I still remember the good old days when you could just step into a rickshaw and tell the driver where you wanted to go. There was no fuss, and he would just take you wherever you desired. You didn’t need to check with the rickshaw guy if he would be kind enough to take you there. Every year, when we landed in Pune for our summer vacations, my dad would proudly go, “See, this is the beauty of Pune! Do you get this kind of royal treatment in any other city in India?”. Try doing that now, Dad!
Today, you’d be much better off taking your own car to go where you need to, for if you have the misfortune of being dependent on an auto-rickshaw, you might as well not go out at all! I’m sure all of us have horror stories about rickshaw experiences in different cities in India. From what I’ve heard, the worst of the lot are in Chennai and somehow nobody seems to have anything bad to say about the Mumbai rickshaws. Pune has its fair share of the stubborn, arrogant and perennially angry variety.
Over the years, we have all surrendered to the fact that you will never ride in the first empty auto you see. In fact, I’m sure that in some IIT somewhere there are brilliant minds at work trying to come up with an algorithm on how many rickshaw guys one needs to ask before getting a ride home. The dynamics of the whole thing would be quite mind-boggling. Off the top of my non-IIT head, the algorithm would probably account for the distance one needs to travel, grouch quotient of the average rickshaw driver (by city), the precipitation factor and a weightage factor for how badly one needs a rickshaw at the time.
What annoys me most though is the expression that you get from these guys when you don’t want to go where they want you to. Yes, that’s what it’s come down to, people. The rickshaw guys have their chosen ‘areas’ that they will shuttle between, and if you don’t want to go to their area, get ready for the most condescending look you ever would expect to see, from a complete stranger anyway! It’s like you’re asking Ratan Tata to take you to the middle of Dharavi in a newly acquired Jaguar. First time it happened to me, I almost explained to the guy that Pudumjee Park was, in fact, an up-market locality.
If it’s not the snide condescending look, it’s the ‘ask for the moon’ approach! Am sure you’ve faced this one as well:
Me: Bhaiyya, Pudumjee Park?
Auto guy: 200 rupees
Me: Huh? How much?
Auto guy: 200 rupees
Me: I don’t want to go via Mumbai. How much will you take to go straight to Pudumjee Park?
I mean, it’ll either be an astronomical figure that he’s plucked out of thin air with no logic whatsoever, or just to tick you off, he’ll go “acha baitho” and like the fine print in a newspaper ad, he’ll whisper off the side of his mouth “half return”. Half return…in the middle of the friggin’ day!
Not sure why services in India, in general, have gone to the dogs but this auto nexus is becoming a growing pain for the Punekars. Then you have the radio channels going on and on about the rights of rickshaw drivers, and how we should feel bad about them because of the rising fuel prices etc. But considering the attitude of the average Pune rickshaw driver, I somehow just don’t feel bad for them! Sure, you’ll meet an exception every once in a while. A rickshaw guy who didn’t contort his face at the sound of Pudumjee Park; or the guy who would just take you wherever you wanted to without bringing up “half return”; or that guy who dropped you free of charge to the nearest place on his route because he could not drop you all the way to MG Road. We definitely need a whole lot more of these exceptions though!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Ahhh...Religion!
Religion. A thing that brings the masses together. A thing that tears the masses apart. A thing that transforms the calm to the irate; the rational to the inane; the neutral to the extreme. All in an instant.
I feel religion is rather over-rated. Do you really need it? No good has ever come off it! Of course there are the obvious disadvantages - the religious disagreements, the fights, the riots. But, let’s steer away from those for a minute and look at the sheer nuisance value that comes with living in a multi-religion nation. Just simple everyday things...
Driving: Have you ever noticed how people from different religions tend to drive differently? Sure, we’ve heard jokes about the bad Pune traffic, but, take a moment to observe the driving styles of different people. Two examples: Muslims and the Sikhs.
- Muslims drive like minority rights and rules apply even for driving on the road. Have you ever observed that? Aggressive and insane with the “I must go first. By the praise of Allah, I’ve earned it!” attitude.
- Sikhs drive with pretty much the same attitude that they live their lives. Do now, think later. Or better yet, “What’s to think, yaar? Just do!”
Public Hullaballoo: This annoys me no end. I don’t think there’s another country in the world where you can block the road with a procession at any time you bloody well feel like, or a country where you have so many processions to begin with. Secularism zindabad, but really, if there’s not a religious procession on, it will be a marriage baaraat clogging up the already narrow roads. So, yes, religion and marriage – imagine that – two things that are screwing the world over! But, whom can we blame anyway? We Hindus have hundreds of Gods that we prey to, which amounts to thousands of ‘auspicious dates’ that we MUST celebrate. Add to that, the huge Indian population, and what do you get? Millions of processions! Millions of traffic jams!
Peer Pressure: All religions come with certain stereotypes. These aren’t all bad, but they do tend to add a bit of peer pressure on us lowly humans. Case in point, the Christian community. You are invited to a Christian party and what is the first thing that comes to your mind? You expect that one of the guys will whip out a guitar and the whole gang will start belting out Elvis Presley songs till the wee hours of the morning. Right? Imagine the amount of pressure that kind of expectation puts on a poor Jessel Lobo that doesn’t know how to strum a guitar to save his life!
Marriage: I’m guessing this qualifies under the obvious, but, I’ll still talk about it! Well, I’ll talk about it because marriage is the only thing I could think of to get our beloved Parsi community into the fray – talk about stereotypes, huh! Yeah, we’ve heard all the jokes, we know them all. But, somehow any joke on the dwindling Parsi community and their “thy shall not marry a non-Parsi” regime still manages to crack me up! The small sweet little Parsi community is shrinking by the generation. As the options for the Parsi eligible become, well, really ineligible, I hope they snap out of the inbreeding concept and seriously explore the option of expanding their gene pool!
Praying Out Loud: I believe that religion should be in one’s mind – you really don’t need to tell the world about it. Unfortunately, in India, the saying should really be, “I’m religious and I’m going to shout it out loud from the mountain tops”, rather than the romantic version of the phrase. For if you shout out “I’m in love” from the mountain tops, chances are that you’ll get bashed up by some Shiv Sena goon that couldn’t get lucky on Valentine Day. On a bad day, and I’m not exaggerating, a mere 1 km walk through the streets of Pune can get you blared at by loud speakers from a mosque, a temple, a marriage band and a procession.
So, how many of you agree that religion is unnecessary? You can come to me with “I’m not religious, I just know there is someone watching over me” bit, and I’ll take that. I’m sure there’ll be those who will come at me with “you can’t generalize all this…BASTARD!” I don’t mean to generalize either. But, by and large, that’s how it is, isn’t it? I don’t mean to hurt anybody’s religious sentiments here. Although, what about the sentiments of the non-religious? Nobody seems to care about that!
In the end, I'd just like to say:
Trust me when I say this…
All religions need to be shaken…
The world would be a better place…
If everyone just ate bacon!
I feel religion is rather over-rated. Do you really need it? No good has ever come off it! Of course there are the obvious disadvantages - the religious disagreements, the fights, the riots. But, let’s steer away from those for a minute and look at the sheer nuisance value that comes with living in a multi-religion nation. Just simple everyday things...
Driving: Have you ever noticed how people from different religions tend to drive differently? Sure, we’ve heard jokes about the bad Pune traffic, but, take a moment to observe the driving styles of different people. Two examples: Muslims and the Sikhs.
- Muslims drive like minority rights and rules apply even for driving on the road. Have you ever observed that? Aggressive and insane with the “I must go first. By the praise of Allah, I’ve earned it!” attitude.
- Sikhs drive with pretty much the same attitude that they live their lives. Do now, think later. Or better yet, “What’s to think, yaar? Just do!”
Public Hullaballoo: This annoys me no end. I don’t think there’s another country in the world where you can block the road with a procession at any time you bloody well feel like, or a country where you have so many processions to begin with. Secularism zindabad, but really, if there’s not a religious procession on, it will be a marriage baaraat clogging up the already narrow roads. So, yes, religion and marriage – imagine that – two things that are screwing the world over! But, whom can we blame anyway? We Hindus have hundreds of Gods that we prey to, which amounts to thousands of ‘auspicious dates’ that we MUST celebrate. Add to that, the huge Indian population, and what do you get? Millions of processions! Millions of traffic jams!
Peer Pressure: All religions come with certain stereotypes. These aren’t all bad, but they do tend to add a bit of peer pressure on us lowly humans. Case in point, the Christian community. You are invited to a Christian party and what is the first thing that comes to your mind? You expect that one of the guys will whip out a guitar and the whole gang will start belting out Elvis Presley songs till the wee hours of the morning. Right? Imagine the amount of pressure that kind of expectation puts on a poor Jessel Lobo that doesn’t know how to strum a guitar to save his life!
Marriage: I’m guessing this qualifies under the obvious, but, I’ll still talk about it! Well, I’ll talk about it because marriage is the only thing I could think of to get our beloved Parsi community into the fray – talk about stereotypes, huh! Yeah, we’ve heard all the jokes, we know them all. But, somehow any joke on the dwindling Parsi community and their “thy shall not marry a non-Parsi” regime still manages to crack me up! The small sweet little Parsi community is shrinking by the generation. As the options for the Parsi eligible become, well, really ineligible, I hope they snap out of the inbreeding concept and seriously explore the option of expanding their gene pool!
Praying Out Loud: I believe that religion should be in one’s mind – you really don’t need to tell the world about it. Unfortunately, in India, the saying should really be, “I’m religious and I’m going to shout it out loud from the mountain tops”, rather than the romantic version of the phrase. For if you shout out “I’m in love” from the mountain tops, chances are that you’ll get bashed up by some Shiv Sena goon that couldn’t get lucky on Valentine Day. On a bad day, and I’m not exaggerating, a mere 1 km walk through the streets of Pune can get you blared at by loud speakers from a mosque, a temple, a marriage band and a procession.
So, how many of you agree that religion is unnecessary? You can come to me with “I’m not religious, I just know there is someone watching over me” bit, and I’ll take that. I’m sure there’ll be those who will come at me with “you can’t generalize all this…BASTARD!” I don’t mean to generalize either. But, by and large, that’s how it is, isn’t it? I don’t mean to hurt anybody’s religious sentiments here. Although, what about the sentiments of the non-religious? Nobody seems to care about that!
In the end, I'd just like to say:
Trust me when I say this…
All religions need to be shaken…
The world would be a better place…
If everyone just ate bacon!
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