Mar 24 2009
World Wise Cabbies
Lonely Planet Bangladesh
Late one night last fall, in a packed cab, I sat up in the front seat with the driver. I was the designated directions-giver. At a stoplight our driver sighed, setting his hand heavily on the CVS bags sitting between us.
“You look tired. Are you okay?” I asked, a bit concerned for him, a lot concerned for me and the other passengers.
“Yes, very,” he answered with a heavy accent. I guessed he was from somewhere in India. “My wife is pregnant.”
“Ooh.” I answered in some contrived, childless understanding.
He continued, seemingly eager to explain himself. Were other fares not as chatty as me? Didn’t he eat at diners and kvetch with the other cabbies like in Taxi Driver? “She is in Bangladesh. She’s due September 28th, and I leave to go there soon.”
This silenced the crowd. None of us knew what to say, especially when we learned his wife was just short of earning a degree there when she got pregnant and had to stop her studies. We listened only to air rushing through the windows for several blocks.
“If you turn right here you’ll bypass Davis. It’s a shortcut.”
I tried hard to remember where Bangladesh was in relation to India. East? I looked it up when I got home: east.
