You must be joking
Last night I had to go to hospital for my dialysis. Got free from there at around 1 a.m. and came down to the road. Normally we have cabs waiting at the hospital door waiting to ferry passengers home. Yesterday there was a strike by the staff of oil refineries all over India and hence no fuel was available. As a result, no cab was available last night.
I had vomitted during dialysis and was feeling very weak. I was finding it tough to stand upright. My dad had come to escort me home. I stood by a parked vehicle while my dad kept waiving out to the few taxis that were plying on the road. Most of them had passengers in them.
Just then one taxi with four young men stopped. They got off the cab. My father saw the opportunity and almost ran to the cab to engage it for our journey home. The young men saw us, ran back and almost held the cab driver hostage. They had not paid him. They commanded him to wait for 15 - 20 minutes. The poor guy had no choice. We requested the youngsters to allow us to take the cab home and let him return. It would not take the cabbie more than 10 minutes to drop us and return to that spot mainly because there was no traffic. We in fact explained our situation that I was feeling weak due to the dialysis and we needed the cab badly to reach home as early as it was possible. It was also quite a cold night by Mumbai standards.
These guys ridiculed us and did not accede to our requests. In their state of drunkenness they told us almost threateningly to look for some other mode of transport.
Jokers I thought to myself.........or in more polite terms "You must be joking"
I had vomitted during dialysis and was feeling very weak. I was finding it tough to stand upright. My dad had come to escort me home. I stood by a parked vehicle while my dad kept waiving out to the few taxis that were plying on the road. Most of them had passengers in them.
Just then one taxi with four young men stopped. They got off the cab. My father saw the opportunity and almost ran to the cab to engage it for our journey home. The young men saw us, ran back and almost held the cab driver hostage. They had not paid him. They commanded him to wait for 15 - 20 minutes. The poor guy had no choice. We requested the youngsters to allow us to take the cab home and let him return. It would not take the cabbie more than 10 minutes to drop us and return to that spot mainly because there was no traffic. We in fact explained our situation that I was feeling weak due to the dialysis and we needed the cab badly to reach home as early as it was possible. It was also quite a cold night by Mumbai standards.
These guys ridiculed us and did not accede to our requests. In their state of drunkenness they told us almost threateningly to look for some other mode of transport.
Jokers I thought to myself.........or in more polite terms "You must be joking"
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