Saturday, February 03, 2007

The autowallah rant

15 minutes later I was still standing on the road. I had just finished arguing with 3 auto drivers and I was bugged. Just then, another stopped by me - I told him angrily '45 bucks and no more' and for a change he said 'get in'. Wow. All the waiting did pay off. And to my shock, he TURNS THE METER ONNNNNNN!!!! Yep..I am still alive and all for a 15 minute lecture on why I should insist on asking the autowallas to use a meter- Was this guy for real???????????

His rant 'I don't blame you. It is the mistake of autowallahs who will not use the meter. Corrupt buggers. There used to be a time when people asked us 'Sir, can you come to...'; these days its just 'Eyyy' (a derogatory way of addressing). This is what happens if every other person on the road becomes an autowallah - our breed has been permeated by those without class or skill'!

Take away : I pay a 50%- 60% premium on autofares when I was under the belief that I was driving a hard bargain and even autowallah's feel that there occupation is infested with the people of no calibre! :)!

And the moment passed

12:00, Pizza hut, Bangalore

I looked away from the window, through which i had been trying to decipher the shoe models on sale across the road... As I made a sweeping glance around the place, I noticed Him, sitting diagonnally across the room facing me... Another single luncher this afternoon.

Hmmmm... Maybe he was a student ... were there some colleges in bangalore that firangs came to? Or maybe he was doing some volunteering in the town... or maybe a backpacker (thats my favorite) ... or mayyyy bbbeee.... and he looked up from his menu... wrong time !!!! Our eyes met... I was startled... He was startled...

We had an awkward situation on our hands.

Was it just a few seconds? seemed like ages...Finally, my brain seemed to wake up and tell me that I needed to act... I did the 'hey there' nod .... silence... still more startled... had I indicated something else instead of 'hey there'?????? I had just nodded right??????? another epoch of time.... finally He seemed to consider the action harmless enough and smiled...

And the moment passed.