Autos of Andheri

Everday in the morning, my friend Nidhi and me set out like Ulesseys on an adventurous journey where we struggle to get a ride on the three wheeled ruler of the road, the autorickshaw. Do not take these dimunitive looking metallic inventions for granted.. they posses the awesome power of leaving grown up people stranded, raising the blood pressure of saints and if nothing else giving you a bad tan as you wait in the sun for one to take mercy on you and allow you to reach office on time. Autos are manned by mystical crreatures who are driving them to no clear destination. No part of Andheri is a suitable place to go to. There are other charioteers who will shake their head in disgust as if I have just named a particular red light area. Nahin...they say as one would say bah! there some wonderful specimens who have already decided where they want to go- why do we need buses when you have autos on fixed route. Some kind person should make little boards for these wise men so that it makes life easy for hapless travellers.

These days I am beginning to feel a little like a call girl..with my designated pick up points, namely the petrol pump near office where Nidhi and me position ourselves strategically so as to catch the auto driver at the right time and humbly plead, like my life depends on it.. well maybe it does.. to take us home. Then like Ulysses we undertake a long journey home weaving through a maze of vehicles, sampling wonderful fragrances and inhaling copious quantities of carbon monoxide along the way home.

Such is the situation that we have now become superstious about the whole process. We have begun to feel that we are star crossed auto hunters. So now we pretend that we are not together and look in seperate directions for the metallic messiah to save us damsels in distress and enable us to make it to office in time.

Just notice people sitting in autos in Andheri, they seem to smirk in triunphant delight.. They seem to be saying in the process of natural selection of passengers I have emerged stronger, I am a winer in the survival of the fittest...there are others who look at you sympathetically, like they understand your pain but are speeding away at too dangerous a speed for them to do anything else.

Then are those rare miraculous days when like a deus ex machina, which is latin for god is in the machines, an auto happens to pass by our gate and condescends to take us.. I love such days.. makes me feel like indulging in an icecream or something..

My favourite kind of people however are auto drivers who dont know the way to Marol Naka but instead of rejoicing in their ignorant bliss choose to be a part of our remarkable journey that particular day...

This day we got an auto and reached office in record time.. sigh.. what simple pleasures of life can be..

Before I am slaughtered and eaten for lunch by certain people breathing down my neck, I shall proceed and indulge my gastronomic juices.. hee hee.. till then..