Auto Epiphany - 2

Haggling with auto drivers is not something I look forward to most mornings, and today was no exception. After multiple no-gos – one guy’s auto didn’t start after we’d finally agreed on a price, another didn’t know the way and so couldn’t agree on a price – I finally found one who was willing to take me at a sum that I thought reasonable. He had an extraordinary smile that he unabashedly flashed every so often, and a cheerful demeanor. After getting in the auto, I asked him if he could turn on the meter (for personal research purposes); like his brothers around the city, he insisted that it wasn’t working. It somehow struck me a tad improbable that, by some supernatural coincidence, every single auto meter in the city refused to work.

“How is it that in other cities auto-meters work, yet in Delhi none of them ever do?” I asked him, almost rhetorically. He launched into a passionate argument – half of which was lost to the wind - about the injustice of the Delhi government’s meter rates. “Each of us has to pay around 150 rupees simply as rent every day to the people who own the autos. How can we recover that, and deal with inflated CNG prices, on the meter rates?” For auto-drivers whose daily earnings are, if they’re lucky, around 500 rupees a day, 150 rupees is, literally, highway robbery. “Doesn’t it make most sense for auto-drivers to buy their own autos?” I asked, a bit naively. “Of course it is, madame, but who has the money for it? This auto is itself around 1.5 lakhs,” he informed me. “I guess very few auto-drivers own their own autos,” I replied slightly ruefully, thinking of the avaricious money-lenders sitting on their a**s earning millions taking advantage of the dearth of financing options for auto drivers. “Well, out of 100, you’d find maybe 10 who’ve bought their own. So 90% have to pay this rent everyday,” he said.

We drove on a bit, and curious to learn more about this cheerful savant, I began asking him about himself. His accent indicated that he wasn’t from the area; guessing that was from Bengal, I asked him about it.

“I am actually from Hyderabad, madame.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“I’ve been in these parts since I was 7 years old, so now this feels like home.”

“What brought you to these parts?”

He turned around briefly, looked me in the eye, flashed his beautiful smile, and said sincerely, “There’s nobody in this city that I can call my own. I have nobody here.” After a pause, he said, “You know, if you heard my story, madame, you would not believe it.”

He continued his story.

“I was 7 years old, and I was playing in a park near my parents home in Hyderabad. A Sardarji who was at the park picked me up and took me on a train to his home in Punjab, where he raised me as his son.”

Aghast, I asked if his parents ever found out what happened to him. “My parents still probably don’t know what happened to me. You see, I was too young to remember our address or phone number or anything. ”

Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to harbor any ill-will against the Sardar. Instead, he explained the Sardar’s position. “You see, he didn’t have a son, so he raised me as his own. However, when I was in my teens, one of his friends got into a fight with him and dropped me in Chandni Chowk all by myself, with no money. Then I was truly alone.

Did he ever try to get back in touch with the Sardar? “I did, a few years ago. I found out that he was dead. He used to do a lot of drugs, like opium and weed.

“Since then, I’ve worked in chai-stalls, in dhabas, trying to scrape together a living here. Finally, I was able to get this auto and earned enough money to stay someplace and take care of myself. I can finally stand on my own two feet.”

At this juncture, we had reached my destination. I stepped out, still absorbed in the story. He stepped out as well, smiled proudly, and said, “You know, madame, I didn’t tell you this before, but this is my own auto!”

As if in addendum to our conversation about meter-prices, he added with a grin, “I still have to give 150 rupees every day, but that’s to the bank that helped me finance this.”

I looked at him, moved by the vast reservoir of fortitude, good humor and determination that he maintained, despite devastating odds. I blustered a few words of congratulatory nature for his success, but for the most part, I was speechless.

Handing him a 100 rupee note, I said, “Good luck, bhaiya.”

I caught his eye for a brief second, and turned to walk toward my office. As my throat tightened involuntarily, I thought of the unspoken exchange that had just taken place. The tears that glistened in my eyes, I realized, had mirrored his own.