Mumbai Taxi by Saira Ramasastry Gayanprakesh drove his Yellow Cab 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, while maintaining a sex life with two women, not including his wife. He had moved to New York from India when he was 20 with the purpose of accumulating a specific amount of wealth. To live like a king in Mumbai, he needed $100,000 in cold American cash. His brother, Sonny, ran a taxi business in New York, and promised him a car when he came to the city. Gayanprakesh calculated that if he drove 60 hours a week for 5 years, while living on cheap food, he could return to India with the cash in hand. Not bad, he thought. But, things got complicated. Sonny asked Gayanprakesh if he wouldn’t mind marrying his wife’s sister, because she was taking up too much room in their very small apartment. Gayanprakesh agreed, feeling that he must repay his brother somehow for the taxi cab. But, things got even more complicated. Gayanprakesh found himself so sexually frustrated with his healthy wife, Urmimala, that he sought the companionship of a high-price Indian call girl named Chipathi. He fell so deeply in love with the woman that he could not bear the thought of another man touching her. He agreed to maintain her apartment in the East Village, and to give her a living allowance. After 5 years, Chipathi stirred the pot even more; for Gayanprakesh’s 25th birthday, she invited her Pakistani girlfriend, Shopa, over for a three-way. Gayanprakesh enjoyed himself and asked that they make this a regular thing. Unfortunately, Shopa was not on the pill and got pregnant. Chipathi was thrilled and took Shopa in, saying that Gayanprakesh could support all of them and they could be one big happy family. Now, driving a Yellow Cab 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, would never get Gayanprakesh back to Mumbai to live like a king. He could barely afford the women in his life....
If you liked this so far, Saira Ramasastry, an associate at Merrill Lynch, lives with her husband, Chris, in Sunnyvale. E-mail: sairama@earthlink.net |