Mumbai women get freedom from leering taxi drivers

n Mar 8, women in Mumbai will celebrate International Women’s Day by having the freedom to choose to be driven by women drivers taking in only women passengers.

 

As an added bonus, they can also get bigger mirrors, a make-up kit with a nail polish remover and a magazine rack in their taxis.

 

A new taxi company called Forsche (a play on Porsche and “for she”) will start operating taxis only for women and driven by woman drivers. The taxis will be sleek silver and white with a blue and pink “Forsche” logo.

 

The founder Revathi Roy, a 47-year-old former amateur rally driver plans to start with 10 cabs and 18 women drivers.

My dad would have loved for this to exist about a decade ago when I used to come back late occasionally from college and he would be waiting impatiently for me downstairs at the building gate.

My friend definitely plans to start using Forsche. She uses the company car that drops everyone off at home whenever they work odd hours but she is usually the last to get off and she hates how the driver always adjusts his rear view mirror after the rest of the folks get off to leer back at her.

I’m sure this will be a bonus to the working women in Mumbai. Maybe not everyone makes enough to pay individually for the luxury of a taxi ride everyday, but if a couple of friends chip in – it would be relatively affordable and definitely decrease the stress of everyday travel…maybe they can even start enjoying late night travel and have taxi groups where they can play “antakshari” or gossip – like the many train groups that are found in local Mumbai trains J.

Here’s hoping that Forsche takes off in a big way in Mumbai which is one of the safer cities for women in India – so the women in the rest of the Indian cities can also start experiencing the peace of traveling home late at night .

Photo sourced from AP

Read more on This cab is for ladies only (The Times of India)

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