Tiny New York Story: MD Hafizur Rahman
On my way to the Upper West Side from Chelsea, hop in a taxi, and the good looking, smiling Bangladeshi cab driver starts asking me questions, particularly about my mother. So I oblige him: Yes she is still alive. She lives in South Jersey. Yes she lives alone, but I visit her often. Yes she is loved by her neighbors. Somewhere around midtown in the 40s or 50s he tells me how he is a singer. The cab is nothing, just a thing to do. He is a singer and has recorded. His most popular songs are songs about mother.
Aha! Now I know why all the questions. He tells me that he can make people cry with his songs about his mother. Then he asks if he can sing me one. I am a captive audience—am I going to tell this happy man no? So he sings, gesturing hands that should rightfully be on the steering wheel, but okay, we're in snail's pace afternoon midtown traffic. He translates his song, which likely was in Bengali, but I'm not sure. After that he sings a second song. I'm enjoying this.
After his mini concert, I ask him if he knows a song that I have on my Iphone "Thoda Sa Pyar Hua Hai." I play it with the speaker on, holding it close to his ear. After a few verses he tells me that it is in Hindi, not his native tongue, but that he can understand Hindi, Urdu, and Spanish, because he sings in all three. "It is a love song," he says and explains that the woman is saying that she is giving all of herself to the man, and that he is only giving half back to her.
I thought he might have thought I was flirting with him, because before I left the cab on 101st Street, he gave me his e mail address and telephone number and said "give me a call sometime, please." He told me he is married, so no dice! Still it was fun to be serenaded. That is until I typed his name in Google and found him on youtube, serenading someone else, a guy this time, with his melancholy mother songs.
Oh well, I was special for the length of the ride.
I've included his serenade and a video of Thoda Sa Pyar Hua Hai," which was given to me by a deejay friend of mine, who got it himself from from a cab driver during a taxi ride some years ago.
Aha! Now I know why all the questions. He tells me that he can make people cry with his songs about his mother. Then he asks if he can sing me one. I am a captive audience—am I going to tell this happy man no? So he sings, gesturing hands that should rightfully be on the steering wheel, but okay, we're in snail's pace afternoon midtown traffic. He translates his song, which likely was in Bengali, but I'm not sure. After that he sings a second song. I'm enjoying this.
After his mini concert, I ask him if he knows a song that I have on my Iphone "Thoda Sa Pyar Hua Hai." I play it with the speaker on, holding it close to his ear. After a few verses he tells me that it is in Hindi, not his native tongue, but that he can understand Hindi, Urdu, and Spanish, because he sings in all three. "It is a love song," he says and explains that the woman is saying that she is giving all of herself to the man, and that he is only giving half back to her.
I thought he might have thought I was flirting with him, because before I left the cab on 101st Street, he gave me his e mail address and telephone number and said "give me a call sometime, please." He told me he is married, so no dice! Still it was fun to be serenaded. That is until I typed his name in Google and found him on youtube, serenading someone else, a guy this time, with his melancholy mother songs.
Oh well, I was special for the length of the ride.
I've included his serenade and a video of Thoda Sa Pyar Hua Hai," which was given to me by a deejay friend of mine, who got it himself from from a cab driver during a taxi ride some years ago.
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