Cab Dramas

Living in Singapore makes one accostomed to a lot of strange things. One such is the regular mundane convos with cab drivers. Every cab ride here is a different experience in itself. Infact I have had some of the best fun in cabs. There are basically 3 types of cabbies- one who constantly chatter your heads off in irritating Singlish.Usually these are over friendly elderly Chinese uncles with the same old question." what are you doing here la ?" and when the usual answer is computer/electrical engineering, he immediately tops it up with grand icings of advice
"what! computar?? why la? u coming india here doing computer..all computer everywre here, no jobs oredy la!..i tell u, computar no good la! no good".... for the entire ride.

type no 2 is the silent mum types which is a great relief after travelling in type 1's cabs . Yet the problem of the strict silence is that it dusnt give us a chance to decipher his mother tongue and sometimes makes us receive dark looks when passing the usual cabbie coments. Not to mention the common prob of hiring a cab, only later to realise the absence of money in the purse, and the apologetic request of paying by NETS which wont be unfortunately available on the cab , turning the scene even more fantastic. After the string of his vulgur swearing in Chinese when we try unsuccessfully to scrap the few 5 cent coins at the bottom of our wallets with a desparate hope to equate it into the enormous fare, "the get out" spitting out at the end needs no second telling. If looks could kill, i am lucky to have survived till now

type no 3 is the most interesting. I will have to mention a personal experience to describe them.
my frends and myself took a cab last year after dining at an excellent Indian restaurant.Tired to the bone after eating till our stomachs would burst, we got into a cab with a huge relief.The cabbie was a young Malay guy.
Sprawled on the back seat and amidst our sleepy talk about a satisfying meal, we heard a sudden high pitched scream..
"latchumeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
and again..
"latchumeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

the blood drained off from my friend's face when we realised it was her name he was screaming in the 6th kattai pitch.

a hysterical laugh followed suit. and agian the screming started.
i couldnt hold back the storm of my laughter anymore. It was the hardest laugh I have had in my life, watching my friend's face during her name chanting.. I laufed till I was about to puke.
Later when we all stabilised, the guy cried out in full enthu, to my friend,
"your name is latchumeeee? my wife also latchumeeeee...i love latchumeeeee"
He supposedly so loved the name as he insisted vehemently on screaming it till we finally paid the fare 20 min later.

Last but not the least,few but not frequent, there are the "Anadha rakshaka" types. Recently, I met one such when we were going for our weekly Friday nite movie. My brilliant friend had booked tix online beforehand and we comfortably arrived at Jurong IMM 1 hr b4 the movie fr dinner. Our so planned scouting to dine at a new resto shattered as we were left to gawk at the mountain high prices on the menu cards. We regretfully accepted our destiny and made way to a Mc D outlet fr the usual junk. As usual we had miscalculated the timing and distance of the "nearby" theatre and had to run fr 800 m at top speed to catch the movie. The horror on our faces when the counter lady sweetly said we had arrived 5 min late at the wrong theatre must have been unmistakable. Alas, the same brilliant friend had muddled up the cinemas as well. We piked up our marathon and praying with all our mite to catch a cab, ran to and fro on the streets. After an agonising wait of 5 min, enter the good hero cabbie on the scene. The rush to Boon Lay theatre passed in a haze of cursings, swearings, shoutings, fightings. Thankfully the cabbie dint talk much but acted swifly using his brains. 20 min later, when we were seated on the correct theatre for the correct film, watching the title "Sex and the City" come up on the screen (due to a delayed movie start coz of too much advertisements) , I realised Gods do exist in this world and thanked the timely anadha rakshaka with all my heart.