Speedy Chaiwala

My love of speed, when did it start, when did the embryonic feeling ferment? I know when it hatched – with disastrous consequences.

I was gazing out the window enviously at the passing traffic. I knew every make of car, of motorbike, of those stylistic Italian scooters, as they passed the slow-moving bus, forever stopping as my fellow travelers entered the cold but airy cabin, or pushed those standing in the narrow aisle, to jump off the open platform at the rear. It was my third or fourth bus on the long journey, having planned out the route for days. It was ponderous, and not in any way a straight line between origin and destination, as it crisscrossed across the counties of Middlesex, and Surrey. I’m certain using the many rivers and canals in those historic counties would be quicker. It was speed that I needed in my life. I was restricted and hampered in my pedestrian ways and reliance on public transport, forever thwarted by the lack of independent income or parental fortitude.

It was my first day at work. The doors of my academic world had finally closed, and the patience of my benevolent parents had finally dissolved. It was a life on the high seas of employment, and a weekly windowed envelope, floating like a paper treasure trail in a dotted line of roped buoys showing my destined career path to future worldly adventures. Freedom from the past, but servitude in the future. It was a false start, as here I was cramped tight against the window of the 207 buses, the misty window full of condensation from the warm breath of transient passengers entering the cold interior of bus, on its first trip from the depot of the day, the warm air ducts losing a battle against the early dawn cold air. My face pressed against the window, peering out onto the road, a smudged and smeared opening, abstractly rendered by my hand, the condensation now collecting into droplets, and sometimes dripping randomly on my head. Looking at the passing vehicles I dreamt of speed, I was the Toad of Wind in the Willows fame, I was mesmerized by the passing cars and motorbikes, all created visions, all made my heart jump, in delirious longing to be for just a second behind a wheel, foot down, or grabbing tightly the handlebars, and twisting the accelerator – Oh the joy!

The bus didn’t stop on the corner of the road as we parted destinations. I jumped off, as the double-decker titan of the road lumbered to its destination. I had arrived in the quiet suburbs of Staines-upon-Thames. I now had a 10 to 15 minutes’ walk to my final destination, a storage facility, built in surrounding fields, along a road of houses, sometimes the occasional shop, but the direction of the road was dictated by its meandering and winding curvature by the old father himself – River Thames. The pretty town centre of Staines was miles away, I had landed in the suburbs of Staines, a place named Laleham. Laleham didn’t have a centre, just a road, and a small church, and a nondescript abbey, history had passed through Laleham over time, forever - just like the meandering and curving road, adjacent to the old father River Thames. 

Laleham would herald my first working day on planet earth. An apprentice. My job, as an apprentice? The only equivalent would be a chaiwala in India, the only difference was I was in Laleham, Middlesex, instead of the slums of Mumbai, a much-improved circumstance.

My Dad had found this unofficial apprenticeship. There was no interview process, no security background checks, no probation period, no terms, and conditions of employment, just turn up on Monday, and you will find out what you are doing. What I found out was, I was the chaiwala. My tools were chipped and dirty mugs, an electric kettle, tins of tea bags, instant coffee, and sugar. My art was with a teaspoon, and swish of the arm.

I stood for a long time looking at my place of employment in the sleepy suburbs of Staines, the traffic humming in the background, as I stood on the pavement, gazing at the wide frontage of the transport depot was a picture framed in front of me. With my lack of years, I didn’t understand that with local authority permission, the depot had been constructed, amongst a road full of living dwellings, undoubtedly because the rating for taxes would be much lower, and zoning was a word not yet in the legislation of Staines district council. I just saw a small brick wall a leftover from the past, a wide ungated opening entrance from the road, and huge ugly storage warehouse, made from corrugated iron, the apron area in front of the warehouse was black, made of crushed materials, maybe even coal, to maintain the heavy weight of trucks. How the neighbours had allowed the planning permission, or how my employers had gained planning permission to build this ugly metal warehouse in the quiet suburbs of Staines, by the meandering waters of the old father Thames, remains buried, a paper skeleton, in the filing cabinets of Laleham and Staines district planning offices.

As a young, just employed, without a contract apprentice, those thoughts didn’t enter my mind until many years later. Only velocity was paramount in my waking thoughts at that age, and the obsessive desire for speed, and sound of a thumping engine, the roar of revving engine, the blast from the exhaust pipe.

I was awoken from my daydreaming by the beep of the transit van, which suddenly appeared to my right. Someone was leaning across the passenger seat of the grey nondescript van, winding down the window, and then a voice broke the background hubbub of the passing traffic.

“Are you John?”

John was as timid as they come in those days. Zero experience, zero confidence, as they say, I wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Not that I ever met any geese in those days. I was beyond shy. I would blush easily, and this enquiry from the open window of the transit van created embarrassment, words were forming in the mind, but were constricted in the vocal cords, and when they did finally appear, they could never be translated by google. It was normally garbled, inaudible, and meaningless. I was unable to give a straight answer in those days with a simple YES.

“Get in!” as next the transit door swung open invitingly.

I jumped in, the inside of the van smelt of fruit and vegetables. Which is not surprising as I was an apprentice in a transport company, transporting fruit and vegetables.

“My name’s Len. I have known your dad for years in the market.”

My mind wasn’t on the introduction at all. My mind was on the interior of the van, the long gear change stick, the big steering wheel, his revving of the engine only stirred up those hidden passions, those vipers of speed within.

We moved to the parking location behind the warehouse, where my place of employment finally appeared. Len was talking, I wasn’t listening. I was absorbed completely with the inside of the van, and the new unfamiliar surroundings, as we carefully edged around the vast warehouse. The small building that appeared might have a granny annex, a small dwelling made of bricks and mortar, with whitewashed rendered walls, and a bright yellow front door. Entirely out of place with the huge drab iron warehouse, the small cottage house seemed to be hiding, even cowering behind the huge warehouse, a hostage or silent witness to local planners converting land from private dwelling status to industrial status. The mighty old father Thames was powerless to prevent the urban planners in their dastardly deeds.

Inside the small cottage, the layout had been converted from a small dwelling house into an office space, but without success. It still looked like a small cottage, crammed with ugly offensive office desks, and filing cabinets. The bay window, still holding lace curtains didn’t create the efficient ambience of an office, and the view through the bay windows of the long sloping garden which had escaped the ravages of the makeshift new car park, and in the far distance through apple trees, one could just discern the still waters of endless time, old father river Thames.

Don the Manager appeared soon after. He was a gruff, serious man. He looked at me with unsympathetic eyes, and with a dismissive shrug of his hands said. “Be useful son, make us some tea.”

My first boss’s debriefing wasn’t the most uplifting of experiences. No reception from the human relations department, on the company’s mission, and the cultural values of the enterprise. This was directly into the job, making tea, the chaiwala.

I suppose I must have looked stupid, bewildered by my boss’s first delegation, my first assignment. Len came to my rescue yet again.

“Kitchen’s in there.” He said pointing a finger towards the door. “Don takes two sugars, and I take one. Milks in the fridge.”

My champions of industry were men of few words. Don had left for the converted bedroom, his private office, and I could hear his animated voice on the phone, behind a door that stood ajar. Len was just about to pick up his telephone in the converted living room with the bay windows, and the lace curtains danced in the fresh breeze coming from the open top windows, bringing garden fragrance to the wheels of industry of my new adopted employment, the chaiwala.

I had my own desk. Let me qualify that. I found an empty chair and desk adjacent to Len, who was continuously on the phone, same as Don, talking endlessly about shipments, and deliveries. I gradually found out that the transport side of things took place at night, which must have further disturbed the neighbours, and the planning was completed in the daytime. The port was actually an airport, London Heathrow Airport to be precise, and the imported goods could be perishable out of season goods, such as strawberries, or fresh spring or summer flowers.

At some time during my first week’s work, I was told by Don the boss, between telephone calls.

“You ain’t staying here lad. You are going to the airport office.”

Now, this was after an incident that nearly curtailed my employment as a chaiwala, not for adding the wrong counts of teaspoons of sugar, but for far greater and catastrophic reasons, my obsession for speed, for the open road, for the power and freedom of driving.

Don and Len would take their lunch break, I assumed at the Laleham Arms about a mile down the road.

I was left alone, for one hour or so, I was the boss, boss of myself. It was the highlight of the day, answering the silent phones, and pretending to be Len and Don. It was then I realized that all the phone calls were being made by Don and Len, and there weren’t any incoming calls. After a boring morning trying to find something to do, I became proactive at making tea before it was requested. Talking on the phone incessantly created dry chops, (a dry mouth), so the endless serving of mugs of tea, was hugely appreciated. After the boring morning came the boring lunchtime, followed by the boring afternoon. By the third day I was in the mood for adventure, and lunchtime was the time to explore.

Outside I saw it. My escape to adventure, the answer to my speedy obsession was there outside the curtained windows.

The patiently waiting transit van, in all its glory. A saddled mustang tied up against the fence, waiting for a brave cowboy rider. The keys were dangling enticingly on the hook by the front door. I didn’t need an invitation.

I was in the middle of driving lessons, learning to drive; my driving test was already planned. Somehow my mind had created all the right reasons why I should take my horse powered steed around the car park, and drive along the road to the entrance. I was on private land, I wasn’t on the public road, I could drive alone. I needed to practice. All very noble and legal reasons for my decision in the Wednesday lunch break. I was the boss; I can make the decisions around here! The bridle and constraints of my apprenticeship had been taken away. I’m going to drive the van, I decided.

When I crashed into the corner of the warehouse, as I misjudged the corner completely due to my inexperience of driving any van, with a wider passing distance, and as the downward rain pipe, and guttering fell into the ground, as well as on top of the van, those reasons for taking a spin around the warehouse yard and property, came crashing to the ground like the guttering. I was in big trouble.

It was the waiting part that was the worst. Waiting for Don and Len to return. Listening out for the sound of their returning van. Looking at the long scar of ripped metal, and gouged paint on the side of the van hijacked by the warehouse corner only minutes before, continued to bore into my guilt, and what would be the consequences of my damaging lunchtime exploits. My apprenticeship was in tatters. What was my dad going to say, when he heard about this!

I didn’t try to hide my errors. Lying beside the scarred van in the car park I placed the broken pipe and guttering. If I’m going to be hanged, better to be hanged for all my misdemeanors, I thought. As they pulled into the car park, the gravel heaving under the weight of the uninjured van, the two men slowly got out of the stationary vehicle and started to survey the scene of the scarred van, and broken pipes. I stood watching through the windows, the view in front of me framed with lace curtains didn’t make it any less intimating, both men with their backs turned to my view, looked at the scene of destruction, and I could see the stiffening, the hutching of both their shoulders in depression as they appraised my driving skills.

I kept my job. Don’s look of resignation when he entered the converted cottage said it all. He didn’t say those words, until later that day.

“You ain’t staying here lad. You are going to the airport office.”

I was never sure if he said this with a sense of relief after my destruction derby in the firm’s transit van. Don was a difficult one to read with his expressionless and resigned nature. I guessed nothing surprised him. I’m sure they would miss my chaiwala duties, but my apprenticeship was about to take on a different pathway and my mentoring by others, not by Don and Len.