By the end of this summer, I will have spent over 100 hours sitting in an Autorickshaw. (Wow, that’s a lot of time. That’s like two and a half weeks of work. It’s probably also the pollution-equivalent of smoking ten packs of cigarettes and rolling my hair in the dirt for a solid hour. Gross.)
But after 10 weeks of sitting in an Auto, I am an Auto pro; if the Auto jerks around, I don’t move at all. I know exactly where to sit so I don’t get wet when it rains. My hair doesn’t blow all over the place, and my back doesn’t get too sore after sitting on that seat with the strangely reclined back. (Though after an entire summer of sitting in this Auto, I probably have permanent knots in my back, haha)
And lucky for me, my Auto driver, Kalanatha, is an absolute beast.
First of all, his Auto is green. It stands out and is a bright color, but it’s not like those obnoxious light blue or tan Autos you see every once in a while. What’s more, his green Auto doesn’t make that annoying “rat-a-tat-tat” sound every time he tries to move forward, and it doesn’t spew large clouds of black smoke every where it goes.
To top it all off, Kalanatha has practically pimped out his ride. A few weeks into the summer, he installed a pane of clear plastic on one side of the Auto – so it’s not entirely open anymore. And about a week ago, he bought a large piece of nylon-tarp-stuff that he velcro’s to the entrance of the Auto whenever it rains. His Auto also has its fair share of decals.
In the morning, I share the Auto with Seema, a lady who works near MG Road. Seema’s not actually from Bangalore; she doesn’t speak Kannada. This leads to some very interesting mornings; on more than one occasion, we’ve turned to each other with absolute confusion in our eyes because we have no idea what Kalanatha is laughing about.
But between her Hindi/English and my English/broken-Kannada and Kalanatha’s Kannada-with-a-crazy-accent-because-he-has-a-cleft-palette, I think we’ve managed to get by.
Even though Kalanatha has an accent, he is an absolute chatter-box.
I think I know his entire life story. (Plus the life stories of his ten siblings, two of whom live in the US. And just about everything that his two children have done this summer, from scribbling on the walls to not eating idlis in the morning.) At practically every light, someone leans into our Auto to ask him for directions. And he always has an answer. If there’s no one to give directions to – and he’s not telling me some story about his family – he leans over and strikes a conversation with a fellow Auto driver.
He’s incredibly friendly, and he’s such a hard worker. Come rain or shine, he’s always there, on the dot, to take me to work or pick me up.
Yesterday, Kalanatha was very clearly sick in the morning. I asked him if he’d be able to come pick me up in the afternoon; he said not to worry. Come 3:30, he was sitting there, even though he’d clearly deteriorated. But no worries! He just pulled over to a pharmacy on the way home, popped some pills, and kept driving.
Today, a cow was partially blocking the road as we went home. No worries! Kalanatha just reached out and slapped the cow until it moved out of the way.
We see cows, goats, donkeys, camels, bulls, and all sorts of people on the way home, but absolutely nothing fazes this man. He drives straight through potholes; there’s a stretch of road that is so bumpy and inclined, I feel like I’m sitting sideways. But he just pushes through. At stop lights, he always weaves through the cars and motorbikes to get to the front. He races with cars and motorbikes, and he’s cut off lorries and busses quite a few times.
So even though I’ve spent a rather significant chunk of this summer sitting in an Autorickshaw, it’s been incredibly fun. And I have Kalanatha to thank for that. Because of those 100 hours, he’s spent at least 75% of it pointing out sights around Bangalore or telling me about his family or discussing what he ate for lunch or laughing about how he almost took a wrong turn. (The other 25% is spent blowing his horn. I swear that man loves the sound of his horn. He pushes it every time he crosses an intersection, every time he slows down or speeds up, and every time someone cuts him off – which is when you’re really only supposed to use it, right? And sometimes when there’s absolutely no one around, just for the fun of it, I think, he blows it in different rhythms, like he’s making music.)
But T-minus 6 Auto rides until I come home!
-July 26th
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