Posted in outside of Delhi
Tagged alleppey, backpacking, backwaters, beach, boat, dolls, Fort Kochi, girls, houseboat, houseboat pictures, india, kerala, kites, kochi, lunch, Madurai, ocean, pictures from kerala, pictures from tamil nadu, relaxation, South, south india
I’ve been doing some writing for a brand new blog/magazine/community called The India Tube. My first essay is now online. More to come!
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The Loneliest Wallah (I): The Auto Driver
by Dave Prager
Originally published on The India Tube
All the autorickshaws in Delhi appear to have their genesis in the same factory, for all are exactly identical. Before their labor-intensive customization. Variation comes in accouterments added by aesthetically-minded drivers: Shah Rukh and Kareena looking equally sultry in heart-shaped stickers on either side of the rear-view mirror, or life-sized cutouts of scandalously-clad heroines tucked behind the clear vinyl that protects the auto’s side panels and passenger seat from the sweat of a thousand sitters.
More than once I’ve been scared silly by the sudden appearance of a face when I turn my head to see what street I’m on: a starlet I didn’t notice is suddenly pursing her lips at me, a poster positioned there not to promote a movie but to keep a driver company while he spends the night,as auto drivers often do, on the side of the road, bare feet dangling outside, head resting comfortably on a fantasy’s two-dimensional lap.
Imagine if his loneliness was yours: you negotiate fares all day long, but you talk to no one at all. You try to meet a passenger’s eyes in your mirror, but all you see is a set-jaw profile looking anywhere but at you, or a steely glare warning you not look any more.
Confronted with the solitude of the service professional, you too would take refuge in Salman’s biceps or Priyanka’s neckline. Each of them would tell you what you want to hear, if only paper could talk; neither of them will ever ask you to put your eyes back on the road.
Posted in thinking about delhi
Tagged auto, auto driver, autorickshaw walla, Delhi, india, kareena, priyanka, salman, shah rukh, srk, the india tube, walla
Posted in outside of Delhi
Tagged backpacking, beach, bus, bus driver, dave, fish, fishermen, india, kerala, Kovalam, nature, Park, Periyar, pictures from kerala, pictures from south india, pictures from tamil nadu, South, tamil nadu, vacation
Nighttime at the CNG pumps: a sight we saw all too often because the route to our flat went right by the gas station. So close that we could practically feel our pillows on our weary heads, but too far for walking to make any sense (never mind the traffic and lack of sidewalks on Aurbindo Marg), all we could do is get out and watch. We can’t stay seated and doze — the fuel intake is hidden in a panel under our seat.
So we stand, and wait, and try not to fall asleep, and get stared at while we take pictures to pass the time.
The best advice we can give to anyone attempting to travel Delhi by autorickshaw is this: ignore the Lonely Planet. While the book usually offers good information, in this instance it fails utterly in its exhortation to only travel in autos that agree to use the meter. The official meter rate, fixed by the State Transport Authority at 4.5 rupees for every kilometer after the first, is less than half of what you can reasonably expect to pay.
Any auto driver who agrees to go by the meter is probably planning to take you from GK I to GK II via the Taj Mahal.
Because the meter is out of the question, every autorickshaw journey begins with fare negotiations. That’s easy to overcome if you know where you are, where you’re going, and the market equilibrium rate for getting there; but for our first few rides in Delhi, the fairness of our fare was entirely up to the honor of our driver, and how adept we were at fooling him into thinking we knew what we were doing.
We know now that no auto ride should ever cost more than 100 rupees, provided you’re sticking to South or Central Delhi. (Nobody knows how much it costs to go to North Delhi because, as far as I know, nobody has ever gone there.) I was not armed with that knowledge on my second day in Delhi, before Jenny had arrived, when I put my fledgling bargaining skills to the test and negotiated a ride from Connaught Place to GK II for 180 rupees, basking in pride during the entire ride in having talked the guy down from the 200 he quoted.
Any auto driver who finds a tourist that ignorant of the market values is going to try to push him for all he’s worth. When we reached my destination, I handed the driver two bills and asked for change. The driver turned around in his seat and started begging me to let him keep the whole 200. And I mean begging—pleading, moaning, eyes rolling and tearing, hands clasped in front of him as he invoked his gods and his children and his poverty and my wealth, all for that extra 20 rupees.
But I set my jaw and stood firm and got my change; and I felt proud that I hadn’t let the guy swindle me out of my hard-earned money. My first major test of my will in India, and I totally won.
Posted in living in Delhi
Tagged autorickshaw, autos, avoiding theft delhi, cheat, Delhi, don't get swindled delhi, how to hail an autorickshaw india, india, negotiate, rickshaw, rupee, swindle, travel
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