If you have already read it then, you will most likely know my attitude towards Bangalore’s Auto-drivers. This happened to me on the 25th of this month. It was on that day that RCB was playing against DD in Chinnaswamy Stadium that is about 10 minutes (including traffic signals and crossing) away from U.B city. I had stayed back in the office way past my normal hours, actually to kill time. It was decided that since I was staying with my aunt who lives on the other side of town that I would share an auto with my cousin and come back home together since she had been posted to audit a firm that was on the end of Kasturba road (about a 5 minute walk from U.B. City).
Usually the auto drivers make a fuss to go all the way up to Ramaiah Hospital, and then again into the colony that she lives in, as it is about a kilometer away from the former landmark. So I bribe them by saying I would pay them 10 bucks extra, which makes it a neat 80 bucks. Unlike me, my cousin is not the type who’d pay a single pie extra if she could.
So on this SPECIAL day as I received a sms from my cousin asking me to take a ‘rick’ from under my building and pick her up on the way, I was trying to do just that. But what had completely skipped my mind was, that day RCB were playing the match in Bangalore!
Many a ‘ricks’ came and went by, some of them asked for double the price, while some said they’d charge ‘one and a half’, the rest asked for anywhere between 50 to 100 bucks over and above the normal fare. I WAITED…..for more than half an hour, when, I finally found one blessed soul who agreed to take me back home for just 10 bucks over the meter charges. Without any second thought I got onto the rick and quickly called my cousin, to tell her about this. When she heard we were paying 10 bucks extra she said, “Get down immediately! It’s not worth it these buggers always say that.” I jumped off the rick at the next signal and started to walk towards her office.
Not the both of us started walking towards Chinnaswamy Stadium. It was about 7.p.m and we saw that the match had just ended. A swarm of people walked out of the stadium and we were left at the mercy of God. There were about ten thousand people who simultaneously got out, so there were road blocks, traffic jams, over filling of the busses, screaming, shouting, confusion and a lot of cops who didn’t seem to bother too much about this! But the most phenomenal sight was what I like to call the “3-WHEELED-MASSACRE” where if anyone saw an empty rick they would pounce on the driver, shout at him and demand to be taken home that very instant even if he said he wouldn’t.
As for us, we just kept walking further along the road. We walked up to The Capitol building which took us 15 minutes (thanks to all the people my cousin stopped to talk to), Then found 3 ricks who demanded double the price! Now my cousin said, “it’s OK lets walk a little further we’ll find a rick there”. We walked further towards India Coffee House (old one). After another 20 minutes of waiting, “let’s walk a little further…” another 10 minutes of walking and 10 minutes of waiting later, my cousin says, “let's go further...” By now my left foot starts swelling up thank to the recent ligament injury, and despite my limping and discomfort I keep walking further to find a rick. Out of frustration I type a sms cussing my cousin for not taking that damned Auto, and instead of sending it to my friend I send it to this cousin without looking. Frantically, I try to come up with an explanation. And in a split second an idea flashes. I grab the cell phone out of her hand and tell her that I need to send a text to a friend back in Mangalore. Thanks to the brilliant Spice network the sms reaches her phone 10 seconds after I grab the phone I quickly delete it and thank my lucky stars. THINK STRAIGHT, I scream at myself. By now it is 9.p.m and we have walked back half the way home. When I look at my cousin all she can say is, “I think we’ll get an auto little further.” Too exhausted to talk I just stop there dead in the middle of nowhere and wait for another 15 minutes till I finally see a rick. I flag it down and with no mood to argue with the driver I tell him the place and he tells me he’ll charge us 10 bucks extra. I DON’T CARE!!!!!
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