As distances go, it was nothing much, at least nothing unbridgeable in the age of email. In all it took me just about 30 hours, including transit, to reach San Jose from Bombay. When I stepped out of my house to go to the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, it was past 11 pm. The late hour had not deterred the brace of taxi-drivers hanging about at the street-corner not 50 feet from where I live. That, I realised, was one pleasant image that would sustain me through the days I was about to spend in San Jose, bang in the middle of the grand Silicon Valley, especially when the cornucopial American life would clash with the reality that is India. In San Jose, you see, getting a cab is not so simple as hailing one, which is what I had done in the other places I had visited in the US. Here you telephone the taxi company, and wait for the promised vehicle to materialise. Chances are that it won't. Chances are that it may not come at the time you wanted it. Chances are someone else may have already jumped the queue. A lesson that we were quick to learn -- too quick I would say. Honestly, nothing prepared us for the experience when we landed at 'Frisco airport after a 30-hour trans-Atlantic flight. Stepping into a taxi for the one-hour ride to San Jose was just like it is at any other airport, barring Bombay of course: a little wait in an orderly queue before the cab comes sliding over. It was later that night, when ensconced in our hotel suite that we realised, second-hand, what it meant to get a cab in the e-city. Our colleague, who had to leave for downtown SJ at 9.30 pm, made his call at 8.30 pm to the taxi operator... and by the time he left our room it was past 11 pm. Having spent longer in San Jose, he was quite philosophical about it. The next day we had our baptism by fire. Up with the sun and all that, we called for a taxi to pick us up at 9 am, so as to be on time for the 9.30 meeting in downtown SJ. The taxi turned up at 9.45, after we had called up the office to request a postponement. That incident should have wisened us up, but it didn't. A sensible pair in our place would have preferred the elec rail that ran the stretch of the city. But we continued in our belief that one day we would find the kind of driver who would go into legend. The next day we were to go to a nearby mall. Since we had a brief break between work, we decided to book a cab right away for two hours later. An hour later my colleague was still working the phones, to no luck. As the boss and I came down to the foyer to get away from it all, the one on the phone joined us, looking pleased. He appeared to have done the unthinkable, namely get a cab on time. "So when is the cab turning up?" "What cab?" he said. "Couldn't get one on the phone." "So what are you looking so happy about?" "Oh that... nothing. Finally I told the operator to go ***k herself." "And, what did she say?" "Well, she told me to do the same..." But yes, we managed to reach the mall, albeit behind schedule, by the simple Bombay expedient of grabbing a cab as it shed its passenger outside the office. The next few hours were sheer bliss as we hit the acme of consumerist experience. In the evening, looking like Santa Clauses a few months early, we tried calling the taxi operators. The next hour found us at the lobby, freezing halfway to hell as we dialled the various numbers we had. Finally, in desperation, we called one of our colleagues at the office and requested him to come and pick us up. As luck would have it, as soon as we disconnected, what do we see materialising before us but the taxi we had been trying to raise! Dinner that evening was a memorable affair, and not just because it was at the neighbourhood Vietnamese joint. By the time we had polished off the last morsel on our table, it was still not 11 pm and it was with gusto that we started calling up the taxi services. As it got later, and as the crowds dwindled and as the hotel-owner's impatience began to show, we decided that direct action was the best course. The first empty taxi that came cruising by was thus shanghaied, and imagine our luck when the driver turned out to be a good ol' Punjabi munda... Since what distinguishes man from animal is the ability to learn from experience -- among other traits, that is -- the next day we swore we would be different when we set out on our trip to the mall. We left the place before sundown, took a bus to the nearest elec rail halt and rode it downtown. At dinner that night, too, wisdom prevailed. Granted, Indian food can be soporific at the best of times, but that night we were not to be beguiled. Rather than waste our time summoning a taxi that may or may not turn up, we decided to trek to the nearest rail station. A sensible idea, only it didn't match the warmed-up interiors of a taxi. By the time we reached the Hyatt that night, we were all blue, and not entirely 'cos we were away from home... What the week in San Jose did to us was put the much-abused A L Quadros and his band of merry taximen back home in a much better perspective. Oh yes, they may fiddle with their meters, argue over the fare, hoodwink the RTO and run ancient machines, but even they have not sunk to a stage where one had to plead with them on the phone. Determined to act noble with them from now on, I exited the Chhatrapati Shivaji International terminus and realised with a shock that the familiar pre-paid taxi counter, Bombay's pioneering idea, had shut down, no explanations given. As I trudged the length of the terminus pulling my trolley behind me, as each taxi-driver flagged me to the next one, I realised with dismay that life, be it in Bombay or the vaunted San Jose, is no easy ride... Ponytailed Saisuresh Sivaswamy taxies through life producing an occasional Diary and not much else. 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