Commuting to office for many people in Delhi involves encounters with autos and auto drivers daily. It’s a whole lot of different and interesting experience in itself. I really enjoy meeting a different person everyday doing the same job but in his own way. Well, I only get to meet one driver because I use auto only to go to the office. On my journey back I use the combo of infamous Blueline buses and famous Delhi Metro. Still that adds up to more than 20 different persons every month that drive me to office.
Before I go specifically into idiosyncrasies of drivers only, lets enjoy the overall phenomenon of daily commuting by auto.
Stage I:
My daily journey begins with its own share of excitement on most of the days and a little frustration on some of the days. I first have to place myself tactically to get the auto at the earliest considering I take the auto from a road as busy as Shankar Road and from a station like Old Rajinder Nagar from where many working class people hire auto for the office at the same time. And I feel everyone there knows everyone else who is going to hire an auto. It’s a fun to watch every one judging for oneself where to stand to outsmart the other. The off day here is when I keep standing there for a long time (more than 10 mins) without being able to beat my fellow riders to an early auto.
Stage II:
Now the time comes when an auto driver stops his auto right in front of u. After having outsmarted the people I don’t even know for real, I find myself at the mercy of the person that changes everyday. First grace that he does to me is agreeing to take me to my destination, i.e Kailash Colony.
The next thing is something all auto commuters in Delhi get charged up on, the FARE. One good thing here is that though the auto drivers of Delhi are very much disliked when it comes to ‘pre-deciding’ the fare or going by ‘meter’ yet when they see a person in formals, looking like someone going to office, well no questions asked. They just start their meter and I m on my way.
Stage III:
The next issue is about the exact road that will be taken to get to the destination. Those who use this mode of transport in Delhi know very well that how harassing that can be. But that again is not a problem with me because they understand that I must know the way as I m a daily commuter. But one thing that does surprise them is that the path that I ask them to follow is not the shortest one. Well, I have my reasons for that. We’ll come to that later. Here the way the driver drives decides whether it would be a day of excitement or of frustration for me.
Stage IV:
The drive from my residence to office is more than 15 kms and the time taken is approx 35 mins in auto. And that’s a sizable duration in the sense that besides the people I otherwise come in contact with daily, viz. my roomie, couple of friends and colleagues, the auto driver is the only one that I interact with on a daily basis and that too with a new guy everyday.
Though all these stages are enjoyable but are routine phenomena, the one that’s most interesting is the variety of personalities (drivers) that I get the opportunity to interact with. They all are similar in the sense that they are doing the same job, have had more or less the similar experiences, and I m assuming have similar life style, etc but still there are marked differences, and that all shows every morning when I m coming to the office. When I’ll share my experiences while riding an auto in Delhi, I m sure you’ll agree that how interesting their experiences, insights, attitudes, outlook and everything else are.
Written by: Rohit Mishra
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1 comment:
very nicely expressed, even i also travelled along wih rohit on his way to office on 24th may 2008,i found him so polite while interacting with the drivers specially when it comes to the path to follow,and i love the word he used for drivers "Bhaiya".
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