Extrapolations

Shit.

Attention.

The sun has set.

Curfew is now lifted in accordance with national ordinance 1138.

Daytime curfew resumes at sunrise:

6:11 a.m.

Is mine on?

I'm taking one pull.

Okay. Okay.

Hey! Stop, fucker.

You paid for only one puff.

So add it to my tab.

What tab?

Hey.

What?

Give my brother one more shot.

Will you pay for it?

Did you wager on the cricket match yesterday at Lords?

Yes. I also lost three lakhs.

Come on.

Drought-resistant seeds!

Wheat, Jowar, Bajra.

Genuine Alpha seeds...

So you're the driver?

Mind your own business.

Wheat, Jowar, Bajra.

Genuine Alpha seeds...

Stay on him.

Wait here. I'm going inside.

Hurry up.

Hey.

Come on.

What is that?

What?

Can't you see that light?

That?

Maybe it's the sun and we'll all be dead in eight minutes.

You come on. Come on.

I am feeling hungry.

Hey, you're the driver, Gaurav, right?

Come, eat some biryani.

It's not real rice. It's that synthetic, processed crap.

Did you hear that outside?

Hey. Did you read the detail? English only.

What?

The detail. It says me and you are to speak in English only.

Why?

I don't know. A security measure or something.

These higher-ups and their-- their demands.

I could do it in Hindi!

I speak good Hindi!

But I never go against the detail.

Anyway, come eat. I'm Neel.

Something exploded in the sky.

Mmm. My man said it, um-- it was a drone. Uber Eats.

Not a drone.

What then?

Not a drone.

Airplane, maybe.

Not an aeroplane.

Then what?

I don't know.

It doesn't matter anyway. Over there. That's you.

Diesel?

If it wasn't diesel, we wouldn't need you.

Self-driving autos are driving you guys to extinction.

I'm not paying for diesel.

Last time they didn't give me reimbursement.

There's a cash allotment for fuel.

There better be.

I just said there was.

How much is it?

Enough to get you to Varanasi.

Varanasi?

Yeah. Varanasi first, and then up north somewhere.

- There's two shifts? - Yeah.

- I don't do double shifts. - Says who?

It's in my contract.

You have a contract?

- Verbal. - Verbal contract.

Madam knows, madam is aware.

That's between you and Madam.

The job is a double shift. Do you want it or not?

No double shifts.

In that case, fuck off.

Watch your mouth, asshole.

Listen. You didn't even ask me how much it pays.

10,000 euros.

Ten thousand...

Euros.

Ten thousand euro.

Five up front. Five on completion.

No, ten thousand euro to drive?

To drive what?

I don't know. It doesn't matter. Cargo is cargo.

I don't agree.

So... what's it gonna be?

Let's go.

Huh?

- Let's go. - Where are you going?

Me and you, road trip.

Thirty-five hours to Varanasi,

and I hope you like country-western because that is my jam!

No.

You take the bus or something.

I drive alone. I always drive alone.

It is safe.

Madam specifies we go together.

Why do you want to go to Varanasi?

I don't know, mate. I'm on the job, exactly the same as you.

I'm not lifting you in and out of the truck, okay?

Understand?

Let's go!

All the trucks in Mumbai, and we get the one with blown-out speakers.

What do you do when you drive? Music? News radio? Meditation? What?

For me, it's music. Always music, man.

Obviously country-western, but rap, EDM, trap.

I love songs from the movies.

That's it.

Are you married? Have a girl? A guy?

Me, I'm not married.

I had a girl, but after I lost the leg here...

...she went and got with someone else.

I was pissed, man, but I get it.

Do you like movies?

No.

I fucking love movies, man.

Romance, history, drama, action. I don't care.

My sweetie and I, before she left me, we'd spend all day in the cinema.

Poor girl. She couldn't be marrying some cripple, you know?

But I do earn.

I'm not some... loser.

I'm hoping word gets back to her, you know,

and she's like, "Oh, Neel, international gangster.

Maybe he earns more than the current dickhead I'm curled up with."

Maybe she comes around, you know.

A man's gotta believe. Happily ever after, like the movies.

How much will it cost to shut you up?

I don't wanna hear about some bitch

who ran off with somebody else.

Watch your mouth. Talking about my girl.

You want a woman who ran away with another man?

- You have no shame. - You don't know the full story.

I don't want to know the full story.

She's gone. Forget about her.

Okay? Now shut up and sit and let me drive.

I didn't ask you for an in-depth analysis.

Hardly in-depth.

Fuck you, man! I believe in things, all right?

So what's your thing? What are you gonna do when you get paid?

Send it back to the family? Spend it all on whores, drugs, what?

None of your business.

You got that asthma?

And you pull from that dirty thing?

Nas-Bots, bro.

This is the shit.

I don't put robots in my nose.

Nanobots, not robots.

Internal filters. Easier, cheaper.

And you don't have to be sucking on that filthy mask all day.

They track you with that. You don't know.

Who tracks you?

Corporations.

Corporations don't need nanobots to track us, mate.

They've got us by the balls already.

I knew guys like you in the war.

You were in the war?

Yes, sir. Fifteenth Infantry, Amritsar.

How was that?

How was the war? Fucking mega, mate.

Pakistan used chemical weapons, or what?

- Not that I saw. - I heard they did.

Some conspiracy theory.

I heard the war is still going on.

You're a fucking idiot. I was in the war. It ended.

Everyone has a different story.

I heard it's still going on.

We keep going in, but those people are like cockroaches,

you kill one, and three more come out.

What people?

Muslims.

I heard it's strictly black-ops now.

The war.

Where are you hearing this?

News.

What news?

Just... news.

Listen, the news you're listening to is some bullshit news.

You're gonna sit there and you're gonna tell me

that you know more about the war that I fought in?

We didn't need any chemical weapons. We got plenty fucked without 'em.

Where were you during the war?

I had exemption.

What exemption?

Ministry of Agriculture.

Crops died.

My father killed himself and then my brothers, too.

You're agro-exempt?

Your family. I'm sorry.

Where are you from?