The phone buzzes into life. It must be the taxi. I say my goodbyes, pick-up my rucksack and walk down the three flights of stairs to the white Ambassdor, glinting ghost-like under the street light. It is 4 am.
I shove my bag into the back of the car, and the driver throws the car into a convulsive ignition. We weave our way haltingly through the neighbourhood. At this hour of the night, the inner streets are filled with vacant cars, lined together like chess pieces. The inside of the taxi itself is faintly illuminated from the LED-beset figure of Hanuman, and a quick glance reveals "NO SMOKING" stickers gawking at me from eight different spots in the car.
Once on the highway, we are surrounded by trucks hurtling down at a velocity much higher than the measly 40km/h they are allowed. Rajindra, or Raja Babu as he cajoles me into calling him, honks a couple of times to make the truck ahead of us move aside, but is dismissed, as the truck roars on. These heavily loaded inter-state trucks are not allowed inside the city during daytime. In the night, Raja Babu says, they rule the roads.
Raja Babu turns out to be an extremely effusive guy.He is in mid-thirties, a bit stocky, and in his own words, someone who tries to keep everybody happy. Just after a few cursory words, he decides that the ice is broken, and melts into narrating his life, about how he ended up driving a taxi. He talks about the extraordinary feats he has accomplished, like the time when he drove all the way from Mumbai to Delhi within 1.5 days. He asks me about my job, my reasons to visit Kolkata. Despite my grogginess, I try to keep up my end of the conversation and tell him about my long-held dream of taking a road trip on a truck ever since I read Adventures of Rusty. He is amused, laughs and promises he will arrange one, and drive the truck himself.
We flash past South Delhi, while Raja babu is teaching me how to swear in vernacular languages. Outside, the architectural outlines transform dramatically, from the incoherent, fractured quarters in Lajpat Nagar, to the imposing AIIMS buildings shrouded in a thin veil of darkness with families sleeping outside the fenced walls, to the utility stores of Yusuf Sarai blinking at us with their neon lights, as I struggle with the one in Tamil. Raja babu meanders towards the time he met Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grandson who informed him, his voice dropping to a whisper as his eyes gleam, making eye contact with mine in the rear view mirror, that he managed to find his way to Germany where he lived out the rest of his years. At 4.30 am in the morning, Raja babu is undoubtedly the most legally entertaining thing in Delhi.
The peace outside feels a bit ethereal as I think Delhi looks incomplete without its people, the human tapestry that fills through every edge and corner of this metropolis. It's the part I have learnt to love, hate and finally accept and ache for. Though I wonder if, after four years of life overseas, it's just a fond memory of a city that I am holding on to, with sepia-toned streets and its stories colored with selective nostalgia. Sensing a lull, Raja Babu tells me that he had a bottle (of liquor) before coming to pick me. The reverie is broken, but so is the quiet, as he breaks into a chortle at my credulity. He insists he was joking. I laugh uncomfortably.
I ask Raja babu if he is married. He replies "twice!" and for some reason, I laugh out, something I regret moments later when he tells me about the part of his life he tries not to dwell upon. I have touched a nerve somewhere, as Raja babu recounts growing up without a father, losing his first wife and his unborn child and all the work troubles that made up roughly what was his life. He turns philosophical when I offer my sympathies, professing that maybe its the sense of divine irony that's the source of his levity.
After this disclosure, silence follows. There is nothing we could say to lighten or match the gravity of this disclosure. We pull into the airport. I pay him and take his number in case I need a ride in the future. I give him a hug and tell him to be happy. The words sound empty and rushed but he knows what I mean and returns a tired smile as I turn to walk into the airport.
In another world, Raja babu keeps on driving into the dawn, knitting together narratives, me confiding in him between his tales, our white Ambassador enveloped by this city that now exists mostly in my dreams, as its million inhabitants with their million stories colliding, coalescing and spinning themselves into existence, wake up in a Delhi of their own.
