Pakistani cabbie goes an extra mile to make people happy

No eating or drinking inside this car…..except candies,” reads a sign put up in Pakistani-origin Mansoor Khalid’s cab, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

There are plenty of candies here. Khalid keeps the back dashboard of his yellow cab stocked with a layer of candy thick enough to induce envy in the most successful trick-or-treater.

“Turn around; see what else is back there,” Khalid recently told seven-year-old Legend Wilson, who was riding in the cab with his mother, May Wilson. “There are a lot of options,” Khalid added.
Rejecting the cabbie’s invitation, Wilson said her son had plenty of candy at home. “Come on, he can have some; he’s in the candy cab!” Khalid replied. “I’ll call you when he has to go to the dentist,” Wilson said as her son collected a small pile of treats.

Free candy is not the only perk of riding with Khalid, a 37-year-old electrical engineer from Pakistan who had been driving a yellow cab since 1996. He also recently bought a $400 subwoofer that, in his words, makes “your heart go boom,” and invites customers to plug their devices into the speakers. To complete the nightclub-in-a-cab experience, the car had also been outfitted with an advanced lighting system that, when activated, flashed fluorescent reds, blues and purples.

“Everybody is depressed, stressed – New York City is not an easy life, so when New Yorkers see all the candies, chocolates, they cheer up,” Khalid said. “Some people start screaming, they’re so happy,” he added.

His altruism is not bad for business, either. Khalid’s cab had become an Internet celebrity, earning thousands of followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. That loyal online following supplied a steady stream of customers for Khalid, who got frequent requests for pickups from fans who send their locations to him via Twitter or Facebook.

Khalid also used Twitter and Instagram to advertise his services and for posting pictures of grinning couples with handfuls of candy.

This grass-roots outreach was one way that yellow cabs drivers could rise above the fray in an increasingly competitive market. Last month, the Uber app became the first service to allow New Yorkers to hail yellow cabs with their smartphones, though a pilot programme for the apps remains mired in court.

With the candy cab, Khalid had essentially created his own personal Uber, with nothing more than his smartphone and his understanding of the many uses of social media.

But don’t expect the 13,000 other yellow taxis to follow suit any time soon. The $300 a month Khalid spent on candy would probably be a deal breaker for most cabbies.

“If you think about it, you have to wonder why he does it,” said Juan Miranda, who drove Khalid’s cab during the day. “The way it is now, every time I brake, it falls forward.”

Khalid’s customers certainly appreciate the effort. One rider, Casandra Johnson, was quiet during the first few moments of her ride with Khalid a few weeks ago, but perked up once she saw the stash in the back seat. “I was in a bad mood because I’ve been lugging boxes all day,” she said, “You just totally changed my Monday,” she commented.

Another passenger wrote on Twitter, “Sweetest ride in fifteen years. Left my bag of knitting there, but gained so much at heart when I Googled you. God bless.”

She was referring to the somber back story of Khalid’s generosity. His son, Saad, was born in 2010 with a congenital heart defect, and when Khalid visited him at Montefiore Medical Centre in the Bronx after his night shift, he would bring coffee for the doctors and nurses there, who called him “coffee man.”

“My average was 20 bucks every night, for coffee and sweets,” he said.

Saad died last April, only 18 months old. When Khalid returned to work, he decided to turn his cab into a rolling celebration.

A year later, Khalid said he still had not moved on. He admitted that he still smelled his son’s old clothing, and had kept the boy’s room untouched. But he learned from his time in the hospital that giving to others could at least hide, if not heal, his own feelings of loss.

“I like to buy something for people; I feel good,” Khalid said. “When you give something from your hand, you feel very good when someone gives a smile,” he concluded.