

I am sure that I am not the first one to have this experience nor am I going to be the last one. I am also sure that I have not seen the last of these experiences. They will continue for ever. The process seems to be not only irreversible but unstoppable.

I have paused to mull over the situation to diagnose root causes of the malady.

I suspect that the changes have occurred because of the change in the demographic and cultural maps of the cities particularly the metropolitan cities like Mumbai.
Bhagvad Gita says
adharmabhibhavat krsna
pradusyanti kula-striyah
strisu dustasu varsneya
jayate varna-sankarah.

When irreligion is prominent in the family, O Krishna, the women of the family become corrupt, and from the degradation of womanhood, O descendant of Vrsni, comes unwanted progeny.

Interpreted in sociological context of today, ulterior motives of the anti-social elements and political mafia and their defiance of the social norms and the rule of law symbolises the irreligion alluded to above. Again ‘the women of the family’ stands for the society at large. Therefore the above shloka can be re-interpreted to mean :
‘unchecked and uncontrolled influx of people of widely varying cultural backgrounds and moorings gives rise to corruption, which is both the cause and effect of the lack of accountability and responsibility. It is a vicious circle which leads to general degeneration and degradation of the society. '

Social scientists need to study this phenomenon and attempt to rid the society of this 'Black and Yellow' fever.