Brant Copen Loses His Temper

Today Brant Copen lost his temper.  Many of you who know Brant Copen will understand that this could potentially be the beginning of an interesting story.  After all, if he had a nickel for every time he was asked the question, “Do you even get mad?” he would have $1472.  He wouldn’t spend a penny of it on taxis. 

Our tale opens two and a half hours into Brant Copen’s day, but only two minutes into his work day.  He was walking quickly down a sidewalk and casually, without thinking, he let one rip.  His pace instantly slowed and a curious look began to form on his face.  As his gate stopped completely, he shook his hips just to be sure.  Yep, he had just pooped his pants. 

Fast forward six hours to two in the afternoon.  Brant Copen stands resolutely just inside the doorway to the orthopedic ward of a hospital.  He has spent most of his day rushing to get a patient there in time for an appointment which only ended as a chaotic disappointment.  His dripping hair is pasted to his forehead, every item of clothing issoaked completely through by the torrential Indian monsoon, he has yet to eat lunch, and despite a thorough public-bathroom-sink-rinse his shorts smell like chicken curry diarrhea.  From the safety of the archway he scans the road for taxis in order to return the patient back to his home.  One pulls up but refuses to take anything less than 250 INR. 

In order to fully appreciate the next chapter of the story, a short lesson in the history of Brant Copen’s relationship with Kolkata taxis will be necessary.  According to Indian law, all taxis must only use their meter.  The meter measures the distance traveled and produces a correlated price as deemed fair by the law.  The majority of drivers, however, will outright refuse to take a passenger to his requested destination unless they agree beforehand to a much higher price than what the meter would probably show.  Basically almost all taxi drivers cheat people because they can.  This is a never-ending source of frustration to Brant Copen, who is naturally endowed with an acute sense of justice.  Compounding this problem is the habit of drivers to make the assumption that a white person probably doesn’t know what a trip should cost and has an excessive amount of money anyway.  A white person with an ancient hospital patient standing in a downpour, now he should be willing to fork out some serious dough. 

Brant leaves his bag with the patient and runs out into the storm to search for a ride, but the next taxi doesn’t even slow down.  Finally, after a solid half hour a taxi pulls over and cracks its window.  “Kalighat ha?” Brant yells as he jumps in the back seat.  “Yes, no problem!” the driver returns in perfect English through a big white smile.  Brant directs him to where the patient is waiting but before he gets out to help him in, the driver starts his game, “400 rupees, Ok?”  400!  400!?  Brant is absolutely indignant.  He has made this exact trip plenty of times and never once has the meter read more than 40 rupees.  “No!  Forty!  Meter would be four-zero!”  “250!” shouts the driver.  Brant jumps out of the taxi and slams the door as he returns to his patient patient.  The taxi lingers.  Brant hates the thought of giving in but he is desperate.  “OK, fine, 100!” He yells over the pounding rain.  The driver nods and Brant helps the patient into the back seat.  It is slow going due to the age of the man and the fact that he is recovering from a broken hip, but they finally get settled in.  “150.” Says the driver.  Brant literally feels his eyes bulge as the blood rushes to his face.  Nearly at the top of his lungs he screams, “100 max!!  All you taxis try to do is cheat people and it pisses me off!!  You take advantage of an old man in a rain storm?!!  Totally heartless!!  He pounds his fists on the dash of the car and reads the lettering painted in neat white script, “PAY ONLY DISPLAYED FARE!! PAY ONLY DISPLAYED FARE!!”  “Ok, yes, 100 is fine” says the frightened driver.

This story is actually quite embarrassing. Why? Well, other than the more obvious reasons, 50 rupees is only 80 cents in USD. Yelling and screaming and pounding fists over 80 cents. Even if it had been $800 there is no justification for losing one’s temper. Anger is a natural emotion but it should never be allowed to be in control. Responding to perceived injustice with uncontrolled bursts of outrage and hurtful words only adds oppression to oppression,accomplishes nothing, and certainly fails to communicate the love of God. It is a continuation of small things like that that eventually make people question the goodness of life. Basically, it was a terrible representation of who Brant Copen actually is, even if he did have poopy pants. However, it does bring up an important point. Primarily, that it is dangerous but easy to let past abuses accumulate until their sum is unjustly attributed to a single unwary individual, and secondarily that one must always use grace because it is impossible to know where a person’s day has brought them.