Anju Kishore

Right of Way

“Don’t even begin,” barks the taxi driver in reply to my asking him if this is how he treats his female passengers, especially when one of them is an octogenarian. “All the troubles in this world are caused by women. If I had my way, I wouldn’t even accept rides booked by a woman. They demand equality and then expect special treatment. They think they can do whatever they want to and say whatever they feel like and complain loudly and cry and blame the men…” The rant goes on until I threaten to complain to Uber. “Ha”, he says, “There you go! You start all the trouble and then get a poor man…” I pull out my phone. He shuts up.

traffic snarl
cows on the road
calling the shots

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Note: Cows resting or strolling on roads is a common sight in India. Vehicular traffic reverently winds around them, taking care not to disturb or hurt them.

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About the Author

Anju Kishore is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning editor of numerous free-verse anthologies. She is the author of …and I Stop to Listen (2018) and My Conversations with God, Life, and Death (2025), and her poems are part of several significant anthologies. She has also dabbled in online theatre and continues to explore Japanese forms of poetry.

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