A Short Taxi Ride

A few days ago, I landed up in the Mumbai airport at 5 PM in the evening to attend a formal dinner. I was supposed to meet up with my colleague from Delhi who was landing at the same time, it turned out that his flight was early and mine was an hour late and hence he had left by the cab booked by the office and I was stuck looking for a local cab. As I walked over to the Taxi area, I was accosted by a number of taxi drivers and auto drivers, I politely refused as I walked over to a line of the blue Cool Cabs.

When I reached there I found out that these cabs have all gone pre-paid and hence I needed to go back into the arrival lounge to book them, which given the security concerns around airports was easier said than done, hence I was advised to seek a taxi from a lot which was near the arrival pick-up area.

As I was walking towards this place, another driver came to me and asked me if I needed a taxi. Realising that I had no choice, I nodded and immediately he reached for my strolley bag and guided me to a solitary (blue) taxi on the side of the area. As I got in to the Taxi , along with the driver another guy jumped into the car in the front. Since I was on a phone call by then I couldn't do much and as I was talking on the phone the taxi pulled away. The guy sitting next to the driver turned back and showed me a card which I couldn't figure out much and told me that the trip to Colaba would cost me thousand five hundred rupees. I knew that the normal fare was around four hundred or five hundred rupees. I held my call and told this guy that I wanted to be dropped off immediately and I didn't want his cab. He started arguing with me asking me how much I wanted to pay etc. I told him I just wanted to be dropped off and I'd find my way. By this point the taxi was weaving through a slow traffic inside the airport premises.

After my insistence that I be dropped of he said "OK give me 800 now" (To be honest I am not sure if he meant for the destination or just getting out of the cab). I refused him and told him that I wanted to be dropped off. His voice got louder and more threatening. The driver was looking around nervously. I weighed my odds and given that I was stuck with the two guys I really wanted to get out of the cab before I left the airport premises. The guy next to the driver pulled out two hundred rupees and thrust it at me, asking me to give him a thousand. I felt that the only way the taxi was going to stop was if I showed them some money so I hesitantly pulled out my wallet and took eight hundred rupees and handed over to his guy. He grabbed the one five hundred and three hundred rupee notes I gave him and turned forward to hide his body away from me and I could see him switching the five hundred with a hundred he had in his pocket and then he turned to me and told him that I'd given him only four hundred and I had to give him another four hundred now. Now, this got me incredibly mad and I started yelling at him and started rolling down the window started screaming 'STOP!' (or something quite similar) from the top of my voice. The guy next to the driver kept yelling at me that I needed to give him more money NOW!

As the traffic the car braked in traffic, I quickly got out the car and started looking around for some help. The guy next to the driver got out still asking me (in a low tone) that I needed to give him money before I can go. Fortuitously, I looked around and I saw a Police Jeep d coming up on the side doing it's rounds. I flagged it down and the driver seeing this quickly got out and unloaded my luggage

As I approached the Police Jeep, the taxi driver zoomed off, since the road was now clear in front, leaving his partner in crime. As the cop was listening to me and asking questions about the taxi license (or something like that), the guy told the cop that he wanted to call his boss to come and clarify that they were a genuine taxi and took a few steps away holding his phone to his ear. As I went back to narrating my story I could see a figure darting off to my right from the corner of my eye. It was the taxi guy. No one from the Jeep got off.

After I narrated the story, the Policeman in the front (who had taken the car number down) asked me if I was OK. They flagged off another cab and told the cab driver to charge me the actual cab fare and as I was loading my bags I realised that I not only had that eight hundred rupees I'd given to the guy (which he thrust in my hand just as the cop vehicle stopped) but also the two hundred he had given me in the car in anticipation of a thousand! I walked back to the Police vehicle and told the Cop that I had this money. He asked me to put the money on his dashboard, which I did. And then I was on my way.

(Not proud of the fact that I intended to hand over the eight hundred bucks to these taxi guys but all I could think off was that I wanted to end the issue before the Cab got out of the airport premises. And I'm not sure if the Cops did do anything, no one stepped out of the Jeep, I had to rush for this dinner and I was already behind schedule plus I had to catch an early morning flight to Baroda, which I did. Bottom line - when in Mumbai Airport, get a pre-paid).