Edition: U.S. / Global

Talking to Me? No, the Cabby's on His Cell

Published: July 17, 2003

Slide into a cab in New York City, shut the door, and there's that murmur.

It's not the radio, but the driver's voice -- aimed not at the passenger, but at the dangling microphone of a hidden cellular phone.

More often than not, the fleeting Punjabi or Creole or Arabic words are lost on the unwitting listener sitting behind the partition; most passengers come and go without knowing the substance of the low-pitched chats. Some find it annoying; others think a foreign-language station is on the radio.

''I sometimes ask them to turn it down,'' said Maya Goldschmidt, a hurried Manhattan lawyer, as she coasted down Park Avenue in the back seat of a taxi.

But days and nights spent in dozens of cabs, where conversations were recorded and translated, have revealed a spectacular alternate world of words beamed from cellphones to invisible audiences around the city and planet. Though cabdrivers are not supposed to talk on cellphones while driving, even with a hands-free device, the long black cord has become something of a cultural lifeline -- to mothers in faraway lands, to children unseen during 12-hour shifts, and to the humor and commiseration of other drivers braving the same lonely streets.

''Some people call their countries, some of them call their friends, some are busy with the chick,'' explained Sarabjeet Multani, a fast-driving Punjabi who said he decided to move to the United States after seeing ''Baywatch'' on television.

Cab cell talk covers a spectrum of emotion -- depending on the driver and the moment -- from light banter about cheap tips and good-looking passengers to queries about traffic, to heated political debate and urgent inquiries about ailing relatives overseas. It rides high in consternation and low in reflection. It pauses at intersections and then resumes, sometimes halfway through a new trip, giving a sudden fright to passengers who have not yet spotted the dangling cord and think the drivers have gone mad.

It runs in linguistic packs.

There is the posse of Punjabi cousins who jump on and off a nightly conference call. There is the group of Sherpa drivers who went to the same high school in Nepal and now debate -- on a cellphone family plan -- the Maoist guerrilla occupation of their hometown.

And there is the clan of Salvadorans who subscribe to the same Nextel walkie-talkie system, where women and soccer often dominate the banter.

Soon after dropping off Ms. Goldschmidt, the lawyer, in Midtown, the cabdriver, Manuel Molina, was on the phone again.

''Are we going to the barbecue or not?'' shouted Mr. Molina, in Spanish.

''I don't know,'' answered a man named Walter.

''I'm counting on you for the beer,'' said Mr. Molina, who is 29 and Salvadoran.

''Go to hell,'' Walter shot back.

''You lowlife,'' answered Mr. Molina, letting out a guttural laugh as he slid his four-door minivan around a corner and up Madison Avenue. He scanned the streets for customers. ''It's lazy out there today,'' he added. ''Where's the work?''

That last question cuts across all languages and national identities to dominate the cab-cell discourse.

Drivers check in with one another to compare earnings midway through a shift, and share tips on heavy foot traffic with phrases like, ''Penn Station's moving right now'' or ''Go to the Port Authority.''

''We are always connected,'' said Umar Iqbal, 24, a Pakistani. ''We keep listening to each other so we can judge where to go.''

Mr. Iqbal is among 20,000 to 24,000 licensed and active drivers in New York City, according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Most of them have cellphones, and many say they avoid using them while driving.

Either that is true, or the city has caught few violators: in fiscal year 2003, only 66 cellphone violations, which carry a $200 fine, were issued to cabdrivers, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Drivers say they began using the phones en masse over the last five years, propelled by the advent of affordable cellphone plans that allow for free night and weekend talk. The regulation that prohibits cabdrivers from using cellphones while driving passed in 1999.

''You have to think like them,'' said Joseph Hennessy, general manager of Team Systems, a fleet of more than 300 cabs. ''They leave their house at 5 a.m., don't see their kids, they come home in the afternoon. It's a source of contact for their families. Imagine you're the wife of a taxi driver and you're sitting at home.''

Jatinder Kaur is such a wife. She frets at her home in Queens and worries that her husband, Manjeet Singh, may be robbed. So, she calls him on the hour. His guiding rule is to always, without fail, take her calls.

Such is the edict of Ibnou Sidibe, 50, from Senegal. But aside from retrieving his wife's calls, the phone sits in its cradle. ''I'm a very quiet guy,'' said Mr. Sidibe, who has a degree in architecture from a school in France. ''I like loneliness.''

For the more sociable of cabdrivers, the cellphone is still mixed with the CB radio, which features at least three channels solely for Punjabi drivers.

Walia Singh Surinder flips through them on a ghostly weeknight with his right hand, his left one gliding over the wheel. His light has been on for more than an hour.

''The CB is easy talk,'' says Dr. Surinder, a former optometrist from Punjab who now lives in Queens with his wife and three daughters. He stops at Channel 33, calls in and gets his friend Bhatia.

''Hey Uncle Bhatia, how is business?'' he says in Punjabi. (This conversation and several others were recorded with the drivers' permission and later translated.)

''Today is very slow. Where are you now?''

''At 52nd and Seventh.''

''Are you going somewhere on summer vacation?''

''No, no. No money, no honey.''

Then the cellphone rings. It is his wife.

''I am O.K. I've been on the street since 8 in the morning. You have no work in the house? You are calling me all the time.''

He hangs up after a quick salute to his daughter, and reaches for his other favorite diversion on slow nights -- Indian techno-rap dance music. The car begins to thump.

''Cellphones are a driver's link to the rest of the world,'' said Bruce Schaller, an urban transportation consultant who researches the taxi industry. ''Driving a cab is a very isolating experience as there's no longer a lot of conversation between drivers and passengers. Legend has it that there once was.''

There may no longer be enough time for such an exchange.

''They're talking in another language and it never ends,'' said Ruth Britten, a retired fashion executive who lives in Manhattan. ''It's a rolling conversation. You're with them 100 blocks and they're on the phone the whole time. And they don't listen to where you want to go and they pass the street.''

Some cabdrivers think passengers could use restraint in their own cellphone etiquette. ''If a customer is talking it distracts me,'' said Azeem Rizbi, 37, of Punjab, who freely admits that he talks on his own cellphone while driving. ''Some customers talk about their personal problems. They say, 'Oh stop it.' I think they're telling me to stop the cab.''

Traffic drifts lazily past A. B. Johnson's cab, parked midafternoon on a recent weekday near Houston Street. Again and again, he dials the number on his prepaid calling card to his hometown near Lagos, Nigeria.

His close friend Asimiyu picks up on the third try. The two talk -- in Yoruba -- about the status of Mr. Johnson's green card application. He has not seen his mother in 13 years.

''My mother keeps saying she doesn't want to be dead before I come home,'' says Mr. Johnson, 40, who lives in Queens.

A minute later, Asimiyu admits, ''Mother thinks that you brushed her aside.''

''Please help me explain to her that I am not being bad to her,'' Mr. Johnson says. ''If I come home now I cannot come back to the U.S.''

The calling card bleeds out of time. He shifts the car into gear, and pulls out in search of customers.

''It's a very long shift,'' says Mr. Johnson, who has been working since 4 a.m. ''You have to work hard in New York.''

Photos: A taxi driver, wearing an earpiece connected to a cellular phone, recorded a fare yesterday afternoon in Times Square. (Michael Nagle for The New York Times)(pg. A1); A cabdriver, making little effort to hide his cellphone -- even though its use is against regulations -- can stay connected to home, wherever that is. (Willie Allen Jr./The New York Times)(pg. B8)