On top of it the entire process of getting, convincing,haggling and finally surviving the ride to the shopping zones! No other things pains me more than handing over my money to auto wallahs. With all apologies to Autoyachar Mohato for not understanding that why should the auto driver also not enjoy BlackBerrys instead of Nokia N 70's and their kids pay Ps2 while yours will relish Xbox.
In Pune the quote is triple the reasonable amount based on distance. But calculating the reasonable cost will test your skill of multiplication by 7 of a 2 decimal value meter reading plus addition and finally rounding off to the nearest multiple 10.
As advance maths you can choose to divide the above value by per KM rate to get the distance.
Sonai,battle hardened and after years of living here, had once asked a driver ' kabhi shaam ko thappar khaya hai kya?' leading to much protest and flutter among the community along with demands of boycotting her. She though stayed unmoved and was ready to accept the refund of all her auto spendings. That never happened though!
With the driver putting out his left bare foot half outside and the right leg resting on the seat leg folded up below the left thigh and the phone glued to his right ear, the ride is always a more than adventure and less than disaster. ABS in hand brake and curtain air bags should be made compulsory asap.Period.
This art of insane driving in the even more insane traffic,with people feeling the sudden urge to stop and wish neighbour Kaka or Tai, needs to be protected at all cost if not for our kids but for highly beneficial future form of speed yoga.
Phew!
Bangalore throws an entirely different challenge.
Haggling for fixing the meter rate as in full, one and half , two and point 62 , four and five third
is the first part.Directing him to your destination will see you taken for a ride in a maze of one ways, full u turns, bisecting a shopping mall and coming of a some residential complex housing an IT company above a coffee day. All along in a mix of Kannada-urdu-hindi, not always in this order, buts always making you feel equally guilty of not knowing the where you want to go to.
In Calcutta,with the auto wallahs doubling up as party activist the pain is courtesy the taxi wallahs. The art of braking with a 3 millimeter gap,each time time after time,from all speeds and varying number of passengers ie min 1 and maximum depending on size, with drum brake will leave F1 research,designing and driving champs in awe.
A highly informative discussion mostly follows the flavour depending on his allegiance to Buddha Babu or Didi leaving you enlightened about fuel price across the country, deregulation,timings and location of next 3 rallies.
In NCR its all economics..with proportional increment from the agreed price will get you an convincing assurance of dropping you to wherever you want in record time,thrills of high speed driving inclusive and the choicest of words to fellow road mates as add on. Alloy wheels..leather seats and big stereo..
The black and yellow Fiat divers believes in no half measures just like the city! A mad rush or disaster! Not able to concentrate on the road while framing/translating sentences in Marathi
as been a common vice!
Chennai ! For reasons ranging from linguistic to social values a numerical sum is only what you can decipher from his response if at all he stops to pick u.
An immediate conversion of the above amount to dollar and a quick recollection of the taxi fare from Jersey City to NY will leave you speechless.Not that it matters.
The journey will leave you dumb founded if not with not knowing what to say but definitely the local FM blaring music from 2 woofers 3 twitters and 1 speaker.Killing you softly with his song...
Lets go.. ;)
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