My deal with the Sanghis when I worked with them for the launch of Vaartha was very simple. There was a fee and they had to look after my food, transport and travel arrangements.

So when we had to go to Sanghinagar for meetings or shootings their car would come and collect me and then drop me back at the end of the day. Of course, when I say their car, I mean a Taxi from one of their vendors.

One morning, when we had planned a 6 am shoot at Sanghinagar I asked the Taxi Fellow to come pick me up by 4 or 430 am. He arrived on time and I got in…and promptly went to sleep. My confidence was that a Sanghi Driver should know where Sanghinagar was.

So I just told the driver my destination and immediately dropped off to sleep. The idea was to catch up on my sleep in the hour or so that it would take to reach the location.

When I woke up however, it was broad daylight and we were speeding on the Vijayawada Highway. Even before I could get my bearings the driver turned slightly towards me and asked innocently…”Sahab…Sanghinagar Suryapet kay baad aatha, ya pehle”.

A quick glance at the milestones showed me that I was in the outskirts of Suryapet and almost halfway to Vijayawada.

I looked at the watch, looked at my surroundings…and I knew we were going to be horribly late for the shoot.

So we took a U-Turn and headed back to Sanghinagar. We lost almost the whole morning session. But the Sanghis were very understanding and did not make a big issue of the mistake.

Till date however I cannot understand how a Sanghi Driver didn’t know where Sanghinagar was. Hundreds of explanations, hundreds of theories…but that was a surprise and taught me never to take anything for granted and most importantly, never to sleep in the back seat of a car that did not know where it was going.

Another day, an old…really old driver had to replace our regular driver for something or the other. We drove on to Rd. No. 12 Banjara Hills and I was taken aback when just after turning into the most crowded road in Banjara Hills, the car screeched to a halt. And the driver got down in a trance.

When we asked him why, he told us that the last time he had been on this road was when the old Nizam was alive and this stretch used to be a jungle where panthers walked around.

As I look back now I think I have to admit that these two incidents with drivers are the most memorable in my book. And almost as good as the story of Gopal, my driver in Assam (provided by the erstwhile Brooke Bond Company) who dozed off when driving us from the airport to the guest house and requested me to drive. He then directed us to an office where he picked up his recently issued License, much to our wonder and worry. The next week or so we drove all around Assam with the help of my cameraperson Kallol Maitra who was mainly at the wheel, with me pitching in once in a while.

As we were driving to the airport at Gauhati on our way back, Gopal whose only significant contribution on the trip was that he washed and cleaned the car everyday told us that he was very tired and that he would apply for a week’s leave the moment he had dropped us off at the Airport.