Credit: DH photo
It was nearly 3 am when I got into a ‘pink taxi’ with a woman driver just outside Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru. She informed me she is one of 37 women who drive taxis at the airport alongside maybe 3,000 male taxi drivers. “They’re always saying we are taking away their business, but we don’t mind them,” she quipped. I was her first ride of the night. She had begun queuing for passengers at around midnight, and after dropping me off, she would return to the airport, hoping to get another ride before daybreak. Most nights she slept only three hours, and to achieve even that, she often needs sleeping tablets. “My doctor is always scolding me.” Let's call her J.
A 33-year-old Muslim woman, J has four children who range from 16 to three: three boys and a girl. “I wanted a daughter,” she said, almost as though she heard me wonder why so many. Her mother-in-law takes care of the children when she is out driving and is, she assured me, a very good mother-in-law. Her husband is ‘gone’. Has he left her, or is he dead? I felt I couldn’t ask, but given her mother-in-law looks after the children, perhaps he is dead.
Bemoaning the cost of living in a big city, she told me about some day-time work she had just landed—the details of which I struggled to understand—that she hoped would help. Her 16-year-old urges her to stop the night driving. “He says he will find work, and I tell him to stay in school and study." She is working hard so that her children have a better life, she said, adding that her sons are good at their studies. The pride in her voice was unmistakable. What of her daughter? “She is still young... she’s very nice and very pretty, and my three sons and mother-in-law love her too much,” J said.
It was past 4 am when I was dropped off. J had driven with confidence through heavy traffic on the highway from the airport and later on deserted city roads. Not once had she used her horn. She told me it was against the taxi company’s rules to honk while driving. Yet J, who said she has driven for 10 years, had been reluctant to pull on her seat belt. She had a growth, or maybe lump, on her upper chest that bled when she used one. The growth needs to be removed. For now, she covers it with a thick cloth when using the seat belt.
As she drove away, I knew I had just met a special person whose spunk and grit challenged so many stereotypes.