Ride, Ride My Rickshaw (with apologies to the Moody Blues)

I was going to call this blog "Trains and Boats and Planes" after the Billy J Kramer hit of the 60s, or "Trains, Planes and Automobiles" after the John Candy movie of the same name, dear reader, to cover a variety of topics (or is that a multitude of sins?). Anyway, after nearly being "cleaned up" on three separate occasions by two different trucks and a bus just now, while travelling in an autorickshaw back to the School from my visit to the bank , however, I think the Moody Blues variation is much more apropos. I'll get to that part of the story a little later.

As you might recall, my trip from Patna to Kochi, via Delhi and Bangalore, was something of an elongated one. At one point, having exhausted my reading materials, I was moved to even read the ads appearing on the "flight map" page of the TV (one neat thing about the landing at Bangalore was that the whole thing could be viewed on the screen via a camera in the nose of the plane - fascinating for one such as me not bothered by the flying experience, but a whole new way of being scared witless by those so disposed). If I had any doubt that India is a "man's" country, that doubt was dispelled by one of Kingfisher's ads for its own services:

"Fly Kingfisher this season of good times", it said, "Because the queen of your heart deserves to feel like a king". Apart from the deep-seated gender issues that such a cross over might generate, since when did a queen need to feel like a king to be better off? No, dear reader, this is not just me being pedantic, or even politically correct. I see this as a statement reflecting the "real" understanding of the place of men and women in India, at least among the ad team that came up with this brilliant line as they sought to appeal to the typical fliers who would be viewing the ad. Or is it just me?

The last paragraph covers the "planes" part of the original titles and there are no trains or boats to speak of (very fortunately for me in regard to the trains as far as Subho is concerned), but there are things to say about the auto(mobiles) and to share a story about one person who has a special place in my experience of India - Jayaraj, the auto-rickshaw driver, who picks me up each morning to take me to the office and sometimes drives me back to the apartment at night.

This photo shows us standing beside Jayaraj's auto this morning just outside the Suryakanthi Apartments that have been my home for these past months, just before we headed to the KiBS offices. Jayaraj is very proud of his auto and treats it with as much parental as proprietorial concern, and why wouldn't he? He is on the road every morning at 5.15am and so has been driving around for about 4 hours before he picks me up at 9.00am. After dropping me off, he heads out to another fare or two before he is required at the bicycle shop at 10.00am, where he stays until 8.00pm at night. It is at 8.00pm that he comes to pick me up on the return journey to the apartment and the beginning of another 3 hour stint in the auto before he arrives at home. This is his routine, day in day out, as he seeks to provide for his family and to repay the loan for the new apartment that he is in the process of purchasing.

A sense of the "parental" concern for his auto is given by his answer to my enquiry about sub-leasing the auto during the day while he is at the bike shop, and so maximising the return on that investment: "No, maybe damage". He has had the auto for about 11 months now and in all that time on Kochi's crazy roads, he has had only one minor bingle which produced a broken indicator light and a bend in one of the panel joints (about which he was most distressed as he recounted the story). He couldn't face the thought of any damage to his auto, especially if it was the result of someone else driving.

Along the way, Jayaraj has proved to be the most reliable thing about India - unless there is a "block" (traffic jam") he is punctual to a fault (sometimes even being early and catching me just out of the shower in a demonstration of my own tardiness), he is careful on the road and a pleasant conversationalist to boot. From time to time he passes his friends in the auto business and there is always a friendly wave and a smile to punctuate the encounter.

This stands in stark contrast to the two auto rickshaw rides that Raju and I had on our way to and from the State Bank of India Broadway branch, where the driving was "variable" to say the least and it looked like everyone on the road had already enjoyed too much Christmas "cheer". The trip to the bank was mainly sedate, with the "spurts" restricted to sliding into defined openings in the congestion, but on the way back, it became a real ducking and weaving contest as we and the other traffic, large and small, played the familiar game of "chicken", as we wandered on both sides of the road to get ahead (or eventually to lose one?). At one stage, I thought we were going to be the vehicle in the "auto knocks down pedestrian" as our auto brushed a lady crossing near MG Road (in fairness to the driver, she was doing the "you can't hit me coz I'm not looking at you" approach to crossing, and then she was complaining to the folks who had already crossed about the behaviour of the auto driver!). And hence, dear reader, the shift to the "Ride, Ride My Rickshaw" title.