If I have a breath, I can sell salt and live
Amma said, “I am going to visit Suseela Pinni and Padma Peddi tomorrow.” during our weekly phone call. This was a couple of months after she moved into a new independent living place close to Rajahmundry, where she and Nanna lived for 18 years before he passed away. She tried living in America with me and my family for a year and half while she dealt with her loss and grief of losing her spouse of 50 years and 11 months. She tried her best to adjust to the foreign culture and cold weather, having lived all her life in tropical weather where she didn’t need a jacket whenever she stepped out for a short walk. She dressed in layers in the house and hated bundling up to step out during wintertime. When she decided to go back to India, we found an Independent senior living place in Hyderabad so she could live independently and have some help when she needed it. She quickly made friends with a few residents and enjoyed walking to nearby shopping areas and eating meals together at their cafeteria. She talked about how good the food was and how friendly residents and staff were. A few months later she decided to go back to living close to where she and Nanna lived. She hired a car and a driver, packed all her things including a new seagreen color custom made curio and moved back. This new place in Ravulapalem was close to where her sisters and my father’s brother lived.
Amma loved traveling in buses instead of taking a taxi to go to a neighboring town to visit friends and family. She told me just the day before that she was outside her Independent living place waiting to find a rickshaw when a good samaritan spotted her waiting in the hot sun and stopped to give her a ride on his scooter. She said, “You know, this young man who gave me a ride on his scooter looked just like my grandson (my older son), how is my grandson doing?”. So, when she said she was going to visit her sisters, I jokingly asked, “Are you taking a bus or hitchhiking like yesterday when you went shopping?”. Amma laughed and said, “Nah, I am taking a taxi. I found a reliable and good taxi driver.” So she did go visit Suseela Pinni, her younger sister who still lived in their hometown, Tadepalligudem, 45 kilometers away and Padma Peddi, her older sister who lived in another nearby town, Machilipatnam, 150 kilometers away. She later told me about how she stopped in Tadepalligudem first to have breakfast with Suseela Pinni, then continued on to Machilipatnam to have lunch with Padma Peddi and came back to her room by dinner time.
This taxi driver became her go to driver whenever she needed a taxi after that and he drove her to banks, shops, and to visit friends and family for the next seven years. When it became hard for Amma to climb up the stairs at banks and shops, he would go in to withdraw money and do shopping for her while she sat waiting outside the shop in his taxi. I first met him when he came to pick me up from my uncle’s house to take me to Amma’s place. Over the years he became my taxi driver to call whenever I visited Amma. On one of my visits, when I asked him if he could take me to see my aunt in Bapatla and bring me back by the evening. he said, “If you can be ready to leave at 5AM, I will take you to Bapatla by breakfast time, we can head back after lunch and I will bring you back by 6PM.”. He promptly showed up at 5AM to pick me up. He told me about this small roadside stall that sells delicious Idlis and dosas along our way. After an hour of driving on the highway along lush green fields, he pulled over and brought me steaming hot Idlis with fresh coconut chutney on a banana leaf from the stall.
After eating breakfast, we continued the drive and pulled right in front of my aunt's house just in time for a second breakfast two hours later. My aunt made delicious Tomato rice, lamenting that she couldn't make me chicken because it was Saturday which is a vegetarian meal day. She also made delicious Suji Halwa for me saying, “I know you love Suji Halwa and I was able to make it for you after a very long time.”. The driver and I both left to head back to Ravaulapalem where Amma lived, after filling our tummies with delicious Tomato rice and Suji Halwa. As we reached the outskirts of a town close to Ravulapalem, he told me about a small chai stall that sells chai sweetened with jaggery with a hint of black pepper. He asked me if I would like to try it. How could I say no to chai sweetened with jaggery? He stopped right in front of the stall and disappeared into the crowds. The stall was very crowded with customers standing in front of the stall with hot chai glasses in their hands. He reappeared bringing me a glass of delicious hot chai. He dropped me back at Amma’s palace right on the dot at 6PM.
On this long drive to Bapatla and back, we talked about various kinds of chai, the condition of the highways, his family, life in America and life in India. He explained his dislike for wearing a seat belt after noticing my curious stares whenever he hurriedly fastened the seat belt upon spotting policemen on the side of the road or when we approached a traffic barrier. It is common to use traffic barriers as a speed control on Indian roads. These barriers block half of the road so drivers are forced to slow down to go around them. Initially it was unnerving to see him grab the seat belt in mid-drive, fasten it quickly and unbuckle promptly as soon as he drove past the barrier. After learning that he drove at least 2 million kilometers in his career as a taxi driver, I decided to leave my concerns behind to enjoy the drive.
The driver speaks in a typical East Godavari lyrical accent which was hard for me to understand at first, but I got the hang of it. He put up with my Telugu mixed in with English until I switched to speaking in completely Telugu. Whenever I go to India, it takes a couple of days to switch to speaking completely in Telugu without starting a sentence in English only to switch to Telugu mid-sentence confusing people around me. Over the seven years, I got to know him and his son well who worked for his father driving taxis. On one of my visits just a year ago he helped me shop for a mattress for Amma, tied it to the top of his taxi and brought it all the way up to Amma's room to set it up on her bed. He jumped in to haggle with the shopkeeper over the price getting me the best price. He told me later, “Shopkeepers can easily figure out you are visiting from a foreign country and take advantage of you. You can leave the bargaining to me.”
The last time I went there we started talking about Covid time and how we all coped. I wanted to know how their business fared during the pandemic. He said, “It was tough, we lost a lot of business during those days. It was difficult to put food on the table.”. He followed it with, “Some taxi companies continued to operate charging people high fares because they could. I decided to not endanger my wife, children, and grandchildren by bringing the virus home.” He paused and said, “ఊపిరి వుంటే ఉప్పుగల్లు అమ్ముకొని బ్రతకవచ్చు (Oopiri unte uppugallu ammukuni bratakavachchu)”. This sameta, means, “If I have a breath, I can sell salt and live. What’s the use of putting myself in danger and dying. I decided to stop running taxis and just ride it out.”
I nodded my head saying, “You are absolutely right!”. Whenever I think about how the world collectively endured and survived the pandemic and how the lucky among us came out of it unscathed, the choices Amma’s taxi driver made during those difficult times prioritizing his family’s well-being comes to mind. He is now alive and well and so is his family.