Taxi Wallah and Other Stories

by Numair Atif Choudhury

'Numair Choudhury is the Bangladeshi Bolano' AMITAVA KUMAR

Numair Atif Choudhury's first and only novel, Babu Bangladesh!, published posthumously, was heralded as a sui generis masterpiece. In Taxi Wallah and Other Stories, we encounter more of Choudhury's limitless imagination and deep empathy as he captures the many Bangladeshes that make up the nation.

The stories in this collection are bound by their protagonists - outsiders looking in - whether it is the taxi wallah of the title story who ferries tourists to upmarket hotels in Gulshan, the chokra for whom the streets of Dhaka are both sustenance and threat, Rabia the maid who feels compelled to call even the youngest of her employer's children 'Apa', or the brick breaker who finds his life draining away as he hammers rubble at construction sites...

Fuelled by Choudhury's trademark linguistic verve and energy, Taxi Wallah and Other Stories is a searing yet tender portrait of a country that is fractured but lets in light through the cracks.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

99 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 17, 2021

Reviews

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, helpless and devastating. Here I am after reading this short story collection in this state.

The stories are really short yet each story will make you question so many things about the society and the life we are living.

There are eleven short stories which focuses on the most neglected parts of the society and the people who are struggling for their livelihood everyday.

Some parts of the writing in each story get quite triggering yet you will know these scenarios are the parts of the real world we tend to ignore and move on with our lives. The stories focus much on the questionable nature of us being human; how we deal with the poor and the destitute; how we see women and treat them; how things have come to a level we do not feel anything when lives are taken and our souls getting sold for nothing.

The writing is the highlight for me. It's intense. It's beautiful. It's thrilling and unique.

Something different and something familiar yet something dark and something damaging. This collection is all that it is as these.

[Vivek Tejuja · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read Babu Bangladesh!, but now I will. I will ensure that I do, at least before the year ends, because Numair's writing holds you by the throat, it suffocates you, it does not let you be, and more than anything else, it makes you see the stark differences in society, if in case you didn't know about them already. 

Choudhury's Bangladesh is a place very much like others in and around the country - poverty-stricken, gross injustice and inequalities that are visible from a mile, and more than anything else for you to acknowledge it. They make you uncomfortable because that’s the truth and we are aware of it.

Whether it is the very evident class difference that surfaces in “Rabia” – a story of a house-help and her sudden change of relationship with her aapa (who doesn’t want to be called that anymore), or in “Crumble” – a very hard-hitting story of Shahed – a brick-breaker in Dhaka who is just trying to make ends meet, or even if it is through the story “Different Eyes” about organ donors – the ones who have no choice but to do what they do, to settle their loans, each story exposes the darkness within. Choudhury’s stories aren’t for the faint-hearted. They aren’t glossy, they aren’t easy to digest, they don’t exist in happy and shiny places. They live hidden in shadows and come out when they wish to, or are already in plain sight but not seen by people.

Numair sees the world through a lens so huge and yet so minuscule – the stories could perhaps be sent in any third-world country and yet only belong to Bangladesh. The joys (however small), the sorrows, the defeat, the victories (very rare), and kindness that displays itself unexpectedly (say in “Chokra” – a beautiful story of street children and one in particular), Choudhury’s writing is sharp, raw, poetic, and shows the mirror the world.

Read this fantastic collection of short stories, and then read Babu Bangladesh! (as I will), and then lament about the fact that he was taken away too soon.

[Chitra Ahanthem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taxi Wallah and Other Stories by Numair Atif Choudhury is a collection of 11 short stories, each one a universe in itself. More than what happens to the story themselves, the focus is on the worlds of the characters in each one of the stories, their world views and the many cycles of daily oppression they have to take on. The internal arcs of the characters will rattle you given how their outer world presses on them with a vengeance. The title story is of a taxi driver who has a self professed moral compass but one who will still take passengers for a ride (figuratively) to keep his home going. His insight into the real society buried beneath the veneer of surface gloss of a country's capital is just the thing that looks at the divide between privilege and the grind of poverty. Rabia has two parts: one where the act of pleating the folds of a saree is broken down to the many ways in which a house maid is fettered by what she can do and when with each drape around her linking to many things she cannot do while the second part looks at sharp class differences that casts shadows on a shared childhood.

Different Eyes is a narrative on how debts shackle the lives of people leaving them nothing but their bare boned bodies. Is the body of any use then? The nuances in this story and where it ends will leave you squirming with helplessness. A worn down, rather a disfigured human body being used as a means to latch on to the elusive sympathy of hardened people whose own lives are only marginally better forms the core of Chokra while in Rubble, a worn down human body weatherbeaten by hard labour and little pay is deemed unworthy but a new life breathes fire into the empty shell. Asking why follows a mind numbed mother who herself is scarred, from the lowest economic strata carrying the mangled dead body of her child and how people around her react. Black is a story that is about the many young lives lost in its war of Independence and the price that has been paid in its wake: the number of youths who remained defiant, the many horrors they lived with, as recounted by one such young man who is being held captive along with many others and awaiting death.

Numair's writing is what stands out. Each short story reads like a novel in themselves, the short story format is just that, a format, the emotions, the world they etch, they spring to life in all its ruins. The only stories that mention anything about being set in Bangladesh are the title story and Black but each story is universal for they bring out the humane and inhumane ways in which the world trudges along.Go read!

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Because no one hides anything from me – with me, they are real. And like the truly blind, I have learned to strengthen my other senses. I can look into the sky and smell the hunger of eagles, or hear the rumble in their bellies. I can taste the meat from a sick cow and tell exactly why it died. In pretending blindness, I observe so much more."

The characters in Choudhury's stories uneasily exist on the periphery, usually getting the short end of the stick. They are mostly working-class, their struggles invisible to the mainstream and almost an abiding condition of their existence. Whether it be the acid attack survivor living on the streets whose baby died in "Asking Why" or the blind beggar who "sees" so much in "Sense" or the farmer who decides to donate an eye to repay debts in "Different Eyes"—they all show us a window into the plural nation, of diverging downtrodden lives co-existing with the affluent.

Most of these stories are actually short and it's a slim volume of eleven stories. Their language is spare and sparse, opening up inner lives with an understated quiet minimalism that does not diminish the characters to their sorrows. Still, I would have liked these to be more substantial. They show much potential, distilled with time. I cannot help but see this collection tinged with pathos. There's a promise of more to come but it is a future that will never arrive. Choudhury's untimely passing has brought a budding career in the literatures to an unfortunate abrupt end.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[Paramita Mukherjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard a lot about this Bangladeshi writer... But couldn't get opportunity to read something... Then I got my hands on Babu Bangladesh, which is one of his famous book.... After reading 80 pages,, I was sure to read his writings more....


This book contains 11 short stories that potrait daily struggle of people live in Dhaka or especially Bangladesh...
Touchy harsh realities are being told in the simplest possible way....


Especially the backward class people, their bitter truth of life --- will definitely hit you hard at the core of your emotions....

Easy writing, thin book... You can finish reading at one go ...

[litwithneha ( Neha Modi ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 11 short stories, each very intense and thought provoking. The stories take you into the lives of people in Bangladesh and leaves you numb at times. I absolutely loved the titles chosen for each story and how it relates to the details in the tale.

The book starts with 'Taxiwallah' and his tactics to lure passengers, goes onto the daily tedious grind 'Rabia' has to follow. 'Different Eyes' welled up mine and I had to stop reading further for sometime only to read another heart-wrenching account of the Brick Breakers in 'Crumble'. 'Chokra' & ''Asking why' finally tore my heart.

I loved the author's writing style a lot and have ordered his book Babu Bangladesh and I am excited to read it as well.

[Deepika · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐

[Roerich Bansal · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Taxi Wallah and Other Stories" is a fantastic collection of 11 short stories which must be read but this review is more about its late writer Numair Atif Choudhury than the collection itself. The introduction by another fellow Bangladeshi writer Nadeem Zaman is a brilliant opening into the world of Numair's writing, and the praise for Numair's first and only novel "Babu Bangladesh" makes you put that in your TBR even before you start with the stories.

The 11 stories here portray the many Bangladeshes through the eyes of its various protagonists - whether it is a literal tour (portraying the gross inequalities and many different and contrasting worlds that make up a city) of Dhaka given to a foreign visitor by the eponymous character in "Taxi Wallah", or a very short monologue, a demand, a question from the society - whether answered or not remains to be seen - in "Asking Why", or the brutal decision that Abdul, a farmer has to take in order to pay his debts - that of donating (read selling) one of his eyes for a mere 5000 takas in "Different Eyes"

Numair's Bangladesh (and not just Bangladesh but humanity) is mostly challenged in this collection. There are rays of hope in some stories, love in others but hard hitting injustice, hopelessness, pain in others - things one is aware about and yet not - and the reader can feel hopeless about the world we line in.

Numair's writing is devastatingly sharp with elements of ugly and beautiful at the same time. The language is lucid but has the power to make you uncomfortable - by its sheer simplicity and depth. The shift between survival and heartbreak and survival and hope is very evident - makes you think. Please pick this short 2-3 hour read which definitely has the power to stay with you for a lot longer. And yes then let's pick "Babu Bangladesh" if you haven't already.

[Dhiraj Sindhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taxi Wallah and Other Stories is a collection of eleven short stories written by Late Numair Atif Choudhury that were published in different anthologies, print media and online forums throughout his writing career. The short stories are preceded by an introduction by his friend and another Bangladeshi-origin author—Nadeem Zaman. This introduction tells you how Numair’s first and only novel—Babu Bangladesh!—came to be published and a lot of other information about the author’s voice, language, the issues he chose to address and in which way, etc. The introduction also contains a sort of summary and a glimpse; a brief look into the study or the standard reading of each short story.

The writing style for each story is unique with different narrators, language and narrative techniques. But there is something common in the output, which is—rubbing out paintings of day-to-day landscapes our eyes have become accustomed to and exposing the darkness of despairing and wretched reality behind those customary sights; faintly splattering the brightness of hope on this blackened canvas. This strand of hope can easily be seen in the stories titled ‘Crumble’ and ‘Chokra’.

Several stories in this collection are abstract on the face of it. You couldn’t start to imagine what message or moral this story is trying to implicitly convey, what is being concealed underneath all the devices, characters and conversations that we are reading. That is why I needed the help of the introduction to see the conclusion or the conceptualization that a particular story carries with it.

Read the full review on my blog - https://bit.ly/3n2Lut7

[Jayanti Pandey · Rating 4 out of 5]

#TaxiWallahAndOtherStories
#NumairAtifChoudhury

A writer lives through his words. A writer lives through the protagonists. A writer looks within from the outside.

Taxi Wallah and Other Stories is raw, it is visceral, it hurts. What hurts even more is that this kind of writing was cut short by the author’s untimely death.

Numair Atif Choudhury, in this collection of 11 stories published posthumously, brings to life the fractured realities of a country still discovering itself. The voice and narrative is of different people: a taxi wallah, a domestic help, the brick breaker, a beggar, a farmer, : the heart of each of them is Bangladesh. The people exist but often are not seen acknowledged : standing on the other side of class and caste as it were.

Choudhury’s questions make you uncomfortable because they make you aware of your privileged position, the fact that often you do nothing; that very often such ‘people’ don’t exist in your frame of reference.

These short stories carry a world unto themselves ; with possible a universal truth.

The collection will hit you hard, as you read and sometimes in retrospect ; often when you least expect it. The title story and ‘Chokra’ are possibly the ones which gutted me the most.

It is so unfortunate that a thinker of the depth of Numair Atif Choudhury is now only a name in memory. But,

A writer lives through his words; a writer lives through his protagonists.

Thank you @harpercollins for this review copy. It will remain a priceless treasure.

[Tanvi Hussain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its very sad to learn that such a talented and gifter writer, Numair Atif Choudhury, is gone too soon. I had no knowledge of this gifted writer when I picked up his book in Harper Collins store, "Babu Bangladesh" and turn over it's pages. And this book of his "Taxi Wallah and other Stories" was a gift, from the recently held Assam Book Fair 2021-22, Guwahati. Oh! Good Lord Numair's stories, his observations and the utmost crude reality of a third world nation he has portrayed has cut through me. The stories, it's character be it the Taxiwallah, the Brick Breaking labourer, the maid Rabia, the begger kid and his sister, the dead baby's acid attacked mother, the nurse Ayesha or the Chokra (Boy) are stuck in my throat, suffocating me, making me feel their pain and agony. Numair's stories are real in time and spine chilling. I wonder how a part of Bengal detached from it's parent country India has gone through such deep trouble.

[Kaustubh Dudhane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once I read about one of the best books to come out of Bangladesh was Babu Bangladesh!. Then I saw a copy at one of the book fairs and was surprised to see hardly 60-65 ratings on Goodreads. Nevertheless, I picked up this one when it was up for sale on Amazon.

I have loved the warm introduction by Nadeem Zaman. However, I felt that going into a short review of each and every short story was a bit drag on. Otherwise, the stories were nice, realist and very character driven. My favorites are Black and Sense.

[Nahyan Ameen · Rating 4 out of 5]

These short stories are dark, ominous but always offer glimmers of hope. Professor Choudhury was a beloved member of the community who never lived to see his books published on their own merit. There is no telling how much he was constantly improving and evolving as a writer. Some of the stories rival the best South Asia has to offer in scope, in straight forward terse language. These stories turn out to be Choudhury's life's work. Just a little over 100 pages, these stories are short enough and entertaining enough for an evocative experience from a fiction writer who was just starting to find his feet and establish himself as an exciting new up and coming voice.

[Nandini Reddy Dayal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far one of the most brilliant collection of short stories I have come across. I chanced upon this book when I was looking for books by Bangladeshi writers. The nuanced way in which Choudhury presents his stories and the depth of his characters and plots is beyond brilliant.

I am waiting to read his novel 'Babu Bangladesh'. It is unfortunate that Choudhury met with a tragic accident in 2018. He is a literary voice who deserves to be read.

This one is a five star recommendation to read. It is a brilliant demonstration of the craft of writing.

[Sadiq Kazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully crafted stories, for those who want to understand what stylistic prose is all about. The book once again reminds the loss to world literature it has been due to the untimely death of the author.

[Fawzia Breathing Books]

Still unsure how I feel about the book and stories! Thus giving no review and no stars.

[Shanim Tasnim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book so much. Simple stories with unexpected endings. Gonna try her other book.

[Ariz Hoque · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hauntingly good, 11 short stories, captivating. 2 stories grab my attention were Different eyes and chokra.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few DLFs past, Numair Atif Chowdhury’s posthumously published novel Babu Bangladesh took the whole festival circuit by storm. He’s been sitting on my TBR since. I don’t know if it’s the hype or just my disenchantment with how little we’re allowed to talk about the problems of Bangladesh that made me reluctant to open that book. And then I happened to find this one and it seemed like less of a commitment.
Having read it, I find myself conflicted. All those dark, dangerous undercurrents that thrum under the everyday bustle of Dhaka life, the things we turn our eyes away from, Chowdhury actually went there, so he presents us with a kaleidoscope of eyebrow-raising dystopian images. The reader becomes a voyeur into a world marked by poverty, greed and desperation. A brick-breaker’s last throes. A baby intentionally mutilated to garner a bigger profit in the begging circuit. A sighted conman pretending to be blind. These are just some of the intriguingly unsavoury characters you’ll meet in this collection. The prose flows like the liquor that is forbidden in this city.
And then there is this tiny voice inside my head that wonders timidly, are these his stories to tell?

[Neeta Sirvi · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOK REVIEW: TAXI WALLAH AND OTHER STORIES


AUTHOR: Numair Atif Choudhury 

GENRE: Short Story

RATING: 5 star


AUTHOR: Numair A tif  Choudhury was a Bangladeshi author, academic and research scholar.  Numair Atif Choudhury's first and only novel, Babu Bangladesh !, published posthumously, was heralded as a sui generic masterpiece. Babu Bangladesh! has been shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize for 2019, the first time any Indian literary award shortlisted a posthumously published original work.


Taxi Wallah and other stories is a collection of 11 short stories, each one a universe in itself. Numair's stories are not just the story but they are the lives, tears and the sad state of the people of his own country. Each story has its own charm and beauty if you choose to see it.


 The 11 stories are titled as follows: 


1- Taxiwallah

2- Rabia

3- The truth 

4- Different eyes

5- Thief

6- Crumble

7- Black 

8- Chokra

9- Sense 

10- Asking why

11- On the way


If "Taxiwallah" is the shrewd man taking us through the many Bangladesh(s) in one, "Rabia" shows us how social structures are created as she pleats her saree and "The Truth" is the illusion of life, love and everything else we want, but are not possible.

"Different Eyes" is the story after reading which I literally cried from pain, which is the story portrays the farmer and his hardworking and cruel reality of a farmer selling himself in pieces to survive for his family and "crumble", the story of a brick-breaker struggling to make money exhausting his weak body, sort of crumbled me.

"Black" is the story of captives as they are led to death. "Chokra" is a story about children who live in pathetic conditions and "Theif" is about how at one point in life changes the thief forced them to give up.

"Sense" is about a man who is blind and how he reflects on how he sees the world around him. "Asking why " is a monologue that will make you question everything you ever believed was right and the book ends with the last story "On the Way" which shows us the ugly side of gender-based violence such as dowry.


Though the book has short stories that leave a deep impact on your thought process. Such a deep and meaningful book. 


This was my first read by Numair Atif Choudhury and I felt so bad about his early demise. Such a talented writer he was and don't know how many more short stories were buried with him already.