Ghar-ki-Lachmi dials into a Fijian taxi

Last week, I was in Fiji, catching a cab from Nausori Airport to Suva –a 40-minute ride– and little did I know I’d end up on a journey that felt a lot longer, in the best possible way.

My driver, a smiling, kindly Fijian man, greets me in fluent Fijian Hindi. As we drive, he keeps chatting in that wonderfully musical Fijian Hindi. I reply in standard Hindi. That’s when he pauses: “Ohhh, toh aap India ke?” And just like that, flipping a switch as it were, starts speaking in the sort of Hindi that’s almost Bambaiya.

Curious, I ask how he’s so fluent. He laughs saying he spent years living in Mumbai and Pune, working in the shipping industry (though I couldn’t figure out what maritime stuff goes on in Pune), then rattles off a list of colleagues’ names – asli Maharashtrian surnames that no outsider would just magically know. “Good people,” he says. “They taught me everything, helped me with my mariner’s certifications. Like family. Some of them have passed away…” Pauses as he negotiates a roundabout, wistfully remembering the departed. “I’ve travelled the world, but there’s nothing like India. Fiji is what it is today because of the industriousness and accommodating nature of Indians here. They’ve given so much to Fiji.” Then adds: “Many Fijian kids go to Indian schools. We all speak Hindi, whether they’ll admit it or not.”

He tells me he and his wife make a trip to India every few years or so. “If someone gave me a million dollars to travel the world, I’d just use it to see every inch of India.”

Seven children, fifteen grandchildren, and a household that’s constantly buzzing with life. “We’re just like India. Big families, loud houses, noisy, and still… full of love. Just last weekend we were all together at my place. All my bosses…” “Bosses?” I ask. “Grandkids,” he says. They’re bosses. You’ve got to listen to them.”

And then –right on cue– his phone rings. He glances at it, chuckles saying, “Arrreyyyy dada, I must take this. It’s Ghar-ki-Lachmi calling.”

I blinked. “Wait –did you just say… Ghar-ki-Lachmi?”

He laughs, “Yes! The Goddess of the home, of my good fortune.” He then speaks with her briefly in Fijian. And then: “Wherever you are in the world, she will find you. And she will ask: ‘Where are you? Did you buy the onions, the tarkari? What’s the price of tomatoes today?’”

And there it was –our entire shared South Asian universe in one cab ride 11,500km away: family, warmth, nostalgia, the poetry of language, and the unstoppable force known as Ghar-ki-Lachmi.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Vaisake –traveller, shipping man, Hindi poet at heart, fan of old Hindi movies and lifelong devotee of Ghar-ki-Lachmi.