of Taxi drivers, Aam aadmi and Singur

i have been getting a chance to travel on work for almost 2 yrs now .. and lately a bit more as i have moved into sales ... while doing so i have come across a breed of human beings the "taxi drivers", very peculiar and exhibit characteristics common to none ...

i have met around 14 drivers in a span of 5 months and had a good meaningful conversation with almost all of them on varied topics from girlfriends to politics to inflation to bitching about anybody and everybody..... and its super fun :)

a thumb rule that works with these guys is ... if a guy drives a taxi and his name is Raju he has to be a nepali (believe me it works.. try it !!)... i have hit the nail twice ... these nepali drivers are super confident they will bitch about the local drivers , they will help you going out of their way , they will drive faster than the locals do and know the roads better than them and they will always trust you if you are from Mumbai ... Now thats strange , i couldnt figure out the reason why , but yeah they do !

Now coming to the aam aadmi part, recently i was on my way to the swanky new Hyd airport and i again met an interesting taxi driver.. we struck a conversation on the recent party started by Chiranjeevi in AP. The guy was confident that this time round the actor will win and was furios about Inflation !!! yeah he knew what inflation was and explained to me how it was affecting him. he said , sahab "They give only 10 kg rice per ration card and a family or 4 or more cannot survive on 10 kg, the price in retail shop is 30 / kg while ration is 3 / kg. How are we supposed to survive ??"

He said in his village where he does farming he has stopped growing fruits which used to give him more money and has gone back to growing rice which they can at least use to eat themselves. So its basically food for Survival...... this was my first brush with inflation hitting the AAM AADMI.....

Now coming to the Singur story... i met this waiter in a hotel in HYD where i am currently stayin.. i was watching TV with interest in the restaurant and the news was about the Nano car plant in Singur... he suddenly came up to me and started " Shir, aapko pota hai (mujhe kaise pata hoga .. i was meeting him for the first time) mai Shingur se hoon (all 'h' are his typical bangla style).... bahut taklif hota yeh news sunkar..." he then started explaining me what the exact situation was... he continued "problem yeh hai ki jomin pe farming karte hai, ek ghar mai 4 bhai hai jo us jamin ke nikli fasal se khaate hai, govt ne ek Bhai ko hi naukri diya hai, jomin to chala gaya baki 3 bhai kya karega ?? ..... isliye problem hai ".... then he explained me the Tata side also with same passion ... "Lekin Bangal mai phactory bhi chahiye... tata ka bhi golti nahi hai usko transport bachane ke liye woh jagah shahi hai.... to dono appne jagah sahi hai.. kya karega kaise debelopment hoga...."

So the aam aadmi in India is really not that happy huh.. on one hand he is happy about development on other hand he is worried about his food and shelter too.....

More of my interesting people interactions will follow till then

Asta la vista...