Hear hear!

I have often wondered if cabbies actively listen to conversations happening inside their cabs. If they do listen, OMG. And if they don't, how do they hear sudden instructions from their passengers?

I had these partly answered during a recent cab ride Viv and I took. We had been talking in the cab about random things and when we got close to our destination, Viv leaned in and said to the cabbie, "Excuse me, could you take a left here, please?" The cabbie just kept on driving straight. Either he had not heard Viv or he thought Viv was asking me to take a left turn (?!). Finally, Viv had to tap him on his shoulder and give him an alternate route because we had missed the turn.

AHA!

I had a hypothesis: If you're speaking in English throughout the cab ride and then speak to the cabbie, it is highly likely that he would have no idea that you spoke to him, but his ears are tuned to anything said in English if the rest of the conversation is in a language he doesn't know.

(Yes, I realise it's a long hypothesis. Read it a couple of times and erm, hopefully it will make sense.)

So I decided to test my hypothesis. I told Viv about my little experiment and we decided we would talk in Hindi when talking to each other and in English when giving directions to the cabbie. It was quite funny to keep the conversation in cabs to strict Hindi, especially if it involved the cabbie himself. Sample this. "Is vaahan ki gati thodi adhik hai. Kahin yeh vaahan-chaalak madira peekar toh nahin chala raha hai?"

It worked most of the time. We peppered our Hindi conversations with instructions in English and the cabbies heard them all and made no mistakes.

But the best evidence of my hypothesis being true was this.

After an insanely late screening of Avatar, Viv and I were headed home in a cab, discussing the movie. He was asking me to brief him on the parts he had missed because he fell asleep. I was horrified. I'd always known him to be a guy who slept in Bollywood movies. But sleeping in the war scene of a 3D futuristic Hollywood movie which he had been more excited about than me and then asking me to brief him on what he missed??

"Dhikkar hai!" I said. "Aise kaise so gaye yaar? Letdown ho bilkul!" (Erm, I couldn't think of the shuddh Hindi word for 'letdown'.)

The very next second, the cabbie turned and said, "Left turn, ah?"

Hence proved.