Taxi Wallah




	I am in front now, pressing against the metal fence that
separates us from the arriving passengers.  Damp chests shove
from behind as arms snake their way around somehow, grappling
feet and body a breath behind; trying to follow.  Loud and
desperate voices grate my ears as I press back, sidling my way
to the glass doors.  Six passengers remain, guarded by
disinterested answars.  Stickers on tightly clutched suitcases
tell me that they are the six o'clock Singapore Airline's
flight.  From America, via London and Abu Dhabi.  They stare at
us, shocked, tired, and frustrated.  I gesture and yell for
several minutes before attracting any attention.  "You," his
voice cricks.  "How much to Purbani?"
	I leap forward.  "Purbani Hotel?  No problem Shahib."  I
nod, smiling, assuring, hands reaching for his luggage.  "My
taxi nice, air conditioned." I lie.  Others step between us,
scooter wallahs, beggars, porters, and pickpockets.
	He pulls his cases back a little "How much?  Koto, koto,
tell me first!"
	"Sir, shaheeeb, whatever you wish.  Up to you, I ask for
nothing, no Shahib, nothing.  Please sir, come, come."  I manage
to curl fingers around a plastic Samsonite handle and pull
gently.  He lets go.
	In the car he talks a little.  Where does the city hide
its secrets?  He smiles.  He has been to Dhaka before, but
purely for business.  This time he will have a week to spare.  I
look him over, trying to guess what he likes; what he can
afford.  Mid thirties, quite carefree.  Obviously not too
wealthy or important: he was not met at the airport, but he
possessed a certain breadth of vision; a length of stride that
is not characteristic of the poor.  Dhaka Museum?  Snake
charmers?  Dance parties?  Maybe handicraft stores, the Lal Bagh
Fort?  Angel dust?  It is always hard to tell.
	"I want to watch a Bengali movie.  In one of those big
cinemas where everybody goes."
	"What kind of movie sir?  Action movie?  Good dancing,
lots of fighting.  Bruce Lee.  We have James Bond also if you
want English.  Goldeneye?"
	"No, no.  A Bengali one, action sounds fine."
	"I will show you where to go sir, no problem.  Close to
hotel."
	I am glad I can help him with what he wants.  We have
all kinds of pictures showing.  Even if he wants the latest
pirate copies, I can find him those that come in from Malaysia;
filmed at theaters, they are full of another audience's shadows
and sounds.  If he wants adult films, we can go to Old Dhaka,
where young, nervous boys fill dark rooms.  I would do all this
for him, but I have my limits.  There are things I refuse.  My
friends cannot understand this.  "If not you, Mintu, then it
will be the next guy.  They will get what they want, so make
your share!  If they want English Road, take them.  So what if
they want body parts?  It is for medicine.  Or stolen durgas? 
Why does it matter to you, you are not Hindu?  It is good money."
	When I was young, I too thought like that.  I was hard
and angry, I could walk away from any face, no matter how full
of pain, sadness or pleading.  I could close my eyes to children
that were being sold by the night.  Or to those whose limbs were
trimmed so they could beg - those that soon lost their true born
smiles.  I could stare unblinkingly at the starving that sat
outside the Mosjid; those that were not with us any more, not
men or women now, but expressionless skin and bone.  I could
push torn women who were crawling from their husbands blows, out
of my path when necessary, or step around heroin addicts that
were bleeding to death.  I was angry then, I did not see the
people under all the filth.  Nothing mattered because there was
so much that did. 
	I made money though.  Hard cash, every bit of it a
reward for my indifference.  But soon I found that I became
indifferent to myself, that I would not accept my own need to
laugh, to cry, to release my breath and take in everything
outside that was already a part of me.  I became a shell, like
the starving ones.  But things are different now.  I am not sure
what changed me.  I know it happened when I went to visit my
mother in the village before she died.  Maybe it was what she
said about my eyes.  She said that they reflected like dirty
water, hiding the insides; not letting light through.  Or maybe
it was the quiet peace of the country that made my frustrations
spill out; the limp coolness of the mango grove; the warm
softness of the ground.  Maybe it was meeting Sokina.  But I
began to feel sick.  When I tried to sleep, all the faces I had
ignored came back to me.  I thought my mind would heal itself if
I stayed away.  But they kept reappearing, night after night. 
So I knew I would have to return to Dhaka.
	And I did, with Sokina as my wife.  And I still drive my
taxi.  But I am so much softer.  The faces do not come in dreams
any more, they speak to me everyday.  I am no longer distant
from the streets.  I listen.  I blink.  Because I have my own
children now; and like anyone that has held a newborn and let
its weight sink into their arms, I know there must be a way out
of what we are doing.  At times I am still hard.  With
passengers that try to take me back to where I was; with my
friends who still go there.  Even so I am one of the in between
people, neither here nor there.  Because I do not know any other
way : I have found nowhere else to place myself.  And as I am
softer, I get forced back into my seat.  I am still learning
how to push back.
	People like me make the foreigners comfortable.  We are
in the crowd at the airport; in the groups of men that stand
outside hotels, restaurants, talking to the guards.  We are at
all tourist spots; we work in the embassies; we sit at cigarette
stalls outside expatriate clubs.  We are the rickshawallahs
idling near the bazaar; the darwans that always seem to sleep. 
We are everywhere, night and day, the painted eyes that everyone
else closes.
	Even the children feel it.  I remember only a few days
ago, when I was speeding a customer somewhere, I took a short-
cut through a side street in Dhanmondi.  There was a field here,
full of mischief in blue and white uniforms from the school
nearby.  They were playing football, kabadi, hopscotch and
marbles.  They were laughing; singing; running in pointless
directions.  Many were on the road, jostling each other about
while they delayed going home.  I kept my horn pressed down and
they jumped aside, chuckling with the excitement of imagined
danger.  But then there was this boy, of ten years or so, who
was walking quietly with his friends.  And as I rushed by with
my horn, he spun about to face me.  While he turned in one
liquid motion, his right arm flung a rajani-gondha at my
windshield.  It flew at me, landing on the glass, dead in front
of my face.  For an instant; for the slightest fraction of time
that it takes a thought to form, I did not see it as a flower,
and a shudder passed through me.  I had been scared.  This was
the gentlest of reproaches; one from the children.  But how many
years would it take to turn them to stone?
	As we speed away from the airport, the green and gold of
grass and paddy gives way to the deep red of brick rubble on
which shopping centers stand.  They proudly display anything
from imported lingerie to Sony stereos.  All contraband though,
as if impatient smugglers could not wait long after exiting
Arrivals to peddle their wares.  These shops are rarely raided:
they are owned by politicians or bureaucrats.  There are also
restaurants in the complexes, catering to those too hungry to
wait for the city.  The majority of them make their money by
selling black-market liquor.  They pay the police dearly for
this illegitimate right.
	Behind the shopping centers, a little into the
developing residential areas, there are slums - the bosthis. 
This is where the frustration and corruption from the commercial
complexes hides its face.  In the shanties that will be torn
apart by the monsoons and overzealous sepoys (only to be rebuilt
days later); in the naked infants with distended bellies,
playing, screaming; and in their mothers, the third or fourth
wives of drunken laborers that will flee in times of particular
hardship.  But none of this will interest my passenger, all this
is a part of our world, one he will never have to touch.
	The traffic thickens as we approach Gulshan.  The air
inside the car is very heavy now, its humidity weighed down be
the generous clouds of smoke that pour from buses and trucks. 
	"Where's your air-conditioning?"
	I fidget with the controls, pretending exasperation at a
sudden betrayal, "Sorry sir, it is strangely not working."
	He sighs and moves closer to the tiny fan that rattles
above the window.  "What kind of a hotel is Purbani?  Four star,
right?"
	"Oh yes sir, Purbani is a super nice.  Swimming pool;
health club; big bar and restaurant.  But Sonargaon better
Shahib, Sheraton also.  But high price.  Four thousand taka a
night for single."
	"Whoa," he laughs "That's more than I'm willing to pay."
	But there are many that pay easily.  They are the
business-men with their briefcases full of projects and plans;
full of tricks.  They bring money with them; set up more
factories and buy things needed in other countries.  My daughter
Alia works in a sewing house.  I have a cousin there who can
keep an eye on her and make sure the dalals stay away.  She is
lucky to find such good work.  It is much better than other
factories I have been to, with hundreds of women hidden in
layers like rotten vegetables.  The pay is little, but it
helps.  She comes home right after the evening Azan, like all
good daughters should.  Sometimes I think goodness is not a
thing we can control; Alia will eventually be the person she was
born.  Now, she is at a dangerous age.  But then all ages are
dangerous for women in the city.  Often, when I pass the kajol
eyed with untied hair, bargaining with their men, I am certain
one of them is her.
	Gulshan is a pretty place.  It is where the diplomats
and the new rich of the country live.  Gulshan means flower
garden, and the name is appropriate for most of it, that is the
parts that you can see from the main road.  Deep breaths and
movements in the back seat tell me that the cement houses have
not failed to impress.  Most of them are painted white, they
have tall pillars and decorated entrances with guard houses. 
	Villagers that make it here find it difficult to believe
they are in the same country.  I once drove three men from Ramna
station to a house on Road 50.  It belongs to a man that owns
tea gardens.  Two of the men were his wrokers, the third had
just arrived from Pabna with something.  It was his first time
in Dhaka.  Whatever he carried must have been important for them
to use me, instead of taking a bus or scooter.  The villager was
nervous from the start, but once we left the ugliness of center
city behind and entered Banani, he became terrified, clutching 
onto the car seat, finally refusing to leave the taxi once we
reached the house.  He kept repeating "What will happen here? 
What will happen here?" as if all his expectations had changed.
	"Is this where the American Club is?  Nearby?"
	"Yes Sir, we are close.  Nice club sir, you have been to
it?" I respond.
	"Yes, for dinner on my last trip.  I remember this area
though, beautifully laid out."
	 But I wonder how much he has seen.  There is a quiet
world that slips him by.
	There are also bosthis here in beautiful Gulshan.  High
walls, barbed and guarded, separate their urine reek from the
sweeter scent of hibiscus flowers and lemon trees.  On one side
there are flimsy bamboo huts, covered with sheets of plastic,
and on the other, there are brick mansions crested with hand
made shingles.  Even those from the city know only a little of
what lies within the rich walls.  My passenger will find his way
into one of these houses soon - his week will take him many
places.
	We leave Gulshan to enter Moakhali.  I live here.  There
are many more factories and bosthis in Moakhali.  To the
visitor's eye, it may be all stench and ugliness, but there is a
lot that speaks to us.  I can tell that my Shahib has lost
interest in the drive as he sinks into the seat.  He cannot
smell the aroma from the fryers at the misti stalls, or hear the
music shops playing their newest cassettes.  Nor can he see the
balloon-wallah sitting in the shade, knotting his wares into the
ludicrous shapes that will delight his young customers.  The
bright green and red of the amra sellers fails to affect him;
just as the juicy attraction of the paan stands.  
	We pass the restora where I will have my dinner.  There
will be friends to sit and talk with; to exchange the day's
stories with.  Sokina leaves messages with them sometimes. 
Usually a thing I should buy, or a problem with the children I
need to know about.  My sons Kamal and Tupu need a lot of
watching.  They are eight and twelve, but have learned the
cunning of men already.  Both go to school - it does not seem to
have taught them much.  Yes, they have memorized their suras,
but what they need to know for their day-to-day living they
have picked up off the streets.  Along with a handful of dirt. 
I wish they were not growing up here, already they are small
mastans, controlling the local cricket patch; planning fights
against boys in the neighborhood buildings.  I can see them when
they are older, running with the hoodlums, trying to find a
quick way to make money but only making trouble.  Sometimes I
feel that my mind will only rest when I leave Dhaka.  But that
failed.
	Soon we are near Purbani.  I point him to the nearest
theater.  Stopping at the hotel I ask him, "Why was nobody at
the airport for you?"  It was not wise, him being white and
alone in the city.  Or anywhere in our country for that matter.
But in the city he will be cheated and pestered.  Disturbed a
lot.
       "I know." he says.  "Won't be doing that again.  Some of
you guys really know how to harass us."
	I smile.  And bargain a little.