Mumbai - An Addiction
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
On the Job Training
Being so used to traveling hither and thither in autos, I never thought that I would have a near-death experience in one of them. Ok, I am exaggerating. But ask any foreigners who travel in an auto for the first time. The way they swerve in and between cars and trucks and buses, you just have to hold on to anything within grasp real tight and pray. Larry Page and Sergey Brin probably got one of those calm, meditative drivers to have been so impressed with the machine.
So on this particular day, I took an auto from Bandstand to Vile Parle. The autowallah, surprisingly, didn’t know the route and told me to in a very pleading tone, “Sahab, raastaa nahin pata hai.” I asked him if he knew the road to the highway and he replied in the negative. I berated him for being so ignorant! What autowallah doesn’t know the road to the highway! I took the auto nonetheless and kept giving him directions.
It was on the highway that I noticed that something was amiss. The driver kept the auto on the extreme left and was riding almost at 20 kmph. While the drivers with the Schumacher trait can be scary, I didn’t appreciate such cautious driving. And plus there was a flyover coming up and the driver didn’t show any indication of taking it. I told him, “Boss, woh flyover lena hai. Itna left mein mat rakho gaadi ko.” And he changed to the lane on the right, immediately, and sharply. I rocked to my left. And then I gave him a piece of my mind.
The driver didn’t get aggressive or defensive in return. In fact he was shit scared himself. He meekly said that it was the first time he was driving on the highway. Shit! I couldn’t shout at him anymore. I didn’t want my life to be in the hands of a nervous-wreck auto driver. I told him to go slow. And soon we got stuck in traffic which made the rest of my journey safe. When I got down, I gave him some tips about how to go about learning to drive. Not that I have driven an auto, but be it a bike or an auto, the fundamentals of learning remain the same.
And then I thanked God silently that there wasn’t any truck making a dash past us when he had sharply changed lanes…
So on this particular day, I took an auto from Bandstand to Vile Parle. The autowallah, surprisingly, didn’t know the route and told me to in a very pleading tone, “Sahab, raastaa nahin pata hai.” I asked him if he knew the road to the highway and he replied in the negative. I berated him for being so ignorant! What autowallah doesn’t know the road to the highway! I took the auto nonetheless and kept giving him directions.
It was on the highway that I noticed that something was amiss. The driver kept the auto on the extreme left and was riding almost at 20 kmph. While the drivers with the Schumacher trait can be scary, I didn’t appreciate such cautious driving. And plus there was a flyover coming up and the driver didn’t show any indication of taking it. I told him, “Boss, woh flyover lena hai. Itna left mein mat rakho gaadi ko.” And he changed to the lane on the right, immediately, and sharply. I rocked to my left. And then I gave him a piece of my mind.
The driver didn’t get aggressive or defensive in return. In fact he was shit scared himself. He meekly said that it was the first time he was driving on the highway. Shit! I couldn’t shout at him anymore. I didn’t want my life to be in the hands of a nervous-wreck auto driver. I told him to go slow. And soon we got stuck in traffic which made the rest of my journey safe. When I got down, I gave him some tips about how to go about learning to drive. Not that I have driven an auto, but be it a bike or an auto, the fundamentals of learning remain the same.
And then I thanked God silently that there wasn’t any truck making a dash past us when he had sharply changed lanes…
posted by Himanshu at 11:29 PM
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