The Cab Driver

Short story (Fiction)

My phone buzzed — “Your Uber is arriving”

I close my laptop and keep it in the bag, pick it up and go to my room to check myself in the mirror for the last time before leaving home. While locking the main door my phone rings, I ignore it thinking it’s the driver. While climbing down the stairs, I forget if I have locked the door properly so I run back up to verify. It’s locked. My phone rings again. It’s an unknown number, not likely to be from the driver as it has a different prefix. I answer while hurrying down the stairs.

“Hello”

“Oye Rishabh, it’s Saumya”

“Hey hi! Whose number is this? And I haven’t forgotten to keep your hard disk today. It’s in the bag. I will give it to you once I reach office”

“Oh yeah! That too. But listen, we have matched with the same pool again, come down fast I am waiting in the cab.”

“Woaah. That is something, I am almost there.”

I disconnect the call to check the number of the cab on the app and to locate where exactly he is. The driver has stopped some 100 Mts before my location, I call him to come a little ahead, feeling too lazy to walk. The cab arrives and I get into it.

Saumya gives me a warm hug, getting close enough to show her trust on me and tight enough to show how much she missed me over the long weekend.

“How was your Pondicherry trip? I hope you had a blast with Surabhi and Joseph.” I ask her excitingly.

“Well, we all missed you, if that’s what you want to know. You know you should have come with us.”

“I would have yaar, but I needed to finish that sales prediction analysis for the new phone One Plus is going to launch in September. Today is the last date and I have to submit my report by noon.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind, can I ask you a question?” The driver interrupts our conversation.

“Yeah, please do.”

“Do you work at One Plus?”

“No, we work at a tech startup which helps Electronic companies to predict their sales and set up their supply chain right.” I try to answer without any jargon but get worried that he won’t be able to understand.

“That’s super. Don’t they have an in-house team for sales forecasting?” I get surprised by the driver’s understanding.

“They do, but they outsource analysis to us and they compare our analysis with theirs in order to come up with an accurate understanding of the forecasts.” I pause but unable to control, I ask him. “How do you know about One plus and their company structure?”

“Well, sir, I used to work with Samsung in their RnD department based out of Noida, two years back and now I have a youtube channel where I talk about new phones and tablets. One plus 7t is on my list for this month.”

“Woah”

“I do two to three videos per phone. One before it is launched, in which I describe what I am expecting and one after it is launched where I talk about its non-highlighted features and also give out a rating based on my experience with the device. And I do one more where I compare the device with the existing competitors.” He continues, while we are sitting awestruck listening to all this coming from a cab driver.

“So tell me one thing, why are you driving a cab then?” Soumya interrupts him.

“Ma’am, to be honest, I started driving to research for my channel. I meet a minimum of 20 strangers everyday. And I ask them about the phones they are using. Why they buy, what they look for in a new phone, etc. I had 10k subscribers to whom I wanted to offer unique perspectives. And in the last six months, while driving the cab, I have gained around 300k subscribers with the help of passengers like you. They all get surprised when I mention about my youtube channel and they end up tweeting about it, posting a story on Instagram and Snapchat, telling about it to their friends.”

“Whaaaaat!!!” Saumya said it out loud with the same expression as it was in my head listening to him.

“One day, there was this passenger who worked with Emmanuel Jay, you know him, right? He is a very famous YouTuber who acts as all the characters in his videos. He is a very funny guy.”

“Yeah, I have seen a few of his videos. I don’t like him much but he appears to hit a right chord with younger audiences. I feel I am too old for all this.” I reply.

“What do you mean you don’t like him? He is so amazing. I am a huge fan of him, I follow him everywhere, on Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook.” Saumya says to me, moving closer.

“As I said, he is a hit with teenagers” I sarcastically comment.

“You don’t understand humour, Rishabh! That’s why everyone calls you serious and boring.”

“Dada, you continue. Ignore her, she is a teenager who never grew up.” I said the last statement in a husky tone being mean to Saumya.

Saumya hits me with her elbow and then let her hand rest on my thighs.

“So this guy Jeet, he introduced me to Emmanuel and he liked my work. We collaborated on a couple of videos. That gave a lot of push to my channel. I gained some 30k followers after the first video went viral”

“Dada, tell me one thing, how did you decide that you want to review phones and gadgets for your channel? I am thinking of starting a channel since a couple of years now, but haven’t gotten around deciding on what I want to do. You know what I mean?”

Before he can reply, the voice of the lady on the google map interrupts our conversation saying — “Your destination is on the left.” The driver stops to pick up another passenger.

He notifies the passenger by texting her on the app.

“You have to start from somewhere, Rishabh sir. I was always passionate about gadgets and have been working with Samsung since the Note 1 came out. I was amazed at what technology can do.”

Our conversation is disturbed again by a call. The driver answers the phone, guiding the passenger to locate the cab.

“Where was I?” He continues his story after disconnecting the call. “After using the stylus and drawing feature on the phone, I knew what improvement can be done. I wanted an audience to talk about it. Right before the launch of the phone, I went to my boss, asking for his permission to talk about the phone and put the video of my views of it on youtube. He denied me at first but when I pursued him a few more times, he introduced me to the marketing team. They helped me put together a video in which I talked about the device without naming it. The video was published 15 days before the launch. They used that video to advertise about the phone before I put it up on my youtube channel.”

A girl, in her early 20s, opens the gate on my side to get in. She must be at least an inch taller than I am and her heels are adding on to her height. She is on a call with somebody, fighting and hurling abuses. Looking at two of sitting already on the back, she decides to go and sit on the front seat beside the driver.

“What the fuck do you think I am waiting for? I want the paper to be edited by EOD and you are not leaving the office today until it’s done. Do you hear me?” She shouts at someone over the phone.

We wait for her to disconnect her call so that we can continue our conversation. Saumya and I look at each other with irritation on our faces.

“You know what I will start a channel to review startups and their ideas, I will promote entrepreneurship. No wait I will start something on marketing. Wait but I want to do something for the general population, I will try something in fitness. Gosh! I don’t know where to start.” I tell it to Saumya.

“Well, only if I had answers” Saumya comments.

“You know what your problem is Rishabh Sir. I am sorry if I am stepping my boundaries.” The driver joins the conversation.

“I know I am indecisive.”

“No sir, you aspire to be perfect in everything. Perfection is only in the mind. It doesn’t exist.”

“Nobody likes to watch something which is not great. There is already too much content out there for people to consume, why will they watch something which is not great.”

“Greatness and Perfection are two sides of a coin. They don’t go together. Especially in creative fields. When you pour your heart in your art, you can achieve greatness but when you put your brains in your art, it goes down in the drain.”

“What are you saying?”

The girl in the front seat looks amusingly at the driver and then at us, probably wondering what the hell we are talking about. Unable to understand, she goes back to her mobile, checking and replying to emails.

“What I am trying to say sir is that you are looking for logic in everything and creating something has nothing to do with logic. Though every art form has technicalities which you need to learn and understand, more than that you have to create something from passion more than logic. The videos that Emmanuel creates is for having fun. If he follows the process then he has to hire actors for different roles, but he enjoys doing all those roles himself. With all the actors, those videos may come out better, but they will lose its charm which is not in the stories but how he portrays different character himself.

Our second gig together, a promotional video for a Chinese mobile brand, was done without a proper script. We were sitting at a cafe and discussing about”

“Are you guys talking about Emmanuel Jay? Ohh I love him. He is so cute and funny. I love when he plays his mom in his videos. And hey, you look a lot like Jacob who reviews gadgets on this channel called ‘Jacob says go for it’.” Front seat girl jumps in the conversation.

“Yes, ma’am, he is my good friend now. I am the same Jacob.”

“Ohh shit! Seriously! I took this phone because you recommended it.” She exclaims while showing the phone in her hand.

I can not identify the phone as it has golden bling back cover.

“Thank you so much, ma’am. It means a lot.” Jacob says while forwarding his right hand towards her for a shake.

“I am Avantika” She shakes his hand while introducing herself.

“It’s great to meet you Avantika ma’am”

“You can call me Avantika, no need to add ma’am.” She replies blushing and gets a warm smile back from Jacob.

Avantika turns back and says hi to both of us. We introduce ourselves to her and then Jacob, realising that we haven’t even asked his name yet.

“So Jacob, you were saying something about the promotional video with that Chinese company.” I hint Jacob to continue what he was telling before Avantika interrupted us.

“Yes. So we were sitting in the cafe and discussing about the phone and this couple was sitting there next to us who heard us talking about the brand and jumped in the conversation to describe the shitty experience they had with the earlier model from the brand.

We heard them out and asked them a few questions about they think they should do. We asked them if they want to shoot a video with us on the same. They got excited about the video idea. We went back to the brand’s marketing team and discussed the idea of getting negative feedback on the video before sharing the new device and recording their experience with the new device. They were hesitant about it and asked us to record and share with them before posting.

We went ahead and recorded the video with them. Emmanuel played as his mom who did the interview with the couple. It was really funny how they debated about the company and then how their views changed drastically after experiencing the new device. That video went viral and the phone became a hit because of that video.”

“Interesting.” Avantika comments.

“Yeah.” Saumya chips in.

The story gets me thinking that I have to stop planning and start doing.

“What I mean to say Rishabh sir that if we have written a script and then shot, it wouldn’t have been this great. you have to go with your gut feeling in a creative process.” Jacob adds.

We don’t realise that we have reached our destination. And coincidentally, Avantika has to get down at the RMZ Infinity as well.

We get down from the cab, but I want to continue that discussion with Jacob. I ask him

“Hey, if you don’t have another ride, join us for a smoke.”

He agrees and parks his car on the side to get down. Saumya invites Avantika to join us as well and Avantika hesitatingly agrees.

We go to a small chai shop towards the end of the campus. I order for a chai for everyone and take out a cigarette from my packet and offer one to each of them.

“So Jacob, I have an Instagram page where I post a lot of content on Fashion and Beauty. But there’s a lot of competition in this space and everyone is doing similar things. How do you differentiate yourself in the crowd?” Avantika asks Jacob.
“Yeah! That’s why I am unable to start my own channel” I add.

“A lot of people don’t work on their own ideas. They see what is working with other creators and copy them. They don’t work on original ideas because they are afraid it will fail. Even I am afraid most of the times, but after starting my channel I am more afraid of ‘not doing something” than doing something that fails. We all aspire to do great but are afraid and that fear stops us to take actions. People follow you when they see you doing something which they wanted to but didn’t because they are afraid and they can’t overcome their fears and struggles, because they want to be perfect. They see the imperfection and thus they relate to you.”

We all get lost in our thoughts and finish the rest of the tea and cigarette in silence. I decide where I want to start.

I can’t picture the destination in mind but the journey is the one I am looking forward to.