I met Sadiq in 2003 when I was a stock markets reporter for this paper. I used to live in the distant suburb of Kanjurmarg and take a train to Victoria Terminus (VT or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) every morning. It was always difficult to get a taxi from VT to my office near Churchgate. The easier option was a shared taxi — smelly, rickety, old Fiats that would wait till all four seats were occupied and drop you off at fixed locations in Fort and Nariman Point. I hated the entire idea of this — the close proximity to strangers, the unpredictable wait and the subsequent walk in the sun. Sadiq used to drive one of these and, in the early days, in the bewilderment of trying to figure out transport options while, it seems, the whole of humanity hurries past you, Sadiq would hustle me into his car.
In some weeks, when I had figured out the various ways I could get to office from VT station, I began to refuse Sadiq. “I don’t want to travel shared,” I told him definitively. At this, he’d roll his eyes and say, “Fine, come on, I won’t take any other passengers.” It wasn’t my favourite option, because I felt compelled to pay him for the missing passengers, but I was too polite to refuse. Soon, I sort of became Sadiq’s girl, in the sense that as soon as I was spotted, someone from the scrum of taxi drivers would call out, “Sadiq, teri wali aayi hain !” (Sadiq, yours is here). On days that Sadiq was out driving his taxi, one of them would, in solidarity with him, offer to drop me in his car.
This went on for a couple of years. Then I got pregnant. When it became obvious that what I was carrying was a baby bump and not just the result of a large breakfast, there was much merriment outside VT Station. Sadiq was teased for a week. Some congratulated him, others commiserated with him. I smiled through it. When I came back to work after the baby was born, Sadiq wasn’t at the station. The next day, he said he’d waited an hour to make sure he wouldn’t miss me. “Is it a girl or a boy, Sadiq?” the others yelled while we walked to his cab. “
Now, some 11 years later, I am back in Mumbai for a week, working out of the same old office, although I am not commuting by train. But that wasn’t the only reason I thought of Sadiq. I thought of him because last week, the whole world was witness to Donald Trump’s so called “locker-room” talk. The actual talk was sexually loaded, suggesting aggression, even abuse. I wondered, had the whole Sadiq story happened in 2016, would I have been comfortable enough to simply be amused by it. Was it the equivalent of locker-room talk? Was the sexual suggestion of his friends more than some kind of juvenile teasing? Would I laugh at it now? Would I dismiss it as banter? My guess is I wouldn’t. I would be offended by it; I would make it clear that I shouldn’t be spoken about like that. I would never board his taxi. If the PCR van is around, I would consider going over and complaining to the police. I would call it harassment. And I would feel belittled.
This is disappointing, this loss of innocence of some kind. But world over, a gender revolution is now afoot. And sadly, there is no place for innocence in a revolution. With the endless news cycles of rapes, murders, Boko Haram kidnappings, and ISIS sex slavery, it is impossible to be even remotely amused by anything sexually suggestive. As we seemingly plumb the depths of gender depravity, a zero-tolerance policy is all that will work.
It robs us of the small joys of life, but it is, I suppose, a sacrifice that is well worth it. Maybe on the other side of this revolution, there would be a time and place again to joke about things, to not take everything so seriously, to let one pass and simply roll your eyes and move on. Maybe.
Having partly written this out, on Tuesday evening, I went to VT Station to look for Sadiq. He wasn’t there. Nor did any of the other drivers know anything about him. Until, one old man came forward, looked at me rather suspiciously, and said he vaguely remembered one such guy. I left my number with him. On Wednesday morning, he called. He had managed to track Sadiq down. “He left for Saudi Arabia in 2007 or 2008, is all anyone knows,” he said, “chances are he’s still there.” It is fitting, Saudi Arabia. Where these gender considerations find the least traction. And, ironically, the exact same place lucid Twitter trolls ask me to go if I don’t like the way women are treated in this country. There is no escaping any of this. Not for Sadiq, not for me, nor for you, dear reader.
Veena Venugopal is editor BLink and author of The Mother-in-Law; @veenavenugopal