Elegant Services Forum

I just bought a new book and it's excellent - Taxi by Khaled Al Khamissi! The writer has written 58 fictional dialogues with Cairo Taxi Drivers based on his experiences during 2005/2006. So far it has made me laugh, PMSL, groan, sigh .... Cheesy

It's a good insight into the way these guys think .... I've had a few nutters myself!

You can get the book at Diwan Bookstore and it costs 75 LE (this is the translated English version). The Original arabic version costs 15 LE (got one for my friend and I know she's gonna love it!). ISBN: 9781906300029

Here is Chapter 7:

We drove into Tahrir Square and found it transformed into a military barracks with the arrival of giant riot police trucks and large numbers of officers and policemen. This was about a month after the suicide operation, or the terrorist attack, or the stupid, retarded, desperate attack which led to the death of the attacker and injured some tourists including an Israeli, and which had helped create even more intolerable traffic jams in Cairo.

We turned into Ramses Street and I was surprised to see an endless line of riot police trucks parked on the right hand side of the street. I looked with sympathy at those wretched policemen, stunted from poor nutrition, their bodies apparently consumed by bilharzia. One of them gave me an imploring look through a small opening like the window of a prison cell. The taxi driver looked at me sarcastically and asked: "Pasha, did you hear the horrible story of what happened to the officer yesterday?"

I said no and he began the story. "They say one of the officers went in to see his troops in one of those trucks (he gestured to the riot police vehicles) and died from the smell." The the driver burst out laughing. I didn't laugh myself and he carried on. "Can you imagine sir, the smell of those wretches in this heat when they're packed into the truck like sardines? They keep sweating and farting. The officer, my God, just dropped down dead, he died of asphyxia."

I looked incredulous and asked him: "Did that really happen?"

"Wakey, wakey, it's a joke," said the driver. "You looked grumpy so I thought I'd give you something to laugh about."

"I am a little depressed," I said. "But I hadn't thought it was so obvious"

"Well you don't take anything with you when you go," said the driver. "Well then, listen to this one. A guy was walking through the desert when he found Aladdin's lamp. He rubbed it and a genie appeared and said: "Hey presto, at your service, your wish is my command.' The guy didn't believe his eyes but went and asked for a million pounds. The genie went and gave him half a million. The guy asked him: 'Okay, so where's the other half? You're going to fleece me from the start?' 'Ah, the government's got a 50-50 stake in the lamp,' the genie replied." The driver burst out laughing again and his laugh made me laugh more than the joke did.

"You know, the government really does take about half of our earnings," the driver said.

"How so?" I asked,

"Various tricks," he said. "Every now and then they dream up a new story. But the best of all is the seatbelt story."

"What's with the seatbelts?" I asked

"The seatbelt's a joke," said the driver. "A bad joke and it can only be a trick, a seatbelt for the driver and for the person sitting next to him, like in foreign countries, the bast***s. And most people in this country don't drive faster than 30 kilometres an hour, but you know what, business is business. Suddenly, just like that sir, they told you you have to fit a seatbelt and the fine is 50 pounds. Really expensive seatbelts then appear, you can't find one for less than 200 pounds. It's obviously a racket big people are involved in, very big people. Imagine, sir, how many taxi's there are in Egypt and how many cars are driving around Egypt without seatbelts. Count it up, that's a job worth millions, the perfect scam."

"Seatbelts are compulsory throughout the world," I said, "You have to fit seatbelts"

"Whadyamean, throughout the world? This is a son-of-a-bi**h government. You know, right, that previously the seatbelt counted as a luxury, in other words you had to pay extra customs duty on it. I was importing a Toyota from Saudi Arabia and I had to cut off the seatbelts myself and take out the air-conditioning so that I wouldn't have to pay the luxury customs duty. Then, no more than a few months later, the seatbelt was compulsory. I mean, straight from luxury and extra duty to compulsory. So we ran out and bought seatbelts and they did some good business at our expense. The who story was business on business. The big guys imported seatbelts and sold them and made millions. The Interior Ministry worked on giving loads of tickets and collected millions. The wretched cops on the street would stop you and say: 'Where's your seatbelt, you bast**d?' and you'd slip him a fiver, and if he stopped you when an officer was there, it would be 20 pounds. I mean, everyone benefited. And after that there's something I want to tell you. I'm sure you know the seatbelts a lie through and through in the first place. Everyone knows it's for decoration, we fit it just for show." The driver lifted up his seatbelt to show me it wasn't fastened. "If the police officer stops you, he looks at the belt and he knows very well that it's for decoration. That seatbelt, you have to slam on the brakes to make it grip. But with our cars, when you hit the brakes, the seatbelt comes undone." He laughed aloud. "We live a lie and believe it. The government's only role is to check we believe the lie, don't you think?"