The Ring Road is hardly a circle and the Capital’s civic reputation, seldom exemplary. Yet, no matter how you abuse and where you curse, this city is perfectly livable and enjoyable. We enjoy the Blue Lines on laid back Sunday mornings and curse the smelly passengers standing alongside on another working day. The gubbaras hit our face and get us into a rage while the next hour we aim gubbaras at others to celebrate Holi. And long before you realize you have become a part of the city. This realization knocked me on a warm summer day in Kolkata in 2002. I exited from the Howrah station and looked around for an auto. To my surprise, I could spot none. It came to me in a flash that autos in Kolkata are not the ‘yellow and green’ of Delhi. I found swarms of black autos around me.
Yellow-Black Autorickshaw
The bone rattling experience inside the yellow-green autos is the Dilliwallah’s unique nouveau culture. While one would fleece you to the bone, another will be the guardian of morality calling you to return your lost cellphone. Pimped to the teeth with streamers, distorted images of Bollywood’s queens, stereo and a dysfunctional fare-meter, auto-rickshaws in Delhi are a class apart. My experience with auto rides in the city has been vivid and extreme, much like my confrontation and assimilation with the rest of its cultures. I narrate here the most bizarre of them all.
A decade removed from the hustle bustle of the city is a sleepy locality called Gandhi Vihar. Local auto wallahs ply on the dusty route between Kingsway Camp and Gandhi Vihar on ‘fixed, fare and share’ system. I had gone to meet an old friend at Gandhi Vihar and I boarded this shared-fared auto on my way back home. Three sit at the back and two on the driver’s flanks; left and right.
With some reluctance, I occupied the last remaining seat on the driver’s left flank. We were soon speeding down the deserted street that connects Gandhi Vihar to the rest of Delhi. It overtook a cyclist and something curious buzzed around us. Within a few seconds it erupted again trying to overtake a pedestrian, “hat ja tao panache ne, naachan de jee bharke”.
‘Is that the horn?’ I asked hesitatingly and the driver beamed, ‘Ha. yeh haran hai’. We soon landed on the concrete road towards Batra Cinema and the street lights greeted us back to the city. The horn buzzed incessantly, snaking its way through the flood of people. I wonder if they realized what this was. Everything made way for our green and yellow war horse. The war horse advanced with its war cry and its soldiers poking their heads from the flanks.
Public transportation has its own drawbacks (read charms). The list of drawbacks hitherto included is over charging, bargaining and time consumption. I added ‘muscial horns’ to the list.
Weconscious has come up by combining two words “WE” & “CONSCIOUS”. Thereby meaning, we the people who ought to be conscious about our rights & duties. We Conscious is a pious effort to highlight, show, and educate people of the various monsterheads of corruption, moral degradation and gross civic negligence that are rampant in our society. It’s an effort to highlight the illegalities we suffer on day to day basis.
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You are right! despite all the bad things in Delhi we still love it!!
BTW today I wrote a blog on how to lodge a complaint against auto driver. Landed here by twitter.
Hey Sihisir you managed to strike the cord which actually touches the heart of each and every person who commutes by public transport. Your post reminds me of so much I suffer everytime I look for an auto. The one big thing is commuting in an auto without meter. I wish we don’t have to do this.
Hi I´m witing on Blog action dag like you and found your blog there. I enjoyed you description of your autos, I remember them vividly from my visit in India though it is 20 yrs ago. I agree about the charm factor of this way of transport. Unfortunately I remember the airquality in Delhi too, I got the worst bronchitis of my life there. It would be interesting to read about ideas how to improve this way of transport which despite its drawbacks had its good points too. I remember I asked some auto driver why most dreivers were Sikhs and got the answer that they came from old warriors and thus most suited for the indian traffic, something that made some sense to me.
I enjoyed your blog.
In delhi so much traffic in road.
Delhitraffic are doing only rest
how will much rest doing delhitrafficpolice
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