‘To Hire’ by Asif Hussain:

First Pakistani Taxi Driver to Author a Book

The hero deserves to be honoured and gifted a yellow cab as he demands of the government

The first Pakistani taxi driver who is the author of a book, Asif Hussain Shah, is 43. The book he has written is titled ‘For Hire’ and is based on his experiences and observation regarding the social issues of Pakistan.

Being a taxi driver for nearly 16 years, he is the father of 3 daughters and 1 son and lives in a rented house in Dhok Ratta near Raja Bazaar and belongs to Lalamoosa on GT road near District Gujarat. He is leading a miserable life and is worried about the future of his next generation very much.

He said, “People say that only the poets, scientists, doctors, lawyers and the highly qualified personalities can write books but I have broken that tradition by writing a book myself according to my perception as a taxi driver. I did not ever dreamt of writing a book as people often say. I think this is just said for befooling people. I am proud to be the first Pakistani taxi driver who has ever written a book.”

“This is my desire in life to give the message of ‘Peace and Justice’ to the whole world while moving around the world with my taxi if I ever got a chance but I am not financially sound at present.” Asif has got written on the roof of his taxi different messages and has taken autographs of various legends.

“The idea of the book came to my mind in a time when my taxi was not repaired on time so I had nothing to do and my financial condition was very bad as well. I have not written my book in my drawing room while having a sip of coffee like rich people but have written in very pathetic conditions after being worried and irritated by my own life and the miseries of others that I had been observing for so many years,” he shared.

He added, “At that time General Musharaf’s book ‘In the line of fire’ was the talk of the town so I also started to write a book named ‘For Hire’. The ex-president has not discovered any theory of uranium enrichment but has written a book and anyone can write a book with his experiences and observations but interesting thing is that I have got this book published by the same publisher i.e. Ferozsons who has published the Urdu version of ‘In the line of Fire’.

He has painted his taxi with different reforming words like ‘peace and justice’ and he has also painted the interior with truck arts. He said that he uses face-book on Wireless phone due to bad financial conditions while he also goes to Net-café at times for using internet in order to keep himself updated with the passage of time and he wants to explore more.

The symbol of pride for the whole nation lives in a rented house in a miserable plight while driving a 25-year old taxi and has requested that Punjab government to gift him a Yellow-Cab.

He said he wants to move round the world in order to spread the message of peace. He is the second taxi-driver across the world who has written a book while the first one was an American. He said he has never broken the traffic rules while he believes that “respect and fame is the castle of sand and I do not want to raze them to the ground by violating the traffic rules in order to save a few minutes at the cost of years of good repute I have hardly managed to earn in many years.”

Talking to INFN, he shared “My second book is going to be published soon with the name ‘From imagination to reality’.”