On The Shy
For thousands of New Yorkers, Bhairavi
Desai is a reluctant star
In more than a decade of journalism, never have
I found an interview as hard to get as this one. I’ve spoken
to Hollywood stars, legendary musicians, and a Pulitzer Prize winner,
but no one else needed this much relentless pursuit. A couple of
months into my quest, I started wondering why I wasn’t assigned
something easy, like getting the dish on Brad Pitt and Angelina
Jolie.
Who was my elusive prey? Bhairavi Desai. Demurely
pretty, soft-spoken and a little bashful, she is an unlikely New
York City power player; yet, she serves as the voice for thousands
of New Yorkers. As director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance
(NYTWA), Indian-born Desai spends her days tending to the concerns
of the city’s drivers. In this male-dominated field, she is
the one they turn to for help. And they seek her out frequently,
which is why her schedule is so hectic.
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Bhairavi Desai. Photo by Jaishri Abichandani
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| On one of the rare occasions when
Desai can take my call, in between drop-in visitors and ringing
phones, she discusses her role: “The Taxi Workers Alliance
is basically a union for the city’s yellow-cab drivers. We
currently have more than 6,000 members; we defend, protect and represent
the interests of the workers in this industry.”
Desai, 32, was born in Gujarat before moving to North Carolina
with her family at age 6. “I learned to speak English with
a southern accent,” she says with a laugh, “It slips
through every once in a while.” The clan eventually settled
in Harrison, New Jersey and even today, Desai proudly refers to
herself as ‘A Jersey Girl.’ “Somehow I never got
over the bridge,” she adds.
Desai is equally as passionate about protecting the disenfranchised,
a sense of mission nurtured at home. “No one in my family
has ever driven professionally, I’ve never driven a taxi cab,
but I come from a line of union members and union supporters. My
mom was a union member; she worked in a factory. Both of my parents
are socially conscious. They raised us to hate poverty and to love
the poor. We were poor,” she says.
Having worked with the organization Manavi, aiding South Asian
women who were victims of violence, Desai co-founded NYTWA in 1998.
“We started the Taxi Workers Alliance because there’s
a need. I think taxi drivers are definitely one of the most exploited
[group of] workers in the city, in the country,” she says.
“They work long hours and barely make a living wage. They
have no health care and are considered 60 times more likely to be
killed on the job than any other worker, that’s according
to the Department of Labor…. That’s just from the violence,
when you calculate the accidents within that percentage, it’s
even a higher risk. And just the stresses of the job, I don’t
know how drivers do it, you know picking up strangers all day long
from 20 to 30 people a day and you’re driving strangers to
destinations that only they know well. You don’t know what’s
going to greet you once you’re there or what is going to happen
midway through your ride. On top of that, they have to contend with
harassment from the police and from the Taxi and Limousine Commission
(TLC). I think they are harassed because the city sees them as easy
money and — really the main reason — is because it’s
a workforce mostly of people of color. Racially and class-wise and
religion-wise, taxi drivers as a community represent the most marginalized
people in our society.”
The NYTWA has made efforts to fix these problems
by providing healthcare and legal services and by acting as advocates
in dealings with the TLC. The organization’s work has garnered
accolades such as the Fund for the City of New York’s Union
Square Award for addressing social justice needs in the city and
the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s Justice
in Action Award for advancing racial and economic justice.
Her demanding job dominates Desai’s “still single”
life. Pressed about how she spends her rare free time, Desai has
to think about it. “I enjoy spending time with family and
friends. I’m a total TV addict. I’m a soap watcher.”
Her favorite soap opera, General Hospital, has become too violent
she says, “but lately I’ve been getting into One Life
To Live.” Pausing, she offers, “I’m kind of boring,
the only thing fun about me is really my job. I’m not into
profiles because I just think I’m going to bore the journalist.”
So that explains why it was so hard to get a hold of her.
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