7th Grader is not a Five point Someone
After having a sumptuous lunch
from Kris’ home, I headed for MCity in a taxi. I have always loved cabs. Have
always had this feeling that taxis are so comfortable, with the chauffeur et
al. When I was in Bombay, I used to wait for a cab to come along even if autos were there. For one, the local cabs (fiats) were cheap there and it gave that comfy - indulgent feel.
Stuck in the traffic signal, he told his name is
Ibrahim, from palghat in kerala. My mom is from Palghat and hence I have a
liking towards people from there. The awareness he had about things that
mattered amazed me. The only difference was that he did not use the jargons
that we people do.
He was reminiscing about his middle
east days. He used to own a taxi service in Saudi. He was employing 4 guys. He
said his business did well. The roads there are great, so no maintenance for
the cars. The petrol price was very less. He said “ I agree that Saudi has oil
in the country and that is why the price is very less. But it is highly over
priced in our country. It is all due to the taxes. That is why the price of
every damn thing is going up. Politicians should do something about it”.
Ibrahim ikka loves Kerala beyond anything. He said “Kerala is an amazing
place to live, truly God’s own country. But there is minimal employment. That
is why our youngsters are moving to middle east. We cannot blame our government
completely. We do not have the kind of barren lands that a Karnataka or a Tamil
nadu has.”. “But what about the IT sector ikka?” I probed. He said “Yes that
can be done. All these companies should come there - Infosys, CTS, Ascendes (I
thought he was referring to Accenture. But there is a company called Ascendes!)”.
The
music system started singing a beautiful song from the malayalam movie “Ee
Puzhyum Kadannu”. He said “There is no one like Yesudas. What a talented singer!
In my lonely gulf days, his voice brought me back to Kerala in a second. You
know, I did not come back for 20 long years! Can you believe that? First five
years, alone and then 15 years with family. If I had stayed on, I would have
got Saudi citizen ship. I said no way! I will die in my country”.
Then
the conversation got candid. He said that he has studied only till 7th
grade. “My wife is also a graduate. During that time, many people made fun of
me and asked my father in law not to go ahead with the marriage. If you ask me,
it’s all in the head. It never stopped me from doing anything. I worked very
hard and made sure all my children studied". His elder daughter is a graduate
and married a software engineer in HCL. His younger daughter is pursuing PG in Chennai.
His face lit up when he talked about them.
I
thoroughly enjoyed the journey (all the while, he was driving above 100km/hr,
but eyes firmly on the road) and the conversation. As I got down I gave some
extra money rounding off the fare. He got offended “You think I talked to you
for this?”. I insisted again. He said “ I will not accept any extra money from
you. Next time when you call our taxi
service, ask for me :) , or for any help in Chennai for that matter.“
And I thought education widens the
horizons of people’s thought process!
Arun
Babu.
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