A tuk-tuk driver in India recently learnt you can’t always take tourists “for a ride” .
The driver, from Hyderabad, was stumped when a tourist took a seat in his tuk-tuk and loudly – and fluently – sang a Bollywood song after he refused to drive her to Charminar, the city’s best-known landmark.
Christine Fair, a research scholar from the University of Chicago who is on a trip across India, has hit upon a novel way to get local cabbies and tuk-tuk drivers to do their job: sing at the top of your voice.
Fair recently uploaded a video of herself addressing the driver in fluent Hindi, telling him she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and breaking into the song Mujhe Neend Na Aaye from the 1990s romantic drama Dil. The embarrassed driver has no choice but to give in.
Fair – who can speak Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu and has a PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilisations – told the Indian daily Hindustan Times that she has done the same with taxi drivers in Delhi and Mumbai.
“I just plop myself in the back seat and explain that I will just sing until he goes. Again, polite. But I’m willing to sing my little dil [heart] out. They concede.”
Watch the video for big laughs.
aahmed@thenational.ae