Survival strategies

Calcutta. Sometime in July 2013.

We are standing outside the Marble Palace entry-gate, waiting for a taxi to take us back to the hotel, when his taxi arrives. He isn’t entirely sure where Golpark is, and as we discuss landmarks, he grins beneath his bushy moustache, for a reason completely unknown to me.

We settle ourselves: I sit beside him in front, Anisha on the seat behind me, Kanika and Tom on her right. As he drives, I mumble asking him where we could buy some alcohol. “Kya, wine shop!” he exclaims, hinting a familiarity, “Ah, there are plenty on the way!”

His mobile-phone plays syrupy-sweet Hindi songs from the 1990s, Kumar Sanu-Alka Yagnik songs that have become obscure by now. We stop at a traffic signal. How does the traffic look in ‘foreign’ (his word), he wants to know. I tell him I don’t live in foreign, that I have never lived in foreign, that in fact none among the four of us live in foreign. He is amused.

Meanwhile, after a few unsuccessful attempts at finding a booze shop that remains open on the Sundays, he points out towards one on the other side of the road. I turn back towards the taxi as Tom and I approach the shop, and catch a momentary glint on his face. A bottle of Chivas Regal is procured.

We reach the hotel.

As we walk towards our rooms, I turn back once again towards him. He smiles, then waves a 10 rupee note at me. I walk back to the taxi, search my wallet unsuccessfully to replace the torn note. “No worries. I’ll take care of it,” he says. How, I ask. “You just have to slip it in between other notes…” he winks, and then demonstrates the sleight like an expert, “…and simply pass on to the next customer!”

How old is he? I enquire casually. “Ekkis,” he says. But he doesn’t look twenty-one. “That’s because of this moustache.”

I look at him closely: there’s a sturdy, fair-skinned man with a childish face, a thick moustache superimposed on its top. He’s come from Gaya, a few months ago. “To survive as a taxi-waala here, you need to have something like a moustache!” he says, pointing at his prized possession with considerable pride.