Two Drivers with Nothing in Common!

 

In present times it’s common to find the soothing slogan ‘help is just a call away’ at every step of life while in actuality it could be ‘help is just an eternity away’, particularly for elderly people whose perception of them being burdens on the booming younger community is so very tantalizingly turned into a reality by the latter! Of course, we cannot generalize because there are good souls—younger or older— still available on our tortured earth. Just the other day we encountered two app cab drivers that uphold and differential both the statements made above. 

We had to catch a late-night flight. As usual we, I and my wife, both elderly and I a senior citizen, had to somehow drag and carry our bags and heavy suitcases down the stairs round to the street corner where the cab was supposed to pick us up, because we didn’t want to wait for eternity for ‘help’, and we didn’t mind that at all out of experience! In that laborious process the cab driver called saying he was already on location and insisted that that was the right location despite my pointing out that the location was shown very clearly on the app. The driver’s tone was very casual, indifferent and bereft of human emotions. Anyway, he was at last persuaded to proceed to the location that we reached painstakingly.

 

The cab stopped beside us. The driver sat like a statue in his seat and the only movement he made was to open the boot for us. We really struggled to load the things inside the narrow boot. It was very hard for me as I had to lift the heaviest suitcase with both my hands and then adjust it inside. Well, I assured myself, the driver was just one of the multiplying ‘casual’ community and there was absolutely no point expecting help from him nor finding fault with him. Finally, getting ourselves installed inside he did the favor of driving us toward the destination; however, he did it casually and carelessly too, narrowly averting a bump into a vehicle in front on the way. Ditto was his behavior at the airport. In fact, he wanted to abandon us at the first gate he found even though the right gate was also recorded on the app. After delivering us at the right gate on my insistence he sat on like a statue, apart from opening the boot again. Fearing the driver would run away once I settle the fare then and there, I immediately alighted from the cab and looked for a trolley first. Then, again that laboriously process of unloading the boot and loading the trolley. After we finished doing that, I made the payment. All the time the driver sat in his driving seat.

 

Reaching the destination airport I again booked an app cab and waited in the allotted alley. Sighting the cab at a distance I motioned the driver to come up to the place where we stood which the driver did promptly. And then the driver not only opened the boot but also left his seat to help us load, to our hearts’ content and gratification. All the way he talked in a very friendly and homely way, informing us of the weather in the city and the changes that have been taking place of late. Arriving at our residence the driver again left his seat and helped us unload and carry the luggage up to the steps. He waited till we entered the building, and only then he drove away. I waved him a loving goodbye.

 

It’s indeed a solace that at the time when our Planet Earth seems to racing into the thick of a torrid and very uncertain future the good souls, indeed a raging minority, are still not drying up entirely.

(I was happy to find Blogger is taking the intended photos again when I checked out the last time. Hope it stays that way so that I get encouraged to be more regular with my posts. Nowadays without even photos, the videos are the buzzword, post are going to attract even a stray reader!)