Driver Drama (Hopefully) Done

Here's a post that I meant to publish long ago when we hired our latest driver Anil:

We got a new driver in October! We hope this one is our last one. We have many incredible stories under our belt from our first 10 drivers, all of whom barely spoke English, and most of whom often seemed not to even have a brain in their heads. And now let's pause this list for a moment to pay homage to all of them. (Please note that all but one of these wasn't actually fired, just shifted to a new job within the car rental company.):



1. Driver Maraj: Spoke passable English, but the car rental company he worked for was way too expensive. He had big ambitions about becoming our driver otherwise, but when I found some alcohol in the glove box one day, we weren't too interested. Oddly enough, Maraj has come back into our lives and has been driving the Pulsiphers around site-seeing in his recently-acquired minivan when they need it. The Pulsiphers have been pretty happy with him, so maybe we should have stuck with him and avoided future headache . . .



2. Driver Milap: Short guy who burped while driving as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do. He'd also do this quick devotional thing, touching his ears and kissing his hand, to the little Ganesh icon he had on the dashboard before he drove every morning. I think he must have been a stalker in his previous life because no matter where I wandered, when I was ready to go back to the car, he'd be right there. I still miss that. But he had to go because he was fond of peeking in on his neighbor, our housekeeper Sarita, and she refused to get in the car with him after that.


3. Driver Purdeep: This guy always reminded of Lennie in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Big hands, big eyelashes, and a vacant look on his face (sorry, no photo). Sometimes I swear he was asleep while he was driving. He was fond of driving in circles. Read more about some of our fondest memories of him here.


4. Driver _________: I can't remember this guy's name for the life of me, but he was an older man whom I think had never set foot in Delhi in his life. He didn't know where anything was! But he was eager to try, so he'd stop and ask all the time. The only trouble with that was that he didn't speak Hindi very well, so people often couldn't understand him. Add to that the fact that people in India will act like they know the answer to your question when they really don't, and you can imagine why this driver had to eventually go too.


5. Driver Roy Isaac: After the last two drivers, we decided it was time to hire our own. So I started asking around. Roy Isaac showed up at our door one day (I think he heard we were looking for a new driver from Purdeep, who started telling other drivers we were looking when he caught on to how frustrated we were with him) and I interviewed him. Rich was out of town, and though I wasn't totally thrilled with him, I felt desperate. And frankly, I thought it might be cool to have a driver named Isaac. And it was cool for a while. Mr. Roy Isaac spoke English and used his brain, so I could send him on errands and two-and-three step stops and he wouldn't usually get it all mixed up. But a month or two after we hired him, we found out he was siphoning gas from our car and selling it. So he had to go too.


6. Driver Ramesh: Ramesh was with us for nearly a year, and he was a pretty swell guy. He always had a grin on his face and was willing to work long hours without complaining. He was painfully shy though. He hated to stop and ask for directions or even talk to me at all, to the point where he would just drive any random place if we forgot to tell him where we were going. I had my suspicions that if we got in a dangerous or sticky situation, he'd have no problem walking away from me and leaving me to my own devices.

Ramesh has a wife and preschool-aged boy who lived in a village several hours away who come visit periodically, but I think Ramesh preferred to live alone. Rich asked him several times if he missed his wife and family, and he'd say, "My marriage is arranged marriage," as if that explained his apathy toward his family. After about 8 or 9 months Ramesh found another job somewhere else. I think he hoped we would beg him to stay, but we didn't.


7. Driver Sanjay the Fast: We have to delineate him as such because there's another Sanjay yet to come. Sanjay was young and loved to drive fast. Smart and good-looking and educated, but didn't stay long. He had a hugely long fingernail on his pinky finger. My Allyson-like imagination started running wild and decided he must be a drug user, but then I found out people grow their nails long here as a sign of their being above the common laborer class.


8. Driver Vikram: Vikram was our Muppet driver. He has the biggest darkest eyebrows I've ever seen! When I'd ask him where he was going, or why he didn't pick me up when I told him to, he'd often say, "Maybe I don't know." I could never figure out what that was supposed to mean! He's sort of Dalvir's (the car owner) right hand man, so he usually just filled in when Dalvir couldn't find anyone else. He was the driver who helped us catch the mouse/rat.



9. Driver Sanjay the Faster: If we thought Sanjay #1 drove fast, we had no idea! This Sanjay looked like a terrorist when he first started working for us because he'd just shaved his head and left a little strand in the cowlick spot. I think it's something Hindus do when they lose a loved one. Ramesh did it too when his uncle died (and wore a Texas Longhorns cap to keep his head warm until it grew back!).

But Sanjay was great. He was smart and could run errands for me without mixing things up, even though his English was minimal. And though he drove fast, it was relatively smooth. I loved getting places on time even when I thought I'd left late! Sanjay drove us to Dehradun on a two-lane highway and his close-call passing was so freaky that I had to just close my eyes on several stretches and imagine I was somewhere else--much like I do in childbirth. Sanjay left one day to go meet his future bride's family and didn't come back until a few days after he promised, so Dalvir decided to sack him.


10. Driver Makhan (Makhan means "butter"--i.e. slippery): This man had incredible faith or stupidity. You be the judge: The gas tank in the car was way below empty. Rich noticed it when Makhan dropped him off at work and told him to say something to me when he got home so I could go fill it up (you can't trust a driver like Makhan to fill up the car and actually fill it up without pocketing some money). I don't know if he didn't know how to form the words (I think pantomime could have done the job), or forgot to use his brain, or had incredible faith, but he didn't bother to tell me. And 20 minutes into our drive I happened to notice the gas gauge was way below empty. When I asked him when he planned to tell me the car was running on empty, he looked at me blankly. I guess I would have got the message clearly enough when the car stopped running. And then even after I got angry with him, he had the audacity to pass one petrol station and go even further to his favorite petrol station where he likely had some deal with the babus there to make a little money under the table. Argh! It was that day that we finally decided to call Anil.


11. Driver Anil: Anil is our new driver, and he is like a breath of fresh air. This is our second attempt at hiring someone on our own, and he has definitely turned out better than our first attempt. He and his family joined our church about a year ago, but hasn't been able to come to church very regularly because his Indian employer wouldn't give him any days off.

Anil doesn't speak English perfectly, but he tries very hard to communicate. And I'm 98.2% sure I can trust him with most anything. He often tells us how happy he is that he can work for us and go to church on Sunday. He cleans the car beautifully, rearranges the car seats for the various kids who will be in the car, and he seems to seriously get joy out of working hard to make our lives easier and more comfortable. He drives smoothly, but will drive fast when we're in a hurry. Ahhh. When we hired him, I felt like such a load had been lifted. For all the hours we spend in the car shuttling to school and back, this is a big deal.

Anil has a beautiful wife Ritu, a 4-year-old boy Anshul, and a 6-year-old girl Selvy (Twinkle for short). They live in our second servant's quarters with his mother and sometimes his brother. So now we have a standing playdate with Anshul and Selvy in our front yard, which has its challenges, but is a great opportunity. Our kids get to play with local kids, and learn a little Hindi. His kids get to learn more English, play with our toys, and can now go to church on Sunday. Graham especially loves playing with Anshul ("Evy"). It warmed my heart one day when Graham and Anshul were playing on the front porch and I heard Anshul singing with all his heart "I Am a Child of God."

Now after finding the best driver yet, we're contemplating re-thinking the whole car thing. Rich and I both have driver's licenses now, and it's time to buy a car instead of lease one. Perhaps we'll get a Nano car for each of us and try our luck at no driver for a while. But perhaps we'd miss all the good stories!