Yes people! I have encountered an honest autowallah in our very own Pune! Do I hear gasps of disbelief and wonderment? Well my dearies, it is the truth. Let me tell you what happened...
It so happened that I wanted to go to to my workplace from home which is a good 10 kms away by the shorter route on a day when my car had gone for some repairs. So I hail a rickshaw and tell the driver where I want to go. Usually, once the driver hears I want to go to the IBM office, a greedy and gleeful gleam lights up their eyes and I can almost see the cash being counted in their heads! They also always assume that I'll be taking the longer route and then I need to tell them (and watch their dreams of looting me getting shattered!) to take the shorter route. Now this guy is different. He starts driving and before I can tell him to take the shortcut, he beats me to it! I'm in shock now and just say, "Yes please". So there we are going on our way and as I'm about to plug in my earphones, he again asks me whether he should take Holkar Bridge, which is a traffic nightmare or the Sangamwadi Bridge which is apparently relatively easier. So I tell him to stick to Holkar as it is my regular route. He of course doesn't push it and says, "Ma'am, you should try going by the Sangamwadi Bridge as it doesn't get congested at all." So I tell him that I've heard the road is narrow in some parts and it may be difficult for a car to pass through. He replies that yes that is but if you have a small car, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. So I tell him that I'll think about it. He's talking to me very nicely and with respect. I'm still wondering about this guy. Is he for real?!
I reach office by the time my musings about whether he's a regular autowallah or not have come to a stop. I ask him the fare and he tells me it's 80 bucks! Now I'm really bowled over as usually autowallas take 90 bucks and above from me for the same journey citing traffic and the distance. I give him the money and in a daze ask him if he's read the meter properly (don't ask me why I did that! But I really didn't feel like fleecing this nice man). He confirms it and says he usually only does pick up and drops of children to and from their schools, and in between takes regular fares whenever possible. I thank him and go my way, my faith in humanity restored. But since then, I've never again come across an autowallah like him. I know they are a very rare breed and I just pray to God that they never become extinct!
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Just a Day in my Monotonous Life
My gosh! It's been so long since I last wrote anything. I'm still trying to clear away the cobwebs in my head and trying to think up a suitable/comic/entertaining topic on which to express my views/opinions...
Facebook takes up too much of my time these days. I'm either farming, or taming the wilderness or commenting on people's posts, status messages, videos, photos et all. If not FB or Gtalk, then it's work (which till recently had almost killed my social life, not that I have too much of it like my brother who meets his friends every single night. Lucky dog!).
So anyway, that's what my life has become these days. Get up in the morning, get ready, travel to office (which in itself is a challenge as mentioned in an earlier post), reach office, fight to get into the lift so that it can carry me to the fourth floor, switch on my laptop which easily takes 10 minutes to boot up, check my mails, shoot off mails left, right and centre while enjoying a paid cup of coffee from a vending machine (yes I know...it's the height of cost cutting when you have to pay Rs.5.50 for a 100ml cup of crappy coffee!). Then after some more work, it's off to lunch to the cafeteria where I have to again fight for a table (it's not funny when people occupy a table gossiping after their meal is done. C'mon get up and make some space for the souls who are stranded with their food in their hands!), back to work, Facebook and Gtalk. After passing time in the virtual world I take some time out to meet real people too in office which passes some more time and then it's travelling back home (stressful!)...A walk (my only exercise) is in the offing if I reach home in time, otherwise laze around on the couch and watch TV, have dinner, watch some more TV and go to bed. The same routine follows the next day and the day after that and so on and so forth...Damn! I need to go on a vacation now, but won't be getting any leave thanks to the chicken pox which had me out of action for two full weeks! There goes my plan down the drain of visiting Rajasthan in November :-(
I know that the majority of people reading this would be going through almost the same ordeal everyday and they would be cribbing about it too. But i guess that's life (unfortunately!)...It's funny how when we are small, we dream of growing up and once we do grow up, we wish we were kids again...Sigh...
Facebook takes up too much of my time these days. I'm either farming, or taming the wilderness or commenting on people's posts, status messages, videos, photos et all. If not FB or Gtalk, then it's work (which till recently had almost killed my social life, not that I have too much of it like my brother who meets his friends every single night. Lucky dog!).
So anyway, that's what my life has become these days. Get up in the morning, get ready, travel to office (which in itself is a challenge as mentioned in an earlier post), reach office, fight to get into the lift so that it can carry me to the fourth floor, switch on my laptop which easily takes 10 minutes to boot up, check my mails, shoot off mails left, right and centre while enjoying a paid cup of coffee from a vending machine (yes I know...it's the height of cost cutting when you have to pay Rs.5.50 for a 100ml cup of crappy coffee!). Then after some more work, it's off to lunch to the cafeteria where I have to again fight for a table (it's not funny when people occupy a table gossiping after their meal is done. C'mon get up and make some space for the souls who are stranded with their food in their hands!), back to work, Facebook and Gtalk. After passing time in the virtual world I take some time out to meet real people too in office which passes some more time and then it's travelling back home (stressful!)...A walk (my only exercise) is in the offing if I reach home in time, otherwise laze around on the couch and watch TV, have dinner, watch some more TV and go to bed. The same routine follows the next day and the day after that and so on and so forth...Damn! I need to go on a vacation now, but won't be getting any leave thanks to the chicken pox which had me out of action for two full weeks! There goes my plan down the drain of visiting Rajasthan in November :-(
I know that the majority of people reading this would be going through almost the same ordeal everyday and they would be cribbing about it too. But i guess that's life (unfortunately!)...It's funny how when we are small, we dream of growing up and once we do grow up, we wish we were kids again...Sigh...
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Gaddi Chaldi hai Chhalaanga Mardi hai!!!
This Govinda one liner definitely suits my car when I'm driving on the Pune roads...The amount of potholes and the condition of the roads test my poor WagonR to its hilt!!! I have to be so careful when I'm driving because I never know where the next pothole is gonna come at me...And most of the time it's usually out of the blue...I'll be cruising along at a comfortable speed of 50 kmph on a good road and suddenly BANG!!! my car goes through a great pothole which appeared out of nowhere! I'm left cursing the road building authorities and at the same time saying sorry to my beloved car!!! She's a good girl, doesn't hold it against me anytime...Thank God for that!!! :-)
Pune roads are one thing...I guess roads everywhere in India are unpredictable and virtual death traps (looking as in the potholes are more like ditches!!!)...But the way people drive in Pune cannot be beaten by people anywhere in India I'm sure! It's pure madness on the roads here...I'll cite some examples...
You're driving happily on Aundh road just after the University circle...It's one of the best roads in Pune, six lane, well maintained and one of the few roads on which you can actually reach the top gear...But before you can even think of doing that, there will be some idiot driving in the right most lane (which is incidentally reserved for faster vehicles) at the speed of a bullock cart!!! No amount of honking or blinking your headlights can make s/he move to the left to give you space to overtake from the right which is the law...So, in frustration you have to break the law and overtake that vehicle from the left after making sure that no one else is doing the same thing with you!!!
Another thing that is popular with anyone who uses the road is that no one will stop to let another vehicle through...So what if they are blocking the entire traffic?! No one will go past them...They have to be the first ones everywhere...This holds true at unregulated U turns too...I once came across this incident where a Swift was trying to execute a U turn just off Parihar Chowk in Aundh...There were vehicles parked on the opposite side and this car couldn't take the turn in one go...So naturally he had to reverse back once so that he could turn successfully...But he should be given some space to do that right?! No way!!! Not if you're in Pune! Cars, bikes, bicycles crowded in behind and beside him so that he had no space left to move his car anywhere!!! And this stupidity resulted in a huge traffic jam that must have lasted for quite some time...I didn't stick around to find out...
I can give a whole lot of more situations where motorists have acted so stupidly that there's just no logic to it!!! But I'll stop here now..I have to go and tackle the Pune traffic again...I'll update my blog again if I manage to survive it all!!! So till that time Ciao!
Pune roads are one thing...I guess roads everywhere in India are unpredictable and virtual death traps (looking as in the potholes are more like ditches!!!)...But the way people drive in Pune cannot be beaten by people anywhere in India I'm sure! It's pure madness on the roads here...I'll cite some examples...
You're driving happily on Aundh road just after the University circle...It's one of the best roads in Pune, six lane, well maintained and one of the few roads on which you can actually reach the top gear...But before you can even think of doing that, there will be some idiot driving in the right most lane (which is incidentally reserved for faster vehicles) at the speed of a bullock cart!!! No amount of honking or blinking your headlights can make s/he move to the left to give you space to overtake from the right which is the law...So, in frustration you have to break the law and overtake that vehicle from the left after making sure that no one else is doing the same thing with you!!!
Another thing that is popular with anyone who uses the road is that no one will stop to let another vehicle through...So what if they are blocking the entire traffic?! No one will go past them...They have to be the first ones everywhere...This holds true at unregulated U turns too...I once came across this incident where a Swift was trying to execute a U turn just off Parihar Chowk in Aundh...There were vehicles parked on the opposite side and this car couldn't take the turn in one go...So naturally he had to reverse back once so that he could turn successfully...But he should be given some space to do that right?! No way!!! Not if you're in Pune! Cars, bikes, bicycles crowded in behind and beside him so that he had no space left to move his car anywhere!!! And this stupidity resulted in a huge traffic jam that must have lasted for quite some time...I didn't stick around to find out...
I can give a whole lot of more situations where motorists have acted so stupidly that there's just no logic to it!!! But I'll stop here now..I have to go and tackle the Pune traffic again...I'll update my blog again if I manage to survive it all!!! So till that time Ciao!
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