The Poor Taxista
In Polanco along Mazarik, I climbed into a taxi driven by a diminutive man resembling an Indian of the lowest caste with wide creases in his face and ragged clothes. If he wasn't driving the taxi I'd have mistaken him for a homeless person.
It was before 8 am on a Sunday morning, and as I settled into the back seat, he began talking with quiet urgency about how the rich suffered and how things flow in cycles. Imagine an impoverished man talking about the ebb and flow of wealth at 8 am in the morning!
I tried changing the conversation, but he always turned it back to the wealthy. At the corner of Reforma and Río Tiber, he pointed to the front entrance of the St. Regis, the newest (and perhaps most exclusive) residential development in the city.
"What will happen if they can't fill up this place?" he asked, almost to himself.
As he spoke I peered at his reflection in the rear view mirror. I asked him about his childhood.
"Oh yeah, my boss had it tough alright..., my dad left when I was 2," he said. "I remember how it felt when I had to leave my friends at school". His "boss" couldn't afford to eat without removing her kids from elementary school, so he and his siblings did hard labor each day for 12 hours. "I started when I was about 7," he said. "And I've been working all day ever since".
Although in his 50's, he appeared much older, with deep creases in his forehead and practically no teeth, a thinker without education, reflecting calmly on the trials and tribulations of the well-to-do.
I looked down at my clothing: worn denims, a Levi's shirt, faded sneakers.
We met in Polanco, the swanky part of town. He spoke to me with calm intensity, broken in body but lucid in mind.
As I left the taxi, I couldn't help but remember a Buddhist phrase about cycles of "conditioned existence"; about people who understand the noble truth that causes both suffering and the way leading to its end.
Somehow this poor man - in his own fashion - had discovered the way out.
