Telling it like it is

Thomas Varghese, Driver, Nikai

Thomas Varghese seems angry. He doesn’t mince his words. That’s not to say he’s having a rough day or that he doesn’t like his job. He loves being a driver, he says and likes the three-tonne pick up he drives all around Dubai and Sharjah making deliveries for his company Nikai Electronics.

But still I get the impression he feels life could have been better. From when he was little, Varghese wanted to be in the military defending his country. “But God did not help me,” he says. He flunked his pre-degree exams when he was 18, which left him with almost no options. He could either choose to work on his family’s medium-sized rubber plantation in Kerala or do something else. He chose to drive taxis around his small town for a living. Soon, he was good enough to drive buses, too.

After getting married and settling down with his little family in his father’s house, an artificial flowers company in Saudi Arabia offered Varghese a position as driver. He grabbed the opportunity and left India to make a better living. Since his parents have passed away, Varghese’s wife was left to manage the plantation which he co owns with his brother.

Ten years ago, he came to Dubai and has been working here ever since. “This is a good place to work. I don’t want to go back and work on my plantation, as I manage to make good money here and also save for my daughter’s education and wedding,” he says. “My daughter is going to be a nurse once she passes her BSc in Nursing.” He is very proud his elder son is already a qualified nurse, working at the Apollo Hospital in Kolkata.

So what is his typical day like? He wakes up early to wash clothes, cook, eat breakfast and leaves his crowded accommodation around 7.30am to report for duty at Nikai’s Dubai Investments Park office. “I don’t manage to cook daily,” says Varghese, so on those days it’s the hotels and many cafeterias around the city he relies on for lunch and dinner. Once he reaches the office, he picks up all the deliveries he has to do for the day and goes about his routine.

His beat used to be Ras Al Khaimah and Abu Dhabi but those areas are now being covered by newer recruits. So, although Sharjah and Dubai are congested, he still prefers working in these cities, “as it’s less dangerous on congested roads than on roads that are relatively free”. Being with the company for six years gives him a little bit more freedom than others to choose the areas he has to cover.

Weekends are spent cooking and watching television. Even after all these years of cooking on his own, he hasn’t yet managed to replicate the perfect fish curry his wife effortlessly conjures up in minutes whenever he visits.

December this year is the time he goes to Kerala on his annual leave and according to Varghese, “It cannot come soon enough.”