Rikhsa

I was getting late, and it had started to rain too, so I decided to hire a Rikhsa. Fortunately, at the very next moment, a Rikhsa came into my view. I waved and the driver applied the brakes.

I have always found Rikhsa drivers interesting. This, in no way, means that I dream to be a Rikhsa driver. Being a taxi driver has never been there in my ambitions. But I also think that many Rikhsa drivers hadn’t dreamt of being Rikhsa drivers either. After all, how can we simply know about the troubles they might have gotten through. Nobody can come to know about the story behind a person by just looking at that person, you see. We humans are just like that. Complex machines with complex backgrounds and complex problems. And as if this much complexity is not enough, we have our complex dreams with their equally complex elucidations.

Anyway, before this entry turns into a psychological analysis of people’s realtionships with their pasts, let’s move on.

After getting inside that Rikhsa, I looked closely at the driver. He was young and quite a, well, mulla. I could see some cassette covers lying on the dashboard...mmmm Dashboard..well whatever ?, and they were all about some bayaanaat by Maulana Tariq Jamil. Also present was a book titled Faza’il-e-A’maal. The driver was in the habit of driving fast, and I really liked that since I was getting late. Also remarkable were his ‘cutting’ skills—the way he was making room between little traffic jams and leaving other cars behind (and, perhaps, creating more traffic jams. I never looked back to check.)

When I reached my destination, I pulled out a Rs. 500 note. The driver looked at me and sighed. After he arranged the change, I reached with my right hand to collect the change while giving him the note with my left hand. He stopped.

“Right hand. Always give and take with your right hand.”

A smile spread across my face. Simple and beautiful, I thought, I should have known.