The taxi stops at the traffic signal and a pedlar runs up to the car with a pack of yellow dusters. “Chal bhag” [Go away] roars the driver at the wheel like a lioness, cursing him. She turns to look at me. “He wants 10 rupees for that?” Turning back, she spies a policeman standing at the traffic kiosk. “I have a love-hate relationship with the police, I’ll tell you how,” she says, switching gears as the signal turns green.
This is Basheeran, 67, who drives a Suzuki pickup as taxi for the past 30-35 years and is the only female taxi driver in Hyderabad city.
Basheeran got married in her early teens. “I did not even know how to hold a baby. I was pampered both at my parents’ and my husband’s home. He was a policeman and also owned a taxi, which he drove in his spare time. He loved me very much,” she recalls.
When tragedy struck her, a mother of seven took up taxi driving in Hyderabad to make ends meet
Despite her lack of interest, her husband insisted that she learn to drive, regardless of criticism from relatives. “He gave me driving lessons. Who knew that he would die and I will have to support our children.”
Her husband died of cardiac arrest after 13-14 years of marriage. At the time, they had six children — four sons and two daughters. “I was so naive that I could not find my way back home if I went to the market. After his shocking death, I didn’t know where to go and what to do,” she says.
After her husband’s death, her in-laws and relatives abandoned her. She neither went to her parents in Ranipur, nor to her relatives in Punjab. Instead, she decided to rent a house and live there with her kids. She started sewing clothes for a living and hired a driver to run the taxi, but things did not work as per her plan. The driver did not bring in much money, neither did sewing help her earn enough to feed, clothe and provide shelter to a family of seven.
One day, Basheeran put her sewing machine in the taxi and drove out. She doesn’t remember exactly when she started driving. “Perhaps some five years after my husband’s death, before Sindhi-Mohajir riots began. Back then, the price of five litres of petrol was 35 rupees only,” she recalls.
Basheeran first chose the route from Hyderabad to Kotri — the city’s longest route. “It was strange then for a woman to drive a taxi. Besides, I was young and beautiful, so people would give me strange looks. At first, I was frightened, but I had heard the song ‘Aye dil tujhe qasam hai, himmat na harna … [Oh heart, I besiege you not to lose hope]’ and I decided to fight my circumstances.”
Initially, Basheeran did not allow men to sit shotgun beside her. Either women would take the passenger seat with her or the seat would remain vacant. She would sew clothes while waiting for her turn at the stop. This is how she was able to raise her children and send them to school.
When the Sindhi-Mohajir ethnic riots in 1988 took place all over Hyderabad, her house in Latifabad was attacked and her taxi snatched at gun point. Basheeran had no choice but to move to another locality. This time she purchased her own home and two taxis (on installments, after paying some advance money that she’d saved bit by bit). By this time, her two elder sons had learnt driving and were helping her make ends meet. Things were going quite well before her eldest son got married and moved to Punjab. Soon, two others also left after getting married. The fourth one got involved with hoodlums and started living on footpaths. The daughters too got married; one moved to Karachi and the other lives in Hyderabad.