The White Tiger

it pinched and said—in a deep, gruff voice, “I want to rent your cars.”
     
    The last stage in my amazing success story, sir, was to go from being a social entrepreneur to a business entrepreneur. This part wasn’t easy at all.
    I called them all up, one after the other, the officers of all the outsourcing companies in Bangalore. Did they need a taxi service to pick up their employees in the evening? Did they need a taxi service to drop off their employees late at night?
    And you know what they all said, of course.
    One woman was kind enough to explain:
    “You’re too late. Every business in Bangalore already has a taxi service to pick up and drop off their employees at night. I’m sorry to tell you this.”
    It was just like starting out in Dhanbad—I got depressed. I lay in bed a whole day.
    What would Mr. Ashok do? I wondered.
    Then it hit me. I wasn’t alone—I had someone on my side! I had thousands on my side!
    You’ll see my friends when you visit Bangalore—fat, paunchy men swinging their canes, on Brigade Road, poking and harassing vendors and shaking them down for money.
    I’m talking of the police, of course.
    The next day I paid a local to be a translator—you know, I’m sure, that the people of the north and the south in my country speak different languages—and went to the nearest police station. In my hand I had the red bag. I acted like an important man, and made sure the policemen saw the red bag by swinging it a lot, and gave them a business card I had just had printed. Then I insisted on seeing the big man there, the inspector. At last they let me into his office—the red bag had done the trick.
    The big man sat at a huge desk, with shiny badges on his khaki uniform and the red marks of religion on his forehead. Behind him were three portraits of gods. But not the one I was looking for.
    Oh, thank God. There was one of Gandhi too. It was in the corner.
    With a big smile—and a namaste —I handed him the red bag. He opened it cautiously.
    I said, via the translator, “Sir, I want to make a small offering of my gratitude to you.”
    It’s amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.
    “Gratitude for what?” the inspector asked in Hindi, peering into the bag with one eye closed.
    “For all the good you are going to do me, sir.”
    He counted the money—ten thousand rupees—heard what I wanted, and asked for double. I gave him a bit more, and he was happy. I tell you, Mr. Premier, my poster was right there, the one that I had seen earlier, the whole time I was negotiating with him. The WANTED poster, with the dirty little photo of me.
    Two days later, I called up the nice woman at the Internet company who had turned me down, and heard a shocking tale. Her taxi service had been disrupted. A police raid had discovered that most of the drivers did not have licenses.
    “I’m so sorry, madam,” I said. “I offer you my sympathies. In addition, I offer you my company. White Tiger Drivers.”
    “Do all your drivers have licenses?”
    “Of course, madam. You can call the police and check.”
    She did just that, and called me back. I think the police must have put in a good word for me. And that was how I got my own—as they say in English—“start-up.”
    I was one of the drivers in the early days, but then I gave up. I don’t really think I ever enjoyed driving, you know? Talking is much more fun. Now the start-up has grown into a big business. We’ve got sixteen drivers who work in shifts with twenty-six vehicles. Yes, it’s true: a few hundred thousand rupees of someone else’s money, and a lot of hard work, can make magic happen in this country. Put together my real estate and my bank holdings, and I am worth fifteen times the sum I borrowed from Mr. Ashok. See for yourself at my Web site. See my motto: “We Drive Technology Forward.” In English ! See the photos of my fleet: twenty-six shining new Toyota Qualises, all fully air-conditioned for the summer months, all contracted out to famous technology companies. If you like my SUVs, if you want your call-center boys and girls driven home in style, just click where it says CONTACT ASHOK SHARMA NOW .
    Yes, Ashok! That’s what I call myself these days. Ashok Sharma, North Indian entrepreneur, settled in Bangalore.
    If you were sitting here with me, under this big chandelier, I would show you all the secrets of my business. You could stare at the screen of my silver Macintosh laptop and see