He picked me up from Vasant Vihar, where my daughter's play-school is. I asked him why were the auto-rickshaw drivers reluctant to go towards Connaught Place. "There are too many traffic lights and too much traffic jam. The kind of money I will make with a passenger going there can be made in half the time if I restricted myself to South Delhi".
In a way, he is right. It is difficult to get autos to go short distances and they can charge whatever amount they deem fit for their efforts.The fare for longer distances is more predictable. You could be within 10 or 20 Indian rupees of what it costs on that rare occasion that someone actually uses the auto-rickshaw meter.
On the way to Connaught Place, he kept complaining about the traffic on Delhi roads. About 10 or so years ago, we used to only stop at big traffic intersections. We didn't care about the small traffic lights. Now the traffic wouldn't let you move even if the light is greeen.
Somehow the conversation moved to Kiran Bedi. She was the first woman officer of the Indian Police Service. In the early 80s, she used to be Delhi's Traffic Commissioner. And a tough one at that. Her claim to fame was towing away of then prime minister Indira Gandhi's staff car in 1983. In her own words, “My sub-inspector Nirmal Singh had challenged a wrongly parked Ambassador car in Connaught Place. The driver came and warned the sub-inspector that this car belonged to the prime minister’s office. Without bothering about the threat, my sub-inspector told the driver that he will have to pay the fine come what may. There was a bit of a riot there, but nothing serious happened."
Such instances of following the rules are so rare in this city, that people still recall it. "She was a very good cop," the auto-driver said. "Once I was coming from north Delhi and her team stopped my auto. She asked for my papers and my driving license. They were in order. So, she asked me if I had something to drink. I was carrying some foreigners and had a small beer with them. So, she asked her colleagues to breathalyse me. It didn't show much, but she asked me to hold my ears and do 10 squats".
"After that, I was stopped by her at different places, three or four times. She would always say 'His papers are in order, just breathalyse him'. But I never drank after the first time and there was never any trouble. She was a good cop - an honest one. She even gave me a salute once after the breathalyser test came negative.
He said his reason for not drinking was it would interfere with the upbringing of his children. In any case, those who would drink and keep multiple partners had to be rich.
You know how much it costs to keep a wife? I was intrigued. It costs five thousand rupees, which means you need to be earning about ten thousand rupees. So, if I had two wives, it will need me to earn twenty thousand rupees. Who can earn that kind of money driving autos?
I get my high earning the daily bread. Occasionally, when I am happy or in the mood - I smoke a cigarette or chew a pan. But drinking, never.
Like those Confessions of a Blackcab Driver or Confessions of a Yellowcab Driver that you see on TV in the west, he had his own Confessions of an Autorickshaw Driver. "You know once this teenager was sitting in my auto and telling her mother that her 'boyfriend was very nice'. I turned around and asked her if she knew what a boyfriend was. It was all friend and no touch".
But these days, there is no boyfriend. There is aashiq (lover). You must be stepping out and seeing how young children behave these days. They will say I need to take this subject again rather than I have failed an examination. I see all kinds of things in my auto.
As usual with such interesting conversations, we had run out of time. The driver did know all the short-cuts that help one bypass all the traffic jams and had got me to work reasonably quickly.
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