The wisdom of taxi drivers
If you want the sanest, most sage and also bonkers advice on love, life and religion, talk to a cab driver. They come in all shapes and sizes: you have the kohl-eyed drivers with serbans who can tickle your funny bone, you might come across a graduate driving a taxi because it’s more lucrative and of course an Indonesian immigrant trying very hard to pass off as a local, despite lapsing into Javanese as he careens his way through the traffic and asking you from time to time, the directions.
Taxi drivers are the same everywhere; they know the beat, the pulse of a city and empathise with the heart of a country. So they should, ferrying all sorts across town, cities and villages. While you can’t generalise the drivers, most of them are men (and women) that know what it means to eke a living in an unsure economy. Malaysian cab drivers can be the most ornery service providers in the world, but nothing’s perfect.
Almost 90 percent of the cab drivers that have brought me from point A to C and then Y have been Malay, and chatty. I don’t exercise the NEP when it comes to hailing cabs, but it’s rare that I get a non-Malay Muslim driver. And every one of them had something to say about the state of our country. (more…)
