The old man gave me millions of old coins as cab fare. Sitting in my driver seat, I look down at these unlimited coins in my hands. It’d take me so much time to count them. My eyes fell on the little hole at the mid thigh region of the right leg of my black pants. I carelessly make a little convex bowl by the palm and fingers of my left hand and transfer all the rattling coins in the hollow. Then, I carefully pick one coin from the lot and cover my Lilliputian hole with it. The tip of my tongue comes out and touches my upper lip (and a bit of the skin above it), as I carry out this exercise cautiously. It feels spittly there. I sweep the body of my tongue over my lips and it feels much wet now. I look up and see the old man going away. He is as old as a rusted rod, as old as a lyrical leaf, as old as a keen koala, as old as a rude river and as old as a greasy guitar. I inspect the coins again. There are a lot of silver metallic coins with an index finger over them, depicting their one rupee denomination. The others show two fingers, yes, two rupees ones. I decide to stock them in the dashboard. A sudden beautiful sound enters my mindless ears and I look up to discover its source.
Dear lord, I am bounded by the unbounded loveliness you have put in front of me. I do not know if such beauty is possible. I am speechless. I am stuck at this sight. A girl is coming towards my cab, giggling with her girlfriends, in possibly the most resplendent way. The wind blows her hair all around and she looks like the lovely Medusa. I feel limp and breathless. My nerves lose control. The hollowed palm and the tight fingers slowly start relaxing. The metallic coins start falling down on their own, strumming various strings of the world’s most natural musical instruments. They produce a melodious clink as they strike across my nails, a mighty swoosh as they fall through the air and a magnanimous thud as they hit the floor of my colly cab. I let them remain there.
I am married. I have a baby boy. But I am diverted. Something has moved my direction pole, my north star. Neither can I do anything about it nor do I intend to. I pray, dear lord, make her come to me for a ride to heaven. Abruptly, my prayer is answered. There is no proper ritualistic ceremony when this divine beauty comes to my cab window, bends down, and asks after my willingness to drive her home. I fail to muster a word in front of her. I fail to look into her eyes. I want to know their color, but I cannot do so out of shame. I simply nod. The wind still blows her adorable hair. But she cares not for the blowing air. She goes a little back, climbs into the back seat, shuts the door and locks the air out. I can feel the sorrow of the air as it leaves the strands of her hair. They grow limp and lifeless again. One spicy strand falls down from her head and passes the ear and the cheek and the chin and the shoulder and finally reaches her breast.
I know I am losing control. I need to pull myself together. I am a cab driver. I cannot have expectations. Love is nothing but an illusion. I curse myself for saying the wrong prayers and push the accelerator. I try to adjust the car mirror to see her better. I still cannot figure out the color of her eyes. In this rented cab, I can only steal some insufficient glances at her. Dear heart, do not dream so extravagantly. You are a mere soul in this huge world. Allow love to be saved for the rest; it is not for you.
We have to stop at a red light. It is one hundred and eighty seconds long. One hundred and eighty seconds. I do know mathematics. I am a metric pass. It is three odd minutes. I do know it. I am so smart. There is a soft noise of a click and I can smell something bad. I look out of my window. It must be some unwashed beggar reeking bad odor. I look down and see all these coins lying there peacefully on the rug. In the gracious heat, they shine out like original silver. If I could put them all in a string, it’d be the most amazingly shiny anklet a girl can possess. I see the red light time indicator again. A hundred and twenty one seconds still remain. That is an odd number. No, I cannot divide it. Forget it! It’ll end soon. I do not have to worry my smart mind. I look at the driver on my right side. I give him a nod of acknowledgment. We are in this together, help up speechlessly by an inanimate traffic red light, when we do not even allow our stupid wives to utter a word in front of us. I then look at my left side. I notice that all the drivers and the people they are driving around are ogling my cab. What the fuck is wrong in the world? Why, my cab? Has the paint gone down totally? Damn, I need money to get this repainted. Or is it my hole? Did they see it? Oh, cruel world, do not mock me!
But no, they are not watching me. I am not the celebrity any more. I try to follow the direction in which their gaze is directed and I have to completely turn around my neck and head to do that. There she is, my divine beauty, smoking up a Marlboro, leaving lip marks of her delicious brown lipstick on the paper covering the filter of the cigarette. I am not shocked. I am not aghast. I just stare at her causing my turned-around neck much pain. She is a goddess, she can do nothing wrong. But why does she smoke? Everyone says it is bad. My father said it is bad, so it should be. It has to be. I can feel the energy of all the neighborhood people, looking at her with fixed eyes. But she still smokes sans care. Can she not see them? Or are they as unimportant to her as little black ants? She suddenly looks at me and my heart is brutally murdered. Snap! And it lies dead on this rug, two feet away from the lost coins, dripping blood on the rug and imparting some on the coins. The base of my shoes is almost smeared by the red of my own blood. She looks at me, devoid of any human emotion, and asks me to drive on. I turn around with haste. The light is green now. Suddenly all people start honking their car horns. I want to close my ears. Honking is so killing. I want to cry. I do not want to be a driver. This is not what I want. But I control my tears and again, step on the accelerator. I drive, trying to push away every thought from my mind. I must know my place in society. The people were right in honking and jeering at me for being a slow driver. It was my fault and I must admit it.
She then urges me to take a left turn and stop at the first gate. I do so. She checks the cab meter and pays accordingly. She has gone leaving the money in my hand, the money being the only source of touch between her and me. I keep the money inside the dashboard.
She has gone leaving only chains of smoke in my cab.
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