KUMAR: DRIVING IN THE NIGHTTIME
“What is weird? Why should we keep Austin weird?” Kumar asks me. I don’t remember how I defined it – unusual, strange, out of the ordinary, unique – but I remember his response. “But I’m not weird, I’m usual.”
In his home country of Nepal, Kumar was an attorney and a college professor. There he taught political science for almost 12 years. He has a B.A. in Law and Education, a M.A. in Political Science, and a Law Degree. Now in the United States, he works as a taxi driver. “The way of life is not like a straight line,” he says one day. “It is like the way a snake moves.”
The first time I went to his apartment in North Austin, near Parmer Lane and North Lamar Boulevard, he answered the door in his pajamas, a soft cotton long-sleeved button-down with matching drawstring pants. He had just woken for our 4pm meeting. He works the 12-hour nightshift, from 7pm to 7am.
During our weekly meetings, incense burned near the cracked open balcony door while Kumar’s wife Manu prepared me delicious Nepalese coffee. I sat on the couch while Kumar sat cross-legged on the floor across the coffee table from me. There we sat – editing Kumar’s writings, reading aloud American short stories, discussing U.S. slang – until it was time to move to the dining room table for my dinner, his breakfast. Kumar’s family was always excited to introduce me to new dishes – from momo dumplings to pani puri, from papadum to fresh fruit sprinkled with steak seasoning, or a variety of foods all called “pickle.”
Kumar has a warm, deep laugh that echoes from his belly. A portly brown-skinned man in his early 50s, he has thick cheeks and a round, cleft chin. He wears glasses with rectangular wire frames, and his expression is usually gentle and joyful. His eyes mark him as an inquisitive, reflective man. Most of the time, he wears loose-fitting, short-sleeved button-down shirts in relaxed prints. Attorney and poet, professor and student, devoted father and lover of languages – he speaks Nepali, Hindi, English, German, Urdu, and Maithali – and now, a taxi driver.