What do you do If your Uber driver falls asleep at the wheel? You feed him chocolate. I found success in doing that.
A young Uber driver picked me up from my sister’s house in New Delhi. I was going to the station to catch an evening train. We started driving through the dense Delhi traffic, the haze outside was the catastrophic air pollution Delhi sees every November. Despite my reluctance, I wore a N95 mask which makes me feel sensory challenged. I was feeling queasy because of the air and tried to distract myself by looking at the fleeting scenes outside.
A good fifteen minutes later I noticed a strange thing. The car was slowing down for no apparent reason, sometimes almost stalling. Then the driver would speed up and zoom followed by random slowness. The slowing and speeding was arbitrary. This went on for a while, making me think there was something wrong with the car. Maybe, it would break down soon. I started worrying about reaching the station on time.
After about half an hour of this strange rhythmic driving, I sat up and looked at the rearview mirror. By then, my nausea had subsided. To my horror, his eyes were closed. He was taking mini snoozes during the stall times.
When I asked him to wake up or rather shouted at him, his eyes popped open. He smiled apologetically and said, since there was no conversation going on, he dozed off. DOZED OFF? Amazingly, he had done a pretty decent job of driving through traffic even while sleeping.
I had already lost time and was late for the station. Instead of blowing my lid and getting off, I decided it was my job to keep him awake. First I rummaged through my purse and found a bar of Hershey’s chocolate and gave it to him. He gobbled that up. Then I found the ultra sweet mouth freshening mixes I had pocketed in the United Coffee House at Connaught place. He ate them all.
I started chatting with him relentlessly. I told him I was late for the train. He visibly emerged from his stupor and started driving like a champion. He squeezed through the narrowest of gaps, tweaking and skirting, showing great insight and dexterity. We were getting an edge in the maddening crowd.
We got stumped just a kilometer away from the station. An impossible gridlock and nothing moved. We were truly stuck. A young porter knocked on the window and said I should get off and start walking through the stalled traffic if I wanted to make my train. The Uber driver chimed in. I paid him and he refused a tip. Thank you Madam for the sweets, he said.
We zigzagged through the stalled traffic, the porter carrying my overnighter on his head. We entered the station, tore through the length of the platform towards the train. He helped me get on, deposited my bag. I gave him a large tip. His smile lit up the blue and green upholstered compartment. He got off; the train started rolling.
I thanked my travel guardian angel and wrote this post while the train sped through darkness made deeper by flickering village lights far away.
Some Delhi Photos