Three Tyred Tyranny

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!