A slip of the tongue led Siddharthya Swapan Roy to an interesting conversation with an autowallah named Raj Thackeray

Usually I can mimic most varieties of Hindi accents: a mouthful Bengali, a rough Delhi-ite, an enlightened Bihari, a fine Lucknowi, even a brutish Harayanvi, with all their characteristic twangs and variants. And I would do it so well you wouldn’t know who I really am.

But this time I’d been careless. Right after I flagged down an auto at Ashram Chowk in New Delhi and asked to go to New Motibagh, I had called up a Deshpande from Mumbai and had a long conversation in backslapping Marathi camaraderie. And the auto wallah had heard me.

Looking into that little ‘Eye of Sauron’ mirror which auto wallahs in Delhi use to peer into their passengers’ deepest fears and search for the tiniest sign of confusion about which route to take, he grimly asked me: “Are you a Marathi?”

Flight-fright-fight kicked in, my stomach turned from an abyss to a mass of leaden knots, my hackles were raised and I pretended not to hear the question and instead busied myself with my phone. Was it an overreaction? No! I had every reason to be alarmed!

Ever since there has been politically-approved hostility towards Hindi speakers in Mumbai, Nashik and Pune, I have often wondered about and trembled at the thought of being found out as a Marathi when travelling in Hindi-land.

And this was happening right after Maharashtra’s Transport Minister and Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote declared that people who want to ply rickshaws in Mumbai must learn Marathi.

The statement had been splashed all over the papers. So the constantly boiling pot of Mumbai’s identity politics had once again been stirred up. And this time, social media had chipped in with #outrage too.

A large Android phone peeked out of the driver’s shirt pocket. What if he was on Twitter and seething with anger against those who had trended #StopHindiImposition? Even worse, was he on Facebook and had he seen my post supporting jobs for locals first? Or my politics-laden question: “How many auto wallahs in Delhi earn their living despite speaking only Marathi?”

Moreover, he had realised that I was a journalist of sorts. And from the way things go nowadays, I knew for a fact that if he were to vent his anger on me, he’d make sure the extent to which it went earned him his 15 minutes of media fame.

“ Kya a ap Marathi hain ?” he repeated the question, enunciating it like he was teaching me the vowels.

His dark forehead creased into a wrinkle, his eyes more on me than on the road.

Lying was not an option at that point. So “Yes”, I accepted my identity and impending martyrdom for the Marathi cause.

“Sir, mai bhi Marathi hoon .”

His dark face was now a mass of grinning pink and ivory.

“Fine,” I said to myself. “Let’s fight if we have to but I’m not taking this mocking. Jai Maharashtra!”

“Why don’t you speak to me in Marathi then?” I asked.

“Sir, I was born here and never lived in Maharashtra. But I can understand you very well.”

He was still grinning. But it seemed more apologetic than sneering.

“Me Siddharthya Roy,” I extended my hand out to him. He shook it briefly and responded, “I’m Raj Thackeray.”

What? A Marathi rickshaw driver in Delhi who doesn’t speak any Marathi and calls himself Raj Thackeray? I was either in the company of a mad man or an aspiring comic with no sense of humour.

“Really sir, my name is Rajkumar Thackeray but it’s been shortened to Raj. Here, sir, see….” He pulled out his driving licence.

I was left open-mouthed and alternated between staring at him and the card issued by the Delhi government that had his picture and name.

“Do you even realise how… how…?” I groped for words but he cut in, “…how strange and funny it is? I know, sir. I get teased very often. In fact, I try not to tell people in Delhi my surname. Often I just tell them it’s Raj Kumar.”

He refused my offer of chaha — “It’s too warm” — and cigarette — “I don’t like tobacco” — but thankfully, continued to talk.

“Is it a problem being a Marathi migrant worker in Delhi?”

“Everyone’s a migrant. Tell me, why would the son of a local, well-settled man drive rickshaws? I would have had problems even if I wasn’t a Marathi. Besides, it was my parents who migrated from Nagpur. I was born in Delhi. So, by autorickshaw driver standards, I’m as local as it gets.”

“You do know about the politics associated with your name, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. Everyone knows that. But everyone equally knows it’s all just politics. Raj Thackeray is such a rich man. What can I have in common with him? Actually we even spell our surnames differently. See — Thackeray versus Thakre.”

I began telling him how it was Prabodhankar Thackeray, father of Bal Thackeray, who had changed the spelling of the family name to mimic his favourite satirist from British India, William Makepiece Thackeray, but I stopped when I realised that Raj was losing the thread.

“Do you feel like going back?” I asked him instead.

“My wife does. She’s from Nagpur you know. She’s a proper Marathi bai . She’s even taught our children to speak Marathi. She’s more in touch with the relatives so she longs to go back. My daughters are studying. May be we’ll go back once they finish.

“Actually I’m in the proverbial no man’s land — I’m out of place here and I’ll be out of place there, he said, and broke into a throaty guffaw.

“Do you mind if I tell your story in a newspaper?”

“Tell it if you want to. But it’s such a silly story really. Nothing dramatic.”

Siddharthya is a freelance journalist

email@siddharthya.com

Twitter@SiddharthyaRoy