The Passenger.

The passenger on the backseat asked him to stop the auto rickshaw. He slowed down the rickshaw, swerved slightly towards the pavement and stopped. The passenger got out, paid and disappeared into the building just ahead of where he had stopped the auto rickshaw. He kept the money in his khaki shirt pocket and took out his Chinese made mobile from his pants pocket.
He checked the time on his mobile screen it said 12:13 a.m. He got off the front seat of the auto rickshaw, stood on the pavement and stretched. He breathed deeply, took in the cool night breeze and rubbed his eyes. He could hear the sounds of vehicle going by. He got in to the backseat rested his back against the other side of the auto rickshaw and stretched his legs. He plugged in the earphones into the mobile and loud music from the local FM station started to pour into his ears.

It had been a busy Friday evening for him as usual. Ferrying passengers from their offices to their homes, from their homes to the clubs, pubs, restaurants, malls, theatres and to every place they had wanted to go. Most of his passengers on Fridays would be young couples, who held hands, talked, laughed sometimes kissed each other and sometimes did things which he couldn’t bear to see even through his rearview mirror.

He had picked up his last passenger from a multistorey office building, half an hour before he came to where he was now. The passenger looked like one of those who was used to working late even on Fridays. He had a loose blue tie hung around his neck which lay limp on his light blue shirt, which lay taut over his round belly. His sleeves rolled up and a black leather bag containing his computer, hung across his left shoulder. The passenger received three phone calls in the short span of half an hour. All the phone calls, it seemed were from his wife, who kept him asking when he would be reaching home to which he kept answering “in five minutes honey.” Must be newly married he had thought.

The FM station started to play some English song. He couldn’t understand the song but he liked the beats so he kept listening to it. He saw the cars going by in high speed, filled with people who he knew were going off to some restaurants to eat. He had never been able to understand the rich of this city ever since he had come to the city two years back. He had been driving his auto rickshaw in the city since two years and had been to every street where they would allow him to take his rickshaw. Even though he had been in the city for just two years whenever someone asked him since when he had been driving auto rickshaw he proudly said “ab toh bahut baras ho gaye saheb” (it has been a long time now sir).

Two years back, he was living happily in his village, married to a simple but beautiful girl, doing nothing all day just wasting his time loitering around with friends. He had left the school after he completed his tenth standard. Not being interested in further studies he never thought about it. Instead he spent his time watching the kids play on the street, sometimes playing with them, or loitered around the fields. Since he was the youngest in the family he was a spoilt one. He had been married to a girl from the other village as soon as he turned twenty. The girl was hardly fifteen and didn’t know how to react when he had touched her on the first night.

His father and elder brother used to work in the garments factory located five kilometers away at the outskirts of the village. His father had tried to get him a job at the factory too but he had simply stopped going to work after a couple of days. He always said he wanted to go to some big city and earn his livelihood working for a big company. So when his uncle from the city called him and told him that he had a job ready for him he was so happy that he didn’t even blink when his newlywed wife cried her heart out. But he assured her that as soon as he had made arrangements for a house etc, he would come back and take her to the city too.

His uncle had been living in the city ever since he could remember. His uncle had come to city and started to drive an auto rickshaw. He had worked hard and saved enough to buy two auto rickshaws. He used to drive one himself and had rented out the other one to some other guy who also was from the same village, a distant cousin. Now this guy had run off and was nowhere to be found. So his uncle had called him, had given him an opportunity to live in the big city, to have a better life and an opportunity to make more money than he could have even thought of making at the factory in the village.

Two things his uncle had warned him to stay away from, girls and alcohol and since the day he picked up his first passenger he had never touched any of them. But whenever a beautiful girl sat in the backseat he would look at her through the rear view mirror, when she was looking away, and think of his wife and her soft skin. In these two years he had been to his home twice at the interval of one year and both times, within a month of his returning to the city, he had heard the news of his wife being pregnant. He had just received a call from his mother a couple of weeks back telling him that his wife was expecting her second child. Every time after he had had sex with his wife, she would make him promise her that, he would take her to the city, and every time he would promise that he would do so the next time he came. His uncle had once told him that the city will give him everything that he wants, but it will also take away everything from him. And this had turned out to be true. He worked hard day and night sleeping in the backseat of the rickshaw waiting for passengers all night but wasn’t able to save enough to rent a decent house for his wife.

The FM changed the song, another English one, the singer was shrieking at the top of his voice and the noise of drums was horrendous. He fiddled with the buttons and changed the channel, the phone started to play old Hindi film songs. He relaxed again watching the street, a car passed by, filled with people. He had never been able to understand the rich of the city. At nights they would go out to expensive restaurants eat all kinds of delicious food till their stomachs would swell in the shape of a pot. And in the mornings they would go to expensive exercise centers, which they called the gym, to get rid of the pot belly.

A taxi sped by, and then a man on a motor bike. He looked across the street there stood girls, of all ages, dressed in loud clothes, sarees, jeans, salwars and what not. They had gaudy make up on their faces, probably bought cheap from roadside makeshift shops. Some of them stood and chatted in a group under the street light, another stood leaning on the bus stop, two of them, who were more women than girls, were flirting and having fun with a drunk, two more were haggling with a prospective client, all of them were waiting for a passenger. He could see their bright dresses fluttering under the street light. An auto rickshaw stopped near the group standing under streetlight, two of the girls both in jeans and t-shirt approached the auto rickshaw, after some haggling one of them got in and the rickshaw pulled off. The other girl joined the gang back.
Suddenly his vision was obstructed by two figures, both girls, in same flashy clothes and makeup. Their lips, cheeks were red with paint and they smelled of cheap scent. “Aey chalega kya”, (hey will u go) said one of the girls. “No”, he mumbled, pulling back his stretched legs as if their touch might cause blisters on his feet. “Nahi jaane ka hai toh yaha phukat mein kahe ko baitha hai?” (If you don’t want to go then why are you sitting here and wasting your time), said the same girl. The other girl spat on the pavement mumbled something, both laughed and walked off. They had gone only a few steps when a car came and stopped near them. After exchanging a few words both got in and the car sped off.

He relaxed again leaning against the backrest of the seat. The cool night breeze and the music in his ear were making him drowsy. Slowly he dozed off and started to snore mildly, his head rolled over to one side. He started to dream. He saw his wife dressed in a bright yellow saree running in the field. He was running after her. After running for sometime he caught her by her waist. He could feel her stomach in his arms, a small bump forming just near her navel. Her hair had the same smell that he had noticed the two girls were wearing. His wife turned around and he saw that her face resembled the face of the girl who had come to his rickshaw and was speaking to him. Her lips and cheeks were painted red and she had black kajal around her eyes. He started to feel scared, and his face became moist with sweat. He was unable to understand when had he married this girl?

Suddenly he felt his body being jolted and he woke up. He heard a man’s voice asking him something. He rubbed his eyes, and stretched himself. He saw a man standing in front of him. He had a girl with him. The girl looked to be dressed in expensive clothes and was pretty, unlike the girls standing across the street. He also noticed that the girl looked very young unlike the man, who had very less hair on his head and had a big round belly. The man had his right hand around her shoulder and the girl had her hand around his bulging waist. “Chalega?” (Will you go) the man asked. He reeked of alcohol. “Gas nahi hai” (there is no gas in the vehicle), he mumbled in reply. The man and the girl left. The man said something in his drunkenness and the girl laughed nervously. The FM continued to play sweet music into his ears. He checked the time on his mobile screen it said 1:59 a.m. He stretched his arms, gave out a grunt, rested his head on the backrest and in a few seconds started to softly snore again.