Some of the most interesting people in the world you’ll find are those sitting behind the wheel of a Taxi.
Recently I was travelling back from Mumbai on a Jet Airway flight where I got the chance to watch Taxi Dreams being one of their inflight movie choices. Produced by the NBS, Taxi Dreams is a documentary of 4 New York City Taxi drivers, their lives, their families, their passengers, their dreams. It was beautiful. Two stories had a considerable impact on me.
First was am African cab driver, Kwame Fosu, who’s been away from his home and family for almost 16 years. SIXTEEN YEARS! That’s like a lifetime. What a sacrifice. And during these sixteen years, he had been home only four times and it’s only then did he get to hug and kiss his kids. Towards the end of the documentary, they showed how he has now collected enough to support a life for his family in New York and goes to receive them at Kennedy Airport. Although his story has had a happy ending, that’s certainly not the case for majority of the Taxi Drivers in Dubai. Speak to any one of them and it’s exactly the thing you’ll here time and again. That they’ve come a long way from home. It’s been 5, 10 or 15 years. During which they’ve been home only once a year.
Then there was a fellow Indian Om Dutta Sharma, who was a lawyer back in India but he wasn’t granted a license to practice in USA. He shrugged his shoulders and gave driving a cab a try. He now has been doing it for 25 years. Now here’s the inspiring bit. Driving a Taxi he supported two of his sons to become Doctors while opening, running and till today maintaining a 130 student all girl school back in his village in India.
What a sense of responsibility! Truly nothing is impossible. Inspite of his relatively low salary, (he’s a cab driver for crying out loud), he saved enough to open and run a school for 130 empoverished (maybe even orphaned) girls, while completing his duty towards his children giving them the best education that the deserve. Gosh, I Loved every minute of this documentary!
There’s a lot more to the documentary than what I’ve described above, so do watch it if you get the chance.