The Story of Me and My Drivers

This morning, I got a miss-call from my driver at 7.45am. Since I was having my breakfast, so I did not bother to call him, assuming him miss-calling to tell me that he had arrived and was waiting for me. Some of the drivers were like that. They assumed themselves as the bosses and you were the slaves that had to sit in his car.

At 8am, I went to check with the front desk, it seemed that my driver had yet to arrive. Strange…. So I called him.

(Exact words, no grammatical correction)
Me: Hi, you called?
Driver: Morning, Sir. I am from Hertz, Sir. I involve in an accident, Sir.
Me: Does that mean there will be another car coming?
Driver: Yes, sir.
Me: Do you have the car detail?
Driver: Yes, sir.
Me: I mean do you have the car number plate?
Driver: Yes, sir.
Me: I mean the number of the car.
Driver: Yes, sir. 3453 sir.
Me: Thanks, bye!
Driver: Bye!

I checked my morning sms on driver details and realized that he was giving me his car plate number! Oh no!

Not all drivers understood English. Some only knew the basic questions and answers. Other than that, their usual response would be ‘Yes, Sir!’. I guessed they just pretended to understand because some talkative customer would try to have a conversation with the driver; where the driver ended up as the listener and the customer, didn’t realize that he was like having conversation with himself, still chatted happily.

So if I asked the driver to remove all his clothing and run around the car 3 times, most probably he would be smiling at me and answered ‘Yes, Sir!’.

Anyway, all drivers in Bangalore or around the world are triggered by 2 keywords – Money and Road Names. It seemed like it is an international keyword for all drivers.

So if I asked the driver to remove all his clothing and run around Brigade Road 3 times, most probably he would be smiling at me and answered ‘Yes, Sir!'. And the next thing I knew would be I ended up at Brigade Road, but he was still with his clothes on.

There was once I asked a driver to change my 1000 Rupee Notes to something smaller. The driver misunderstood and said “No money, sign credit card.”

One sign of relief was that luckily my drivers are from Hertz and understandably they knew a bit of very basic English.

When I just arrived Bangalore, my pickup was arranged by my hotel. And my driver was a guy named Zabee. This driver tried to chat with me using English. Every time before he tried to say something, I could hear him talking to his own softly. And once a while, he took out a small dictionary in his pocket, flipping the tiny booklet, while driving his car and once a while honking at the traffic. Cool!

Sadly, he still talked in a mess – “You go hotel with me, me very safe. When you want have fun, you call me, me rate very cheap.” At first, I thought he was a gigolo cum driver, but after asking him rephrasing his sentence I realized that he meant he was a safe driver, I did not have to worry on his driving; and if I wanted to go out for entertainment purpose, I could call him up because his rate was cheaper. Phew!

Strangely, auto-rickshaw drivers spoke better English.

Anyway, my driver came at 8.30am with just a slight bump at the back of his car. And I am really late for work today!