The New Creative Anteriority Anthology

FROM THE DRIVER’S END (Short story)

[We often see in  Bollywood movies or be it any movie, the action Hero simply jumps into someone’s car and orders the driver to follow a certain car. Now let’s take the show from the driver’s point of view.  It so happens that the Hero makes an error and jumps into a taxi, which turns out to be a real taxi and not hired by the film crew.]

Hero, (with a neatly cut half shaved dashing look, his arm muscles protruding over his tight shirt) jumps into the back seat of the taxi with a dramatic swing: ‘Follow that red car’ (He orders the driver)

The Driver, who was cleaning the front mirror of his Taxi with  utter passion, gets alarmed by the order: ‘O, Hero, What do you mean by ‘Follow the car?’  Where is the destination? Tell me where to where?’

A Hero, a little confused by the driver’s reaction: ‘Come on, Driver move!’

Driver: ‘What makes you think I wanna go for that goose chase? How much will you pay for chasing that other car?’

Hero:  ‘Will you just follow the red car Driver?’(Says in a strict tone)

Driver:  ‘Look here, I know I am the driver, I have been driving since fifteen years now (Being nostalgic). My ‘Darling Bijlee’, the name of my beloved Taxi you know (He mentions with a sense of pride beaming all over his dark thin face); the day I saw her on the show room, I knew she was mine. She isn’t just a taxi; she is my love (giving a flying kiss to the car dash board of his taxi, as if ‘She’, was all alive and reciprocating).

Hero: I shall hear your ‘Darling Bijlee’s’ story later, but for now we need to chase that red car. So please move.

Drive, feeling offended to be forcefully driven into the real world leaving his favourite fantasy state of ‘he and his Bijlee love affair’, becomes even more adamant now: I aint gonna do nothi’n, even for my old man, and you order me for a free ride? What is the guarantee that you shall pay later? Just as you suddenly dropped in, you might just runway, when we find the car. So I want my cash now’

Hero, more puzzled and feeling the pressure of time slipping away from his hand: ‘But I am the Hero, you ought to drive the car as I tell you’ 

Driver: ‘Ought! What do you mean by ought? I take no orders from anyone, until I get the cash.  Hand me the cash or drop out of my car’

Hero both annoyed and in haste: ‘Move you stubborn mule!’

Driver perturbed by the hero’s words:  ‘That’s it! My car ain’t gonna move an inch now. Who do think you are? Go, look for another car.  None can drive as fast as I can and that too in this city traffic’

Time was ticking, and this was the climax of the show, but Hero was unable to persuade the driver: ‘Okay, okay, Bro, take whatever you like.  I shall give you what you desire, now just follow that damn car. It is going away’

Driver still unmoved by the haste of the hero sits still

Unable to persuade, the Hero hurriedly hands over whatever cash he had on his wallet (couple of five hundred note): ‘Will you please drive now?’

Driver, grinning with the cash on the hand: ‘Now we are talkin. You shall now see this Driver’s role and the magic of my ‘Bijlee’. No car in the world can beat the speed of my beloved Bijlee.’

Saying so he zoooooms out in full speed………………..
*Jhimly*Jolly