Yes…No…Very Good by Andrew Robertson

Vijay Pundit was known as a very smart man. He traded fresh mangoes for rice, and the rice he traded for cloth. A percentage of the profits was put aside until eventually he could afford to purchase his own Ambassador taxi. Pundit’s taxi was the only one in Kazipara in the old days, and he always had passengers. Most local passengers didn’t pay anything—they were his brothers, cousins, and friends who joined Vijay for joyrides through the village and around the outlying fields. They would laugh and joke together as the black taxi bounced from one pot-hole to the next, belching smoke and noisily scaring small herds of goats.

At night, Vijay Pundit parked his taxi carefully under a thatched roof in his small home compound. He would then sit in the courtyard with his friends playing cards, the table sometimes illuminated by the Ambassador’s headlights. Bengali music blared gratingly from cheap speakers mounted on bamboo stakes, as Vijay relaxed in the cooler evening air, oblivious to mosquitoes and noisily chirping bugs. His wife boiled milk in an old cast-iron pot and prepared tea for the men, while his children sprawled listlessly on handmade bamboo beds.

Occasionally, Vijay would drive his Ambassador taxi all the way to Dhaka, where he would stay for a few days to earn money. During these times, he sometimes had the honor of driving foreign businessmen and travelers around the city. He especially enjoyed learning the English language, and upon returning home, he would show off his new vocabulary to the easily impressed village folk. Vijay lived up to his name and was known locally as “pundit”—the knowledgeable one. Actually, Vijay had learned only three English expressions—“yes,” “no,” and “very good,” but they were enough to convince the villagers that he had mastered the language. The villagers had no idea what the words meant anyway, and for that matter, neither did Vijay Pundit.

“Is the taxi fare meter turned on?” his passengers sometimes asked.

“Yes,” Vijay would answer.

“But it doesn’t seem to be working. Is it broken?”

“No,” he would say, while weaving the cumbersome taxi through congested traffic.

“Turn the meter on!” the exasperated passengers would demand.

“Very good,” Vijay replied.

“Are you from Dhaka?” they asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you like living here?”

“No.”

“How do you manage in the wet season?”

“Very good.”

“Can you recommend a nice hotel?”

“Yes,” Vijay replied with a toothy smile.

“It’s not too expensive I hope?”

“No.”

“Turn the meter on and take us there now, please.”

“Very good,” Vijay would state emphatically before heading off in a meandering journey all around the city. Eventually, after a convoluted ride that often lasted an hour or more, the frustrated passengers would force him to stop at any reasonable-looking hotel, sometimes no more than a block or two from where they had started.

Vijay Pundit enjoyed the freedom the Ambassador taxi gave him. He visited friends in Dhaka, offered marigold garlands to his favorite deities, purchased new rubber sandals for himself and his children, and curled up to sleep contentedly in the back seat of the car at night. He felt successful and superior to the sinewy rickshaw wallahs who had to fight each other for the right to pedal fat merchant families around the city all day long. Vijay sang a happy song as he returned home to Kazipara after another successful week. He even got lucky passing through Dinajpur when two men heading his way leaped into the taxi as he waited at the traffic lights.

The men said they were in a hurry to get to an appointment on the outskirts of Dinajpur, so Vijay obliged by flooring the accelerator and hurtling along at almost forty miles per hour. The Ambassador swayed on loose and unresisting shock absorbers as the passengers slid involuntarily along the springless back seat, lodging angularly against the doors. One of the men clasped an old leather bag tightly, and they constantly looked behind while insisting that Vijay perform daredevil maneuvers to beat the traffic.

“It must be a very important appointment,” Vijay said. “Fortunately for you, my Ambassador is a stalwart vehicle and I am one of the most competent taxi drivers in all Bangladesh.”

“Take the next left,” one of the men commanded. “Can this lump of lead go any faster?”

“In fact, it can,” said Vijay cheerfully. “The mighty Ambassador can go fifty miles per hour downhill on a straight road. At present, though, around these bends it wouldn’t be wise to push her any more than I am already.”

Vijay swerved to avoid a pair of donkeys carrying enormous bundles of washing. The donkey master yelled something and waved a stick threateningly as the taxi sped past, churning up dust into the washing bundles. The donkeys plodded on without losing stride.

Vijay slowed the Ambassador as the side road petered out and became no more than two deep furrows surrounded by dense tropical jungle. He peered attentively through the spattered windscreen.

“Stop here!” one of the passengers shouted.

“Here, there is nothing, sir,” Vijay said with some authority. “It’s best we push on until we reach your destination.”

“This is our destination,” said the other man, already reaching for the handle and opening his door.

Vijay pulled over into thick elephant grass, but kept the motor rumbling.

“As you can see, I have kept the fare meter running,” Vijay said. “The charge is sixty-five rupees, which I’m sure you will agree is very economical, especially when you consider my Ambassador runs on premium fuel only.”

He turned and watched the men leap out of the taxi, dash into the jungle, and quickly disappear out of sight.

“You forgot to pay,” he called after them. “I will give you a discount.” I even kept the meter on in good faith,” he mumbled to himself. Vijay was forlornly watching the jungle in vain hope that the men would return when a police Jeep screamed to a halt behind the Ambassador.

The heavily armed police swooped quickly, dragged Vijay from the car, and cuffed him.

“The men went that way, into the jungle,” Vijay insisted as he was being heavily frisked. “You might catch them if you hurry.”

“And a Bengal tiger might catch me, no thanks,” said one of the policemen.

“Somehow I don’t think anyone else was involved in the post office robbery,” the officer in charge said.

“Do you think I’m a liar?” Vijay demanded.

“I think you are both a liar and a thief,” the officer replied, as he retrieved a Dinajpur Post Office bag containing some cash the two men had left behind in their haste to escape.

Two weeks later, after sweltering in a Bangladesh lockup with petty criminals and goat rustlers, Vijay Pundit was led before the local court magistrate. He smiled broadly upon noticing his wife and cousins in the room, and was confident justice would prevail.

“All rise,” said the judge in proper English, before repeating the command in Bengali.

Thank goodness, the judge is a learned English student like myself, Vijay thought. This shouldn’t take long at all, and I will soon be with my family again and back behind the wheel of my trusty taxi.

The magistrate completed the formalities, cleared his throat, and spoke gravely. “Before us is Vijay Pundit, charged with the brazen daylight robbery of the Dinajpur Post Office. He was arrested on the outskirts of the city, where police officers discovered some of the money, still in the post office bag in the back seat of his taxi. Does the council of Vijay Pundit have anything to say in his defense?”

Vijay’s counsel shuffled papers and stood up, facing the magistrate. “The charges against my client are outrageous and unwarranted,” he said. “Vijay Pundit’s only involvement in the crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Several eyewitnesses distinctly saw two men running from the post office with the bag. They then leaped into Vijay’s taxi, which sped away from the scene.”

“Sped away from the scene, you say?” the magistrate commented. “Does this not hint that Vijay Pundit was indeed involved in the crime as getaway driver?”

“Indeed not,” the defendant argued. “Vijay Pundit was simply idling at the traffic lights when the criminals seized the opportunity to make their escape.”

Vijay, unable to tolerate his counsel’s labored defense, abruptly stood up. He turned and gave the thumbs up to his family and requested his counsel to sit down. He had an idea that would quickly resolve any misunderstanding.

“I will take over from here,” he said.

“Do you wish to defend yourself?” the magistrate asked.

“Indeed, I do, your honor. I noticed earlier that you are learned and can speak the English language. I have also mastered the English language, and among my people I’m affectionately known as “Pundit, the learned one.” Since we are in a British court setting, I think it best that we honor the tradition and converse in English.”

“As you wish, but are you sure?” the magistrate asked, speaking in English.

“Yes,” Vijay replied, also in English.

“Very good then, we will conduct proceedings in English,” the magistrate continued.

“Yes, very good,” Vijay replied confidently, impressing everyone, including the magistrate, with his language proficiency.

The magistrate sipped some water and continued. “Did you, Vijay Pundit, rob the Dinajpur Post Office and escape with the proceeds?”

“Yes,” Vijay replied, having no idea what the magistrate had asked.

“Was anyone else involved in the robbery?”

“No,” Vijay said, confident that his English mastery was quickly settling the matter once and for all.

“You do understand that an admission of guilt will see you locked up for a very long time, don’t you?” the magistrate asked quizzically.

It was time for Vijay to bring out his major English phrase—one that had always impressed everyone. “Very good,” he said.

“I therefore sentence you to two years in prison, with no parole,” the magistrate said, before hammering his gavel loudly. “Court is adjourned.”

Vijay smiled victoriously. That was even easier than I expected, he said to himself. “You can let me go now,” he insisted to the court police as they led him away. “Really, release me now, the show is over.” He panicked as the cell doors slammed shut behind him.

Vijay’s wife was led consolingly from the courtroom by his friends, who were stunned to discover that Vijay had been leading a double life as a taxi driver and criminal. As they left the building, a muffled cry in fluent Bengali could be heard from the bowels of the building.

“I demand a retrial!”