They leave you with a bitter taste; their money is hard earn (Khoon-paise-ki-kamayee), ours is all lottery business; they harass; they are unsafe; and they are broad day light robbers!! Yes, it’s the very famous auto driver nuisance.
Since office moved, I don’t travel by car, and any extra traveling will be at the mercy of a stupid enough auto-driver. I caught up with my friend at The Forum Mall last evening, at around 8 ‘o’ clock, and we had to head to Shantinagar. I knew it wasn’t a good time for one (paranoid one) to be taking an auto. Having decided to go prepaid, we walked towards the Christ college entrance; the cop at the Prepaid counter recommended the other entrance. We walked there to find it shut! Got back to the front entrance, with an irritated expression well defined on our faces, and finally got a receipt – thirty bucks to Shantinagar. Isn’t prepaid just as pointless if they don’t let you pay up right there? We could foresee the excess fare menace now. By the time we approached Shantinagar, this dude starts off – “Madam this is not Shantinagar, this is Double Road”. And mind you, he was arrogant, very arrogant! This guy was totally bigheaded and argued till we showed him a big yellow board that read – ‘Shantinagar’. He couldn’t argue about it not being shantinagar anymore, but hell he could still argue, over just some random, arbit thing! We asked him to stop and when he did, we were in a lonely by lane. He said fifty bucks. We didn’t intend to pay any more than thirty.
It’s not about ten bucks but about the attitude and the unreceptive environment that these auto drivers create. They invariably have to ask for excess fare, all they care about is to over speed and dump you at your destination to catch the next fool. They harass the ones inside the auto and the ones driving outside. They are a big nuisance on the roads, and more often that not, an auto travel leaves me sick of the city!
I opened my wallet to find five hundred bucks and no change in it. No Choice! He was fuming, and could have ripped of our clothes any minute! I was well aware of where we were and frankly, I know a lot of people think its cowardly, but I knew that beyond a point, I wouldn’t argue. Of course, I wasn’t close to giving up yet. I asked for change, he gave four hundreds, then a fifty, and then of course – a ten. That’s it! We screamed and said he would have to pay us back, else we would complain. The moment I began to take notice of the number, he tried to run his auto over me while my friend still tried getting our money back! K A 0 2 A 4 7 5 1 sped off, leaving us with his damned registration number.
After all this, getting an auto from Shantinagar to Vijayanagar was a nightmare. We boarded at least three autos, with drivers being their nasty selves, demanding excess fares! Finally one decent auto driver came along and we got home that evening.
10 comments:
I can totally relate to this one - Having been at the receiving end of the tantrums of Bengaluru auto drivers myself, at various unfortunate occasions. However, going to the extent of imagining "ripping clothes" and "running the auto above us" is something that is a true sample of Gagan's paranoid imagination. Those who are not from Bengaluru are hereby advised NOT to form any impressions whatsoever based on her post!!
Tum ne jo likha hai sach likha hai sach ke alawa kuch nahi likha :P
Seriously auto drivers here in hyd are also the same for half a km thy will ask 20 rupees sir hi-tec area no one will go by meter. As if we are earning for doing nthg, their rupee is rupee our rupee is dollar [:P] Unka khoon khoon humara khoon coke [:p] (thoda filmi ho gaya) nways...whatevr u have mentioned happens so often but no one can do much abt the himesh reshamiya community.
Well, I have a lot of incidents to narrate too. But its auto drivers, you cannot expect less of them.
However, "Finally one decent auto driver came along and we got home that evening" this is what is Bangalore all about. Even auto drivers can be decent at times! :)
Well, I think that auto drivers by nature are like that only.. Once in Mysore also, I had a similar experience..was with Abhinav that day.. and had a fun time listening to him arguing with the auto guy.. :P
That article really catches the plight well. U rightly said, it's not about those extra 10 bucks but it is about cheating-yet showing-arrogance!
I had this incident with a friend - there was a collision between his Bike and Auto. This guy agreed to pay for the side bulb he broke of that auto... Auto guy said "Not here Sir, I get it done only at Kumaraswamy" (where u have this big auto congregration) and when he reached there... all Auto guys surrounded him and forced him to shell out some 10 times more than what was teh actual damage!!!
Well, this one time, there was this auto guy. Turned out he was Hannibal Lecter and started eating parts of people who took his auto. Sometimes he even "had" them for dinner. One day I sat in his auto and.....
I woke up! Thank God!
auto drivers are a pain.. very rare to get a good person to give you a nice ride.. i can remember of only few good experiences in last 15yrs of my stay in bangalore.. i hate to go in auto.. i can imagine the how bad this experience would have been.
Thanks for the comment ! Wonder how you reached my blog !
With the petrol rates getting hiked .. this is going to get into a whole new dimension ! :)
I have stopped considering autos as an option for travel in Bangalore, unless I have no other option whatsoever.Either use bikes/bus or even get lift.But no autos.If you start with a bitter note right in the morning the whole day is spoilt I guess.Legally u cannot do anything against them.I even asked the traffic cops if anything could be done.They said nothing can be done legally.Only one line of defence I have tried and which did work was:
Get into the auto and refuse to get out unless he drives you to the location you want.Else ask him to go to the nearest police station.Its a gamble, no doubt.But it pays more often than not.Only thing is if the autowallah calls your bluff then you need to have time in ur hands.Second and most important thing is the autowallah should not belong to a local stand.That will sink you in deep sh**.I nearly had a hand to hand combat with a big lot of fellas.Try it next time.see if it works(at ur own risk :-) )
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