At seven PM, I climbed into a taxi. A young driver in a blue T-shirt and worn-out trousers,his hair very short, did not speak a word of English. He asked for an astronomical sum for a ride through a flooded road and promised to get me safely to a known place.

The taxi, all wounds and bumps and fresh bruises, most of its dashboard gauges gone leaving only the holes, no safety belts, only the motor is running. We set off in day light and the streets are still partly flooded.

The journey opens by “walking” behind a truck. The truck is overloaded with wooden beams and therefore advances at a snail’s pace. The driver in the blue shirt follows the truck for some long minutes and then decides to move forward. He overtakes the truck on the right and manages to find a small breach and advances a full fifty meters.

The road, or what is left of it, is flooded with cars. Large and small, black cabs, heavy trucks and green rickshaws, silver-colored private cars, motorcycles and police cars. Everyone, everyone is aiming forward, to advance a few more meters, to overtake another annoying car.

Our driver in the blue shirt manages to overcome the truck with the wooden beams, but gets stuck behind a chicken truck. They did not make it through the flood and most of them lay dead in the cages, except for one miserable-looking hen that was standing in the cage and looking around. The smell is terrible, unbearable. We overtake. The car in front of us stops. The driver in the blue shirt silences the motor – why waste gas? He waits very patiently until the cars start moving again. Turns on the engine, drives on for a few meters and, again, silence.

A taxi overtakes us on the right, I want to shout, Careful, but it passes by quite elegantly, without even a scratch. Evening falls. Darkness slowly wraps itself around the road; on the left side are shadows of houses deep in obscurity. Darkness is growing deeper and the driver in the blue shirt continues driving without lights, relying on the lights of other cars. I am struck to notice that he is not the only one. Many cars drive along this huge flow with their lights off.

By the side of the road, without any warning, a man is lying asleep. He has surrounded himself with a chain of stones, creating his own territory. No one dared to disturb him.

Cars carried by groups of young people are more and more common. The car gets stuck, does not start, no problem – it will be carried off by volunteers. You don’t know how to get somewhere? The rumor spreads immediately and directions pour in from every side, go to the right, no, you’d better turn left, and the driver, in the blue shirt, does not trust the rumors and climbs onto the shaky roof of the car and tries to determine the best way to go.

The car is switched on and off, and the lights, which, it turns out, do exist, are also turned on at times. The progress at a snail’s pace does not change. A rickshaw overtakes us on the left and our driver squeezes in between two trucks,maneuvers the car which is about to break down, to the left and to the right, in front of the huge truck and behind the small rickshaw. He manages to successfully cross the river flowing across the street and progresses another two hundred and fifty meters.

Hours go by. We get stuck behind a truck and only a few centimeters prevent us from sliding under it. Silence. There is plenty of time to see, feel and experience. The truck in front of us is gloriously decorated. Mythological figures I do not recognize, flower and animal ornaments. The colors. Most of all, the colors. If ten portions of paint had come down to the world, India had taken most of them. Their English names would poorly describe them. Drawings on the truck are painted in blue, light blue and pale blue. And light greenish blue of the Sea of Galilee on a stormy day, and the green blue of the sea at Santorini, and blue like the sky and like the raging sea, and pale blue like on a spring day and the grayish blue of a stormy day.

And once again the taxi is turned on. And even the lights are on. After approximately six hours, we found the redeeming crossroad. We go onto a large road, mostly empty, we drive fast until we stop and make a surprising discovery – we’re back at the starting point!!!!

The hotel we had set our heart on is unreachable, due to the flood. I must content myself with this hotel, close to the airport, which I could have reached by foot many hours ago.

And as the poet said: “God willing, I will pay – what, am I not going to pay?” And I took out my money and parted from 700 rupees, and went into the hotel close to the airport. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion.


Written: Mumbai; July 2005
Author: Ofra Keinan; all rights reserved, ©