There is a new genre of fiction that has gained prominence in the market. The protagonist in these stories, generally less than 280 characters in English (the character limit on Twitter), is usually a taxi driver or a maid and the narrator is usually an intellectual yet idiot (IYI) from the media fraternity.
In this genre of fiction, the narrator projects his own political inclinations on to the protagonist in order to further his own agenda under the thin disguise of neutrality. The protagonist, usually a taxi driver, is portrayed as an individual with capabilities far beyond the usual level of intellect one would expect from people working those particular jobs.
One of the prominent authors of this genre is the intellectual yet idiot Kaushik Basu, an acclaimed economist. On Sunday, Basu came up with an extraordinary story of how a Sikh driver in New York was hurt by the farm laws in India.
The story concluded with the surreal proclamation, “He got lost getting me home & when he refused to take money for the detour I realized the detour was to complete his speech.”
Obviously, it was not the first time that Kaushik Basu had penned a story featuring the Taxi Driver archetype. In 2018, he had the opportunity to travel with the “most scholarly taxi driver”.
In 2018 as well, Basu came across a taxi driver who extended the drive on purpose so that the conversation could be stretched. What a might coincidence!
Sometimes, such stories can have elements of humour as well, although it is hardly ever terribly funny.
Kaushik Basu has written at least two such stories.
It is not just Basu who has penned such stories. Prominent propagandist Rajdeep Sardesai, too, has used the plot device to great effect.
Arfa Khanum Sherwani added visual elements to her taxi driver story to provide her story more authenticity.
Author Salil Tripathi offered a profound bit of wisdom regarding the matter, even if advertently so.
But stories of this genre do not necessarily have to feature a taxi driver to achieve its objective. The Taxi Driver here is an archetype, and the genre is conveniently named so because the character is usually employed in that profession. But honestly, the character could be anyone and anything.
Take Simran Jeet Singh for example. He used an anonymous White Women to craft a story of the same genre.
Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire employed a waiter in his own Taxi Driver story.
While such stories invariably portray the protagonist as an anti-Hindutva critic, reality tends to differ quite a bit. For instance, in Mumbai last year, a Uber driver took his communist passenger straight to the police station after he overheard him discussing the CAA.
Fictional stories as they are, reality is unlikely to affect them in any discernible manner. Unable to secure any political victory over Narendra Modi and embittered by the mainstreaming of Hindutva in India, IYIs have had to weave yarns to cope with the new reality.
While the stories are largely harmless in and of themselves, they do provide comic respite time to time.
