Thirty Rupees Taramani to Adyar

I read in a news report that auto rickshaw fares in Chennai have shot up to such a level that they are more expensive than even flight charges ...I was totally impressed. Do you mean to say I am actually living the life of a princess - taking the equivalent of an expensive flight to office everyday?

The autorickshaw drivers of Chennai are a unique breed.  In every other city I am told they fall in line with the government's order of following a meter rate. I am intrigued by the fact that the Chennai guys alone manage to thwart the government's ideas to impose a check on them. Is it because they have a strong union or is it because they enjoy the patronage of the middle class? I am rather inclined to believe that it is the latter that protects them and makes them so resilient and resistant to change.

I have lived in this city ever since I can remember - I should say that's long enough for me to forget exactly how long - and one way of marking time for me has been the changing auto rickshaw fares. I remember travelling from Radhakrishnan road in Mylapore up to nanganallur and back for just fortyfive rupees. That is a memory from my childhood to be cherished now.

Much later when I was doing my PhD in Matscience, I used to go to my aunt's house in adyar very often - paying the grand sum of thirty rupees, of course haggling over one or two rupees to reach there  - highly hassled and entertained - One day, I was cross with my aunt for some reason and I had with me a fifty rupee note that she had gifted me - so cross that on that day when the autorickshaw dropped me at Taramani, instead of the usual thirty or so rupees I chucked the whole fifty at him and said - Go man  - (though not quite in the same way that Gautami does, rather more famously, in Devar Magan - The bloke was stunned. For a whole minute he looked. First at the fifty, then at me and then in front and started his auto with a vengeance and drove off at top speed before I could change my mind... God knows he must have thought there was something the matter with me...

There are many such auto stories - If I had the talent of R. K. Narayanan I would be able to write an amusing and perhaps even moving account about autorickshaw drivers... but this is all I can do and so let's wait until inspiration really strikes until I can pen down a better story....