For the average Mumbai Taxi Driver

Sweat, Toil, Grime
makes for a classic trope
in fiction.

This trope is meant for him,
what the luckier customer
experiences as discomfort
or vicarious reading pleasure.

Yet
he is sometimes one with his machine
like a champion racer,
sometimes a scathing social commentator, or a sermonizer
of the highest caliber,
or a most moral value-upholding man, or a kind man, or both,
an entrepreneur dreaming of big things,
maybe a master raconteur-reminiscer of stories
from a time and place from whence he came -- and remembers --
or a man among his mates during breaks or traffic-stops,
sharing jokes and stuff,
or sometimes a plain tired man, perhaps foul and angry,
caught up in the circus of traffic and life,
another classic trope.