A tale of two taxi drivers in Europe

Mahabir S Jaglan

ONE thousand kilometres apart in Europe, two taxi drivers — one from Asia and the other from Africa, but from similar socio-cultural milieus — offered us a glimpse of their economic predicament and social dilemma in the fairy-tale land of plenty. My son booked a Bolt taxi for the airport so that we could catch the flight from Barcelona to Paris. The app flashed the driver’s name as Faraq. He had a familiar ethnic look and his greetings revealed his South Asian origin. When asked about his background, he said he was from Gujrat, Pakistan. Gujrat is located north of Lahore in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Faraq came to Spain in search of greener pastures but ended up earning a living as a taxi driver, like many other young men from South Asia. When asked how he and other Pakistani immigrants got along with their Indian counterparts, his response was emotional but measured. He said, ‘There’s no issue among us, unlike what is perceived by Indians and Pakistanis back home. Many of us are very good friends and support each other. One of my close friends is from Haryana; he often entertains us with his ragni.’

After landing at the Paris airport, we booked another taxi for the hotel; the app flashed the name Jamaal. This driver was from Morocco, which was a colony of France till 1956. He did not know English; so, we communicated with him in French via Google. He was a die-hard football fan, and why not — Moroccan footballers played their hearts out in the 2022 World Cup to reach the semifinals and mesmerised football fans the world over. I told him that Jamaal was also a common name for Hindus in North-West India a few decades ago. I informed him that Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan born in Tangier, travelled across Africa and Asia in the 14th century and reached Delhi. The great traveller also visited China as a ‘cultural ambassador’ of India.

Awed by these revelations by a stranger, Jamal opened up to narrate the story of his journey to Paris in search of a livelihood about 15 years ago and the woes of North African immigrants in France. He said the worst thing for him in the city was the ethno-racial discrimination in social and administrative spheres. As the taxi reached the suburbs of north Paris, he announced that we were entering the ethnically segregated residential colonies, and as we passed by, he began calling them ‘Mini Morocco’, ‘Mini Tunisia’, ‘Mini Algeria’ and even ‘Mini India’. In a tragic coincidence that laid bare the prevailing unrest, during our stay in Paris, a police officer shot a Moroccan-origin teenager during a traffic stop, leading to ethno-racial strife in Paris and many other cities of France.

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