Auto-Epiphanies

I go running in the mornings. Usually really early to avoid being baked. So at 5:30 one morning, I’m wandering the silent streets looking for an auto to take me to the track. I spot one man, industriously washing his auto and preparing for the day. He agrees to take me, and asks me to sit down. I sit inside, and hungry mosquitos immediately begin to feast. While I wait impatiently, he continues with his morning ritual: lighting the diya in front of the small picture of Lord Shiva, burning two incense sticks and waving them around the dark interiors; closing his eyes and silently muttering the strains of a chant that hark back to my school days. We leave, and finally arrive at the destination. The money is in my left pocket. I take it out and give it to him. His disbelieving gaze turns from my outstretched left hand, to my face: “give it with your right hand” he says in Tamil. Still a little sleepy, I say, “inne”? (what?) In crisp, accented English, he says, “you please give it with right hand only.”

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Familiar getting-out-of-auto story: we arrive at our destination, and I only have a hundred or fifty rupee note on me. I’m about to ask if the auto driver has change, but I realize they never do. Invariably, the response I get in Tamil is, “Madame, you are only the first customer.” Annoyed, I always think about asking them why they don’t keep a little bit of the previous day’s earnings so that they can use it as change. What do they do with it all, I wonder, collect it under their pillows?

And it recently struck me: there probably is no secret stash box. Though being an auto-driver is prestigious for folks on the lower rung of the social strata, they probably don’t have any savings. Each day’s earnings is probably used that very same day. I think about the maxim 'One day at a Time', which I use to calm my spreadsheeted-plan-for-a-century mentality whenever I get caught up in the whirlwind of the future. Strange, I’ve never recognized how much a luxury the Future can be.

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Sunday morning, I set out for a French film playing at Sathyam. An auto driver who hangs around my building beckoned, so on we went. Soon, after finding out that I was going to the cinema, we got into a discussion about films, and his passion for Tamil cinema became increasingly obvious. However, my every sentence was punctuated by a hysterical "roombo speed vanda!" (no need for too much speed) to which he'd say "why you're getting scared, madame?" and we'd continue the discussion at the same breakneck speed. Finally at the cinema, I waded through coconut sellers and the smell of testosterone+piss to get to the hall, and soon found myself alone in the cold streets of Paris. A story of newfound love between two inmates of a memory rehab center. While I thought I would be able to count the number of people in the hall on both my hands, it astonished me that the hall was nearly full. And it definitely wasn't a “francophile” type of crowd, if you know what I mean. As my gaze swept the hall before the film began, I thought it strange that I was only one of two women there. However, soon after the steamy, rain-drenched sex-scenes unfolded (and I started to squirm in my seat), the epiphany of the century struck me. What is the common denominator among French films, good or bad, strange or eclectic? Skin. Lots of it.