"76th between 1st and 2nd please."
Slight nod as I slide the door shut. We pull away; I check text messages as we nose eastwards through traffic, crossing the island from Penn Station.
I'm in one of the new New York cabs, the kind designed as the 'Taxi of Tomorrow' in an international competition shortly before Uber swept the city. On the screen in front of me the city is running a series of adverts - 'Real New Yorkers Ride Yellow' - to try and ignite some kind of nostalgic pride in the taxi industry (an idea that's not fooling anybody).
We lurched onto a snarled up Lexington Avenue.
"Traffic very bad this evening."
"Yes," I concur.
The coordinates I've given are for Jones Wood Foundry, a British Gastropub that does pies and uncannily good London Pride on tap. We should be arcing smoothly north to the Upper East Side by now.
"Where are you from, sir?"
"I'm from London. And you?"
"Ah, a Britisher! I know a European accent. Often I speak Dutch with them. I am from Suriname in the Caribbean."
Intrigued and relishing the chance to cross-reference a factoid from the book on Caribbean history that I recently read, I go on:
"So, it's true that the Dutch swapped New York City for your country in the 1600s?"
"Yes. With the English. Dutch are clever people but the worst deal they ever made."
I look up. We have left the Jessica Jones murk of the Times Square hinterland for Fifth Avenue, one of whose doormen is outlined in orange. Grand Central up ahead. "So tell me about Suriname."
"What can I say," my cabbie intones, his voice lilting in a more-than-Caribbean way. "It's a beautiful country but corrupt as anything. People live well. You have the beach, comfortable life, plenty food and drink, not work too hard."
Through the little window, I see that my Surinamese cab driver is of Indian heritage: the singsong consonants are doing that Welsh-or-Punjabi thing except with a little Calypso music mixed in. He is bulky, pockmarked, at least mid-50s, with a deep and jovial voice.
"I left there 27 years ago because of the corruption," he adds.
"And how come you speak Dutch?"
"Everyone speaks Dutch! Language of the country. Well, me I speak four languages: Dutch, English, Hindi and Taki Taki. Creole language. Everyone in Suriname speaks Taki Taki."
"It's in Guyana too?"
"No just Suriname language. You had the slaves from all over, big sugar plantations, they made this language. Speak it out in the countryside, in the city sometimes. My family, sometimes grandmother say 'why you speaking black fella's language', but you know-"
"I just came back from a very remote country, Vanuatu-"
"Say again?"
"Vanuatu. No? Just near Fiji."
"They have the same thing," I add. "Called Blackbirding. Australian slave ships raided the other Pacific islands and took people to the big sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji. Everyone speaks this language, Bislama, to understand each other."
"In Suriname you speak Dutch, in offices and newspapers, and everyone speaks Taki Taki as well - ever since the maroon times."
I vaguely recall the escaped sugar slaves on that northern strip of South America who camped inland and set up new societies, free from their white captors.
"There are lots of Indians in Fiji too," I add. "But they're moving away now - going to Europe and elsewhere."
"I love to meet Indian people from England especially, they are so different, girls very hot."
I smile at my new friend and make vague noises of concurrence.
"So where is your family heritage from, before Suriname, north or south India?"
"I don't know. Maybe I will Google and find out, where Suriname Indians are from. Someone says Uttar Pradesh, is that north or south?"
"North," I tell my friend.
"Well now. We don't speak Hindi much. Now I speak Hindi with my girlfriend, we are together five years, I am learning Hindi again. Before I lived Florida with ex-wife and learned Spanish. Everywhere, learn new languages. Now I live in Queens, very peaceful."
We have left Grand Central far behind and I see the Empire State lit up in white, as we pull to the curb.
I fumble with the Yellow Cab's new payment system and fail to pay with my iPhone.
"Thanks my friend!" I say, handing him cash with a decent tip.
"Thanks and see you in Suriname!"
