It’s a jungle out there – it’s every girl for herself

On a hot and still summer afternoon, sun is shining intensely, pollution hanging in the air like a cloud of dark sinister smog, eerily waiting for someone or something to happen. Finally heading home after a long day filled will meaningless errands one after the other, I decided the best action would be to take a taxi cab back home, thinking it would be the easiest and fastest of options. Standing at the corner of a nameless street I waited for a cab, which passed or at least matched my very selective “cab-picking” criteria. It had to be relatively new, air-conditioned and with an elderly driver as to avoid as much random chatter and conversation as possible. Fifteen minutes, and seven cabs later I had found my desired cab. I made my way in the back seat and prepared myself for what I was convinced would be a long and painful journey back home.

Twenty minutes had passed and we’d traveled what seemed to be no more than ten kilometers at most. So far the cab driver didn’t say anything, and the air-conditioner was still working. Everything appeared to be going to plan. Then, suddenly and without warning the cab driver mentioned something along the lines of “it is hot today, isn’t it?” I chose not to respond fearing this small question would be the tip of a conversational iceberg. I pretended to be busy doing something on my mobile phone and hoped he would think I neglected to hear him, and since the question was not important, , he would act as though he never even asked and the sweet silence momentarily lost would once again prevail.

My plan had worked, or at least that’s what I thought. Half way through our journey home I witnessed an incident where two young male teens appeared to be verbally harassing a younger female teen. I was shocked and disappointed, I looked to the driver and noticed that he was also witnessing the same incident and was slightly shaking his head in silent disapproval. Without thinking and with good intentions I said, “Boy it’s really hard being a female in this society nowadays, I mean it’s like a jungle out there – it’s every girl for herself”. The cab driver pulled out his mobile phone and pretended to be performing some urgent and serious task on it. “Very well played, sir”, I said. The driver turned to me and smiled. Sweet silence would prevail for the remainder of ride home.

I never intended to be rude, or hurt the driver’s feelings, but that must have been the way my actions were perceived. When he returned the gesture I had made to him a little while earlier I understood how he felt. How arrogant and stuck up I must have seemed. Like I too good to talk to a lowly cabbie. This experience taught me (the hard and embarrassing way) to be more humble.

We as a society or on an even more general scale – as human beings – tend to distinguish ourselves from other’s based on quantitative criteria like intelligence, wealth or social status. My experience with this cab driver taught me that there is something to learn and values to gain from all peoples, from all walks of life. At the very least if they are rude or not well mannered you are learning how not to act. The cab driver I was discussing earlier could have easily made a foul or rude remark when I had made my comments to him, and he would have had somewhat of a right to do so, but because of the way he chose to convey his message I learned a great and valuable lesson, which I may not have had he acted in another way.

There is always a positive to be taken from all individual and sometimes seemingly meaningless experiences. We do not live in a jungle, we are human beings and we should start treating one another as such.