And the trip began with me panicking with the thought if I would even reach the airport on time. The Pathan driver although being extremely nice added to the anxiety by carefully taking the longer route to the airport in the name of the road's being less congested, with me meekly nodding in agreement. There is not much you can really do when you are a stranger in a city hardly knowing its arterial roads.
(Pardon me for the usage of Hindi/Urdu but I fail to mimic the intensity of the Pathan driver in plain english)
Pathan Driver Ji: "Tumhara mata pitaji bohot khush hota tumhe dekhkar! Tumhara jahazz (Plane) miss ho gaya toh hum apna khuda ko kya jawab dega. Beta itne tame(time) ke baad ghar aa raha hai. Ruko abhi divider ke upar gaadi chadata hai hum. Koi mushkil nahi agar pulice humara license cancel karega, par hum tumko airport exdum durust pahuchayga. Tum bilkul fikar na karo"
Me in a bleak voice: "Arre nahi nahi, divider pe mat chadhaiye, thoda time abhi baaki hai" (My nervousness before a journey always gets the better of me and somehow always end up reaching my destination a good percentage ahead in time, An attribute which directly descends from my dad and my grandfather. At-least that confirms my genome, because since I was small I kept doubting if I am adopted, thats a whole different story for another time.)
Pathan Driver Ji: "Tum bilkul daro mat, allah chahega to aage ke road ke baad biklul traffic nahi hoga. Hum dua karega"
Me: "Thank you bhai jaan"
Pathan Driver Ji: "Diwali ka time hai na, hume pata hai, bohot jabardast manata hai India mai, hum puri koshish karega tumhe time pe pahuchane ke liye baaki sab allah pe chodd do"
Me: "Haan last year bhi mai gaya nahi tha, isliye jana hai abhi"
Pathan Driver Ji: "Tumhara shaadi ho gaya" ?
Me sheepishly: "Nahi Bhai Jaan"
Pathan Driver Ji in the disgusted look: "Hume bohot ghussa aya ye sunn kar, tum jawaan ho, shaadi karo, apne biwi ko yaha lao, ghumao, yahi time hota hai apna ghar basane ka"
Me hides the phone afraid he might take my mom's number and call her: "Hmmmm"
Before he could say anything more I called up Vikram and vented because it was his idea to take the cab instead of the metro. (Typical human tendency to pass the buck in out of hand situations like this.)
After that attempt to pimp me coupled with the nervousness of getting the airport on time, I kinda tuned him out and just kept nodding and tried to be as courteous without being rude although me ignoring him had little effect on him because he kept on making more small talk which went on from cursing the traffic to advising me to not fall asleep during the flight.
In a way I felt he was overreacting more than me but hey, who tries to get over the kerb and almost risk his drivers license and livelihood for a passenger. The old man almost drove like a man possessed with me clutching the seat-belt for dear life, honking the shit out of that vehicle and scaring quite a bit of people on the road, and managing to make quite a entry to the airport. I thanked him for risking his neck out for me and tipped him a little extra although he refused profusely because according to him it was Haraam (Forbidden).
Overall ended up doing the 'Check-In' just in time, thanked my lucky stars for keeping a watch out on me. When the beginning itself is so auspicious what in the world can go wrong from here.
P.S: Dedicated especially to people who still think there are no good men out in this dangerous world.
