meter mele hatthu roopayi

Before I embark on my anecdotes about my encounters with the autowallahs, I must say Bangalore's autodrivers are the best mannered in the country. I refuse to listen to any statement to the contrary. However, I must also say that most of my anecdotes are going to sound like I don't like them at all. When in doubt refer to the opening lines above. They are the best mannered of them all.

Right anyway...

Here we go..


BAW (Bangalore autowallah)s will take you from place A to place B if and only if they are assured of a client at place B. They will then of course insist that mr client at place B take them to a place C if and only if they are assured of a client at place C... and so they go on ad infinatum. They however are very understanding of the layman's lack of astrological skills and are willing to take said layman to any place as long as there's a reasonable chance that BAW will get a "sawaari". But there's a catch.

Let me explain
Every morning dozens of Bangaloreans go towards the city with a view to working, earning a living etc etc. The traffic flow is towards the city in the morning; not away from it. This is an extremely important concept to the BAWs.
Therefore let's say BAW takes you to the city and is expecting a client in the middle of the city- he's not going to get one. Why ? Because everyone who is in the city is where they want to be. No one wants to come out of it. Poor BAW is left hanging around in the middle of the city waiting for the rare lunatic who wants to come out; maybe rare lunatic got fired, perhaps he quit, maybe he left his pain medication at home and needs them really badly. If BAW waits long enough he will find someone. But poor BAW thinks "damn, if only I were outside the city, there would be so many sawaaris coming towards the city". And to avoid all this confusion he'll tell you in the morning, when you ask him to take you to the city, that he won't get anyone back from there. He'll tell you to that he'll be willing to take you to another residential locality (where presumably another bunch of people will be waiting to get to the city, and he'll find some goon there who'll take him to yet another residential locality).

Exactly the reverse happens in the evening. Everyone is coming back from the city. No one wants to go back into the concrete jungle. BAW is back in action insisting that you only take him to places where ppl want to come back from the city; which you will gladly do if only he will take you outside the city in the first place. No can do says our BAW.

He's a master of putting u in catch 22.

That being said, the best times to catch autos are mid morning and mid evening- where there's a nice equilibrium between traffic towards the city and away from the city... traffic traffic everywhere, autos going everywhere, but you forever in jam, so essentially you going nowhere.

But... the way to get around this refusal is to agree to pay him 10 bucks above the meter "meter mele hatthu roopayi kodi". In sheer desperation most people agree. And that's how people get to the city every morning. And that's how people get back from the city in the evening. In case you are saying to yourself " umm, this can't be true, coz i've seen autos in the city in the morning, and i've seen autos outside the city in the evening".

My question to you is have you seen how battered and tattered 10 rs notes are ? More than any other kind of note ? It is all due to the meter mele hatthu roopayi conspiracy. Fortunately, this particular request never suffers from inflation. Despite increasing fuel prices and lpg and increasing income and fancier flyovers, and people standing in front of fab india with 3 bags full of ridiculously expensive cotton clothes telling the BAW that she will not give 1 paisa above meter, it will always be hatthu roopayi. Coz BAW is forever considerate.

One fellow once asked me when I was haggling with him at the top of my voice.. "madam, its 10 rs, do you need it more or do i need it more". I wanted to tell him "it's the principle of the thing". But sometimes, its also a question of who needs it more. I needed the ride more than he did. He needed 10 rs more than I do. It's a good deal at the end of the day.

There was another time when I agreed to pay the extra 10 rs, but kept on a tirade of how ridiculous the whole thing is, including asking him to give me a time table of *where and all* he'll be willing to take me at different times of the day, so that I can plan my day accordingly, and how could he expect to always want people to be willing to jump in his auto and go where he wants to go, whereas actually he is expected to take his clients where they want to go, and how they have this one excuse called "sawaari sigalla" to ruin all your travel plans and how you cannot be expected to know every single sawaari's whim or bend to their whim even if you did know it ya-dah ya-dah ya-dah

So yes... I went on and on in a pretty bad broken kannada with high funda words like "nyaaya" and "neethi" and "jawaabdaari". And when finally we arrived at my destination he waived off the 10 rs saying "beda madam. Thumba majaa banthu nimhathra maathaadi".

Into every life a little rain must pour :)

Do not stand by my grave and weep;

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

-- Mary Elizaeth Frye

****************************************************************************
There are some poems about which, saying something would tarnish it.
This is one of them.
But it's beautiful!

Autowallah series

Over the last year I've been traveling around in bangalore autos a lot. On a bright, sunny day, they're fun people to ride with. I suppose it comes from sharing the same frustrations- bangalore's pathetic roads. I just realized that I have enough stories about them to write more than 1 post. (It's a nice inflated world I live in. Its not just that I am the centre of the universe that I live in. It's also that I occupy a pretty big portion of it:)
Anyway, before I actually start posting them, I want to make a small list of the incidents that have been etched in my heart/mind and all that jazz, just so I don't forget to put them up.


You know how at the beginning of animated movies, they also have a short animated feature. They're oftentimes better than the movies itself.
So
i) How I lost my mobile phone (actually, that can be a whole series by itself. But I wanna save face)
Is the rough equivalent (in terms of theme and not quality mind you).

1) How I got out of paying 10 bucks
2) How I got cheated into paying a lot of bucks.
3) How I lost my shoe and found it.

Right. so there goes. the above mentioned posts will come up in due time.

Juno

Juno!!! If I hadn't known better I would've thought it was some super action movie- like X- Men, or these new period based action flicks that come these days- I just don't find men in skirts all that sexy.In fact, not at all. But thanks to all the good things I've done in my past life I realized that Juno wasn't about an ancient hero/heroine but was a proper movie. Don't argue with me about what a proper movie is. Go see Juno.

Anyway, Juno handles the topic of teen pregnancy in a way no one could've ever thought of. It doesn't get melodramatic about it. She does try committing suicide but that feels like the lamest thing anyone could do. And she feels the same way. It doesn't get crass about it. In fact it treats it as rather matter-of-fact. So you're in shit. What do you do ? You deal with it. And that doesn't necessarily mean you've to suddenly grow up overnight. As Juno puts it " I'm dealing with issues way beyond my maturity level". Neither are there scenes where she has crazy epiphanies. She wants the kid to grow up in a wholesome family and looks for prospective parents in the ad pages of the newspaper. Its where you go for everything. She doesnt want compensation or money. Nor does she want regular updates about the kid after she's given it to the adoptive parents. She wants the perfect parents for her kid though. And as a teenager she has simple ideas about what perfection is. And then later she realizes that not all is peachy and she has to make a decision. And it is then that she makes it. Without losing any of her dreams but growing rather in realizing that there are more ways than 1 to achieve it. She isn't unconventional. Unconventional would be to do something drastic like trying to bring up the baby herself. She gives it in for adoption. Juno questions whether its ever possible that two people can really truly stay in love. And then she decides that she is in love with the boy she's known for ages, the one who got her pregnant in the first place. Her father tells her that its best to be with someone who accepts you for you her. For her, its the boy next door. She's not mad at him for ruining her life and all that. She feels a teenager's love for him, and he feels the same about her. And nothing's changed. Except- yes she's pregnant. But then again "in the next 34 odd weeks, we can pretend that none of this happened". Yes, she's made a mistake. She doesn't want to abort it. Someone said "babies have fingernails" and that led to something snap inside her and she can't do it. It happens to all of us; something rather trivial makes us own the truth to ourselves. And it isn't as if she doesn't love the baby. It isn't as if its a blemish upon her entire existence; yes! she has to apply cocoa butter so her skin won't explode and all and she only half amusedly asks why everyone keep staring at her. Coz she's doing so much to act as if nothing is new/odd about her. And wouldn't it be great if the world would just "do her a solid" and play along. But much as she tries, she's still a lil girl, who gets angry when the guy she has a crush on decides to go on a date with someone else. Of course, she can't go. She's pregnant. When she confronts her teenage "almost boyfriend" and says "at least you don't have to carry the evidence under your sweater" we realize how truly overwhelming this must be and how truly well she's handling it. It is the beauty of the movie that until that point, none of us realize how hard it must be for this girl. We too have started acting like it is a pretty normal thing. She strikes a friendship with the adoptive father; coz she connects to him- they shares taste in music and horror movies. She probably feels at home. Here at last is someone who doesn't stare, and she doesnt have to suppress the guilt of what she's done. He even gives her a Japanese comic of a pregnant superhero character. And all this comfort is probably only because he too feels at home with her. Later of course, it seems obvious that it is so; since the adoptive father is an immature person who doesnt have the courage to grow up. The adoptive mother is distant, altogether too apprehensive, altogether too nervous. But she's a woman; aching to be a mom. And Juno, as we do, comes to realize this. The adoptive father wants to move out of home which gets Juno questioning about whether perfect parents ever happen- whether Juno's kid will ever have a good home which the kid obviously deserves and Juno obviously can't give. She's 16 she says. She can't be ready to be a parent. And finally she realizes that its ok to give it to a single parent; coz the adoptive mom will truly love the child. That woman truly wants to be a mom. And Juno's kid will truly be happy. And she gives birth to a healthy baby. Juno doesn't want to see the kid. She's happy with her boyfriend; who she has made amends with, who comes to the hospital to be with her. And that's all that really matters. That everyone's happy; even if it isn't perfect families resonating everywhere, its happy people in healthy relationships.

I don't think the movie professes that all teenagers should get pregnant. It makes that very clear. Her dad and step-mom are miffed, but ultimately they decide to support her in deciding the give the baby up for adoption. But if these things happen, the world's not over! And even there the movie isn't sitting on some moralistic highground. And doesn't seem like a self-help book. You can sit in the theatre, enjoy every dialogue, the wonderfully fresh music, every subtle hint, at what's really happening and walk out of the movie-hall wondering how they could be stupid enough not to use protection. And that would be ok. You can wonder if the whole thing wasn't treated altogether too lightly. But even if it were, the outcomes were what psychotherapists charge you by the nose for. All's well that ends well. I haven't done justice to how good the movie is. True justice to the movie would be to go see it :) Again! Which I'm about to. Again :)