DRIVERS AND CHAUFFEURS

When I first arrived here it seemed that all of life’s difficulties and problems would be solved magically by having a good driver. Having spent hours and hours of my first 2 weeks in Bangalore being driven in circles during heavy traffic by drivers who had been living in the city no longer than myself, I vowed to solve my problem and I promptly hired an excellent driver (stole him from the hotel where my colleagues from the States were staying).

 

I just loved this driver – you could hand him a biz card with an address on it and he would find the place. You could ask him if he knew where the newest nightclub was that everyone wanted to go to and he always knew everything.

He also had a uniform and a HAT, and would come to a short stop, BOLT out of his door and LEAP around the car to open my door. The door opening was a bit much but I really dug the navigation skills and the hat.

Seems to me a driver with a HAT is a CHAUFFEUR.

The other drivers just drove us around the way a grumpy dad would drive the kids to school, no hat, no manners, no door opening, none of that, jusssst driving, no extras.

Well anyway, I thought I had very cleverly solved all life’s problems until the shitty Hyundai Santro the company was renting fell apart completely one day…

… and so I had a driver but no car.

Just goes to show: it’s never that simple.