Page One

I got up today with the saffron sunrise. Have been traveling through the traffic jam of Marine Drive and Matunga, going through gullies, veering to avoid hitting children playing cricket in corners. Being jolted by bumps on dug up roads. Yes, I’m just another black and yellow fiat taxi on Mumbai’s roads. I’ve had my morning meal of petrol at the pump. My wheels now running and rolling. Young children in school uniforms, old women in saris and burkhas, men in sharp suits and mullahs with flowing beards all have sat in my behind. These two boys look no different—clean shaven, jeans and Tshirt. One slips a package underneath my seat. The other helps. You ask how I see this? I have eyes in my behind, rear view mirror you call it. Soon other strangers will sit in my back seat and we will go towards Santa Cruz station, complaining about the suffocating sun. I do not know now but soon those strangers and me will be broken to bits. But for now those boys slipping something underneath my seat look like ordinary, clean shaven denim jeans and T-shirt types.