Naturally, we liked the jolly drivers best, the ones who joked with us or just smiled silently to themselves when things got a bit uproarious on the back seats of the school bus. When one of these popular drivers was dismissed, we were shocked and upset for the day or two it usually takes children to get over things that don’t directly menace them. There was a hushhushness about the whole thing and we never found out what transgression had taken place.
Driver Shaikh was not one of the popular drivers. Always stern-faced under his khaki turban, he tolerated no nonsense on his bus. It was only much later that it occurred to me that he wore a turban because he was bald.
Driver Shaikh was employed by the institute my father worked in. One day he came home to pick him up in one of the institute cars. “Your father is a noble man”, he said to me out of the blue, nodding for emphasis, as I loitered at the gate waiting for my father to come out of the house. I had no idea what he meant. My father was just…my father.
When Driver Shaikh died of a heart attack, I was inexplicably sad.
two uniformed boys
drop their bags in the mud
I remember to smile
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