The Red Pepper Cafe

10pm in the Red Pepper Café and the crowd and aroma would remind you of an Indian bazaar. Almost every taxi driver in Melbourne comes from the sub continent and it’s clearly shift changeover time because they all seem to be here.

They say that if you want to try the best ethnic food, go to where that ethnic community eats. That doesn’t always work of course. We Westerners have a sanitised palate and turn our cultured noses up at the idea of eating monkey’s brains or deep fried dog.

But with Indian food, it’s safe to go with the food the locals eat, particularly as they tip a nod to our delicate tastes and have Tikka Masala on the menu. A dish invented in Birmingham so that English drunks could eat something exotic on the way home from the pub.

I ordered butter chicken with rice and naan bread (for the princely sum of 9 dollars, or 5 euros in old money) and turned to search the room for a table. It wasn’t promising. All the small tables were taken by taxi drivers - talking earnestly of road blocks and fare evaders - and students huddled over accountancy and software manuals. The larger tables were taken by families dressed in colourful saris and tight fitting turbans. Entire generations were represented there, from grannies with massive glasses to jet black haired kids in summer dresses. The kids tended to catch my eye as I searched the room. I was the only white person in the place after all and when I was a kid I would have stared at any Indian who would venture into the local pub on a Sunday afternoon.

I began to think that I’d be eating my curry on the hoof when a voice beckoned me. Ravi was dining alone and saw my dilemma. I sat down beside him and asked how his meal was. He nodded and smiled which I took to be positive.

“The lamb here is fantastic, almost as good as back home”, he said.

“And where is back home”? I asked, as he scooped up some sauce with his naan bread in an action that made my feeble attempts look like a two year old eating spaghetti.

“Mumbai, although you guys probably call it Bombay. I came here two years ago to go to college.”

“What are you studying?” I asked. “How to get to the airport if the customer doesn’t want to pay the toll and that kind of thing”. He answered.

He saw my confusion and laughed. “Most of the taxi drivers here come to study, but then they realise they can’t afford the rent and school fees, so they drive taxis to make some cash. And before you know where you are, you’re driving fifty hours a week and have no time to study.”

Ravi had stopped laughing and looked sad, as though telling this small portion of his life story had suddenly reminded him of the futility of it.

“So, what are your plans?” I asked. “I guess you don’t want to drive a taxi forever.”

“Not in this shit hole anyway,” he said. “I’ll try and save some money and go back to Mumbai and get a job, maybe in a call centre or something like that. I can’t wait to get out of here. They treat us like crap, man”.

I shuffled uncomfortably in my do gooder shoes. Ravi wanted to get it off his chest however, and a white person in a restaurant aimed at locals seemed as good a place as any to start.

“You see what they are doing on the trains? They target Indian students because they think we are meek and won’t fight back. But we beat the bloody English empire so the Aussies better watch out”.

“You beat the Empire by getting a skinny man in an oversized nappy to lie in the middle of the road. I’m not sure that would work with Australians”.

I wasn’t sure if Ravi got the joke, but at that point my food arrived and it broke the awkward moment. “Butter Chicken is a good choice”, he said. “But I prefer it on the bone. You Westerners are too soft. You want your mothers to cut up your food for you”.

Ravi smiled. Having teased each other about our respective cultures, we were ok to resume normal conversation.

“Driving a taxi after midnight in Melbourne is the worst job in the world, man. Every punter thinks you are trying to rip him off. Taking the long way home or adding phantom tolls to his bill. Then you get the ones who think you can’t speak English and talk to their friends on mobile phones about how they are in a cab with a smelly driver. And they are the normal ones. They ones who try to rob you with syringes are worse”.

“You think driving a taxi in Mumbai would be any better?” I asked.

“We have a saying in India.” Ravi replied. “Everyone can stand to have their own pigs in the house. The passengers in Mumbai might be arseholes, but they are my people. Over here it’s just strangers acting like dick heads in my car every night.”

I struggled to find some consoling words, but there isn’t much you can say to a man who has discovered that Western Capitalism is a lie. The pubs were closed and Ravi had plenty of miles to go before he could sleep. He offered his hand and I rubbed the grease from mine before grasping it.

“If you wait five minutes, I can offer you a fare to St Kilda.” I said. “With no syringes or racial jokes.”

“St Kilda at this time of night! You must be joking”. He replied. “I can get a few fares up and down to King Street and make twice as much.”

He pulled on his navy blue jacket and left me to my curry. I hope he gets what he’s looking for in life and that he learns that not all Westerners fit a stereotype, even if he did prove to me that all taxi drivers are the same.