“Aiyyo saar, your phone costs more than my entire year’s salary!” he said, without an iota of jealousy or shame. In fact, he was clearly awestruck and actually happy for me!
I was in the top league of creative directors in the country, and I was flying high with the knowledge that I was one of the highest-paid professionals in my business back then. Then this incident in Chennai happened, when a taxi driver brought me down to earth. And I will be ever so grateful to him for doing that.
It was early in June 2005, and I was on a day trip to Chennai, to preview a new car that was going to be launched by my Client in a couple of months. My team had been briefed on the advertising campaign, and I was visiting the Client’s factory in Sriperumbudur to get a first-hand feel of the car.
I had taken an early morning Jet Airways flight to Chennai, and had hired a car to take me to the factory and back to the airport by the end of the day. I wanted to catch a flight back to my home and bed in Gurgaon the same night.
But when I signed in at the factory and asked to meet the main guy in charge of the new car, I was told he had taken “casual leave” that day. So, there was no chance for me to test drive the car, I was told by the factory staff, but I could take a look and a few photographs of the car instead.
This is not what I was expecting, and since I had flown all the way from Delhi to Chennai for the sole purpose of driving the car, I expressed my displeasure with the underlings present, and made it known in no uncertain terms that the missing employee would face the consequences of his casual attitude!
After I inspected the stationary car, I decided to rush back to Chennai airport and grab an earlier flight back home. So, I signed myself out of the factory and went looking for my car and driver in the factory’s parking lot.
As I reached the factory parking lot and stood looking around in the muggy June sun, I realized that my driver and car were nowhere to be seen!
I took out my cellphone and tried to call my driver. But his number was unreachable, and I was now getting quite irritable.
I must have been visibly annoyed, because suddenly a guy dressed in a white shirt and pants just like my own local driver’s uniform, appeared next to me and asked with a smile “What happened Saar? Problem? You are looking for car?”
Having lived the last decade of my life in north India, my first reaction was one of suspicion. I looked at him stonily and didn’t speak. Instead, went on half looking through him and half daring him to continue speaking with me…
But his smile didn’t waver, and he continued “White Hyundai Accent car, saar? Driver left half an hour back I think saar” he added with confident empathy for me and my missing car and driver.
Still ignoring him, I hit redial on my cellphone and put it up to my ear. I also noticed that the guy had now noticed my cellphone and wasn’t taking his surprised eyes off it.
My driver’s phone was still not reachable, so I clicked on call-end, and put my phone back into my pocket. As soon as it disappeared from sight, the guy in front of me pulled out his phone from his pocket and said “Saar use my phone… you have roaming na? Roaming network not good. I have a local number, call easy to your driver, and cheap!” he added.
His never wavering smile was now getting to me, as was my desperation to reach my driver. I wasn’t about to touch his cheap mass-market cellphone as I wasn’t sure where all it had been and whether he washed his hands before touching it after…
So grudgingly I said to the man, “I will give you the number, you call my driver”. The man was now very happy that I was taking his help, and with an even bigger smile, entered my driver’s phone number as I read it out aloud from the duty slip I had with me.
Interestingly, the call went through and I heard him speak to my driver excitedly “Hello, Anna! Your saar is here, airport return go vendum” He then paused to hear my driver respond, and then again he responded to my driver, this time in Tamil. The two exchanged a few more sentences, and then this guy hung up the call with a flourish, and turned to me, still smiling “Saar driver gone for tiffin. He thinking you exit factory 3 pm. Now is 12 pm, so you early. But he coming back. Will take half hour here return. You wait please.”
Relieved, but still annoyed, I half-smiled at this guy and wondered if I should offer him some money. After all, cellphone calls were quite expensive back then. So, I took out my wallet and said to the guy “How much for the phone call?”
His smiling face now changed to dramatic expressions surprise and embarrassment. “No-no, saar!!” he said “No money. You no pay. No problem! You come sit in my car and wait for your car”
Now this further surprised me. But then I realized this is south India. If it was Delhi, or Gurgaon, the guy would have definitely taken the money, after saying “arrey sirji… sharminda kar rahe ho… lekin aapko mana kaise kar sakte hain… jo aapko khushi ho, woh de doh…”
But this guy in front of me was now walking toward a white Ambassador taxi parked near a green patch under a tree, and I found myself following him. My sense that he was another driver turned out to be true, as he rushed ahead and pulled open the back door, and reached in to retrieve a hand towel, which he then used to vigorously dust and clean the back seat. When he was satisfied with his effort, he leaned back and invited me to sit inside the car “welcome saar, inside sit you…” he added in staccato English that was common among semi-literate Indians across the country.
I hesitated for a moment, looking at the taxi standing simmering in the hot summer sun. At the same time, I remembered the long signing and security process I’d have to go through to re-enter the airconditioned factory I’d just visited. If it was only half an hour, I could surely wait.
Now as you read this, most of you who know me today, would find most of my thoughts and behaviour described so far, to be quite surprising and unlike me.
But those who were around me back then, wouldn’t be surprised with me throwing my weight around in the Client’s factory; being disturbed by the heat, being suspicious of a friendly face; or of me being classist with the taxi driver by commenting on his phone and his way of speaking.
But that was me back then. The rush of success (?) had gone to my head, and the job I was in had made me arrogant and insensitive to ridiculous extents.
But then there I was, sitting in the hot Ambassador taxi, with all its doors opened now, as the taxi driver explained that the cross-circulation of air would keep the car and me cool. I was lost in my own thoughts of hoping that my car got back sooner than later, when suddenly the taxi driver popped up beside me saying “Saar, come have tiffin” and then he pointed toward the lone tree in the parking lot. Under it, he had laid out a small sheet of cloth, and had placed a stainless-steel tiffin box on it… “home food” he added with pride and waved me toward it.
Now what would be a lovely, welcome invitation for me today, was a very awkward and challenging situation for me back then.
Taking up the taxi driver’s offer to sit perspiring in a hot car was bad enough for me, now he expected me to sit with him under a tree and eat god knows what!? I imagined getting sand on my clothes from the exposed parking lot, and a stomach infection from the origin-suspect food he was offering.
Yet some unforeseen force propelled me out of the Ambassador, and I found myself sitting on the sheet of cloth under the tree, as the guy opened the three-tiered tiffin box with great flourish, and held out a bottle of water for me to wash my hands and take a sip.
I felt the sun-warmed water run over my fingers and I squirmed and resisted taking a sip from the bottle even though my throat was quite parched by now.
As I sat there the guy set aside a portion of rice and sambar on one of the tiffin’s lids, and beckoned that I should dig into it, with a spoon that he wiped on his shirt and offered me.
“Not hungry, thanks…” I said but took the spoon from him and held it with my fingertips, with no intention of using it, or eating the food in front of me.
Oblivious of what was going through my head, the taxi driver started eating the food himself, with great relish, and he started telling me about his wife, who he told me proudly, had made this food for him before he left home at 7 in the morning. She’s a great cook and a wonderful mother, even though she’s not educated, he told me.
They had two daughters, one was five, the other was two years old he said with happiness clearly evident on his face. He spoke of the elder girl’s first days at school which she’d just started, and how the younger one loved listening to his wife sing. He spoke of how he worked from 7 in the morning every day, until at least 9 at night, six days a week. He said he’s saving up to build his own home, back in his village in interior Tamil Nadu.
Despite the fact that he’s like a daily wager, he said he always takes Sunday off to spend time with his family at Marina Beach, because his wife loves it there.
As he twittered on happily about his family and his life, I realized I was no longer feeling hot. In fact, the breeze that wafted past under the tree was quite cool, and the grass below the sheet was soft and comfortable.
I suddenly remembered that I used to love sitting under trees and walking barefoot on grass, right up to the time I started work in 1989. I reached out and grasped a few strands of grass beside me and experienced a long-forgotten, yet happily familiar feeling of cool and moist soil laced with grass and roots under my fingers.
Suddenly, a rush of memories filled my head and heart, of the many hours and days I spent during summers like this, under, or on the branches of trees. As I sat there, I realized I could hear the delightful sound of swaying tree branches, and of wind mingling with the grass and tossing dry leaves across the road.
I looked around and spotted a bunch of dried leaves drifting past me, making light crispy scraping sounds as they bounced along the tarred surface of the parking lot.
And it dawned on me that I was actually feeling very calm and relaxed, sitting under the tree, and listening to a stranger talk about his very ordinary, yet seemingly very happy life.
Then my phone rang. It was my driver calling to say he was nearby and will be at the factory parking lot gate in ten minutes.
The taxi driver in front of me now eyed my phone unashamedly, and the familiarity he felt sitting with me under a tree emboldened him to say “Saar… Samsung D500 no? World’s best phone, yes? Please can I see please?”
I was taken aback by him quoting the tagline of this latest model of Samsung mobile phone. Then I remembered it was the headline on billboards advertising this phone all across the country, including Chennai.
I handed him my phone and couldn’t resist asking him “how do you know?” because I too had contributed to the strategy and creatives to sell what was then the most advanced mobile phone in the world.
“They are saying in TV film saar, also hoardings everywhere… world’s best phone!” he said as he turned the phone over and around in his hands, like a child holding his favourite toy, with a lot of love and pride. Hearing this was music to my ears. Along with it I got a really good feeling in my mouth and stomach, which confused me, until I realized that while the guy was admiring my phone, I had unconsciously mouthed a spoonful of rice and sambar from the portion he’d set aside for me. And it was delicious!
“How much this phone cost, Saar?” the guy then asked me, and suddenly I was at a loss for words, and the old and real Nosh I was, emerged through the haze of the delusions of grandeur I’d been clouded in for many years now.
I realized among all the things about his life that he’d rambled on to me, he had proudly mentioned that he earned approximately sixteen thousand rupees in a year. I also realized I couldn’t tell him that I paid more than twice his annual salary, for the mobile phone he was now holding in his hands.
The huge disparity in our income and lives was right there in front of us, and I felt ashamed to tell him that I had spent thirty-six thousand rupees on a phone that I would change in six months, for something more expensive.
He looked at me expectantly, waiting to hear the answer to his question. In a flash, I decided to lie to him “twenty thousand” I mumbled, and then lied again “but I didn’t buy it, my company gave it to me to use, I have to return it to them soon.”
“Aiyyo saar, your phone costs more than my entire year’s salary!” he said, without an iota of jealousy or shame. In fact, he was clearly awestruck, and actually happy for me!
He now held the phone with even more respect, and a wider smile appeared on his face, as he went over the phone all over again, like he couldn’t believe his luck of actually holding the world’s best and most expensive phone in his hands.
As I watched this stranger happily explore my mobile phone, a gnawing feeling that I’d been ignoring and suppressing inside me for a long time, surfaced and exploded as a multi-dimensional epiphany.
“This guy who earns a few thousand rupees a year, is a lot happier than me who earns many many lakhs in a year.”
“This taxi driver from a small village in Tamil Nadu, is more generous than me, a big city creative director.”
“This daily wage earner takes his family to Marina Beach every Sunday. But if try to calm my crying 2-year-old son, he’d cry more because he doesn’t recognize me as I am never really around for him.”
“While this guy took precious Sundays off to make his wife happy, I couldn’t remember the last time my wife and I spent any quality time together.”
“My precious 5-year-old daughter would be distraught to know that her kind, loving, mindful father, was becoming increasingly unkind, cold, and insensitive at work.”
And so on…
My car arrived in the next five minutes. I hurriedly thanked the taxi driver under the tree and jumped into my car headed for the airport.
As my car raced from Sriperumbudur to the Chennai airport, my mind raced over what happened with me factory parking lot.
In the approximately thirty minutes I spent with the taxi driver under the tree, I realized a few key things that would change my life and thinking forever.
I was living in a fool’s paradise, hunting for fool’s gold.
My success had gone to my head, and I had become all ego, no heart.
And I couldn’t remember the last time I was really happy, or calm.
As I watched the Tamil Nadu countryside flash past in a blur outside my car’s window, my thoughts started to focus on the core aspects of my being and where I was in life today.
I hadn’t slept a single peaceful night in almost two years.
I hadn’t had an honest conversation with any of my friends in recent times.
And at work I was surrounded by people I didn’t like, doing work I no longer enjoyed.
My job was squeezing the life out of me, and I was doing the same to my teams.
As all this struck home, I used my Samsung D500 to call my wife back in Gurgaon, to tell her I was going to leave my job.
“When?” was her first question, and the significance of it only dawned on me many years later. “Now. Tomorrow morning.” I replied.
“What are you going to do after this?” she asked, calmly. “I have no idea…” I replied.
“Why are you doing it?” was her next question, still sounding calm and not surprised.
“To find myself,” I told her.
