The Rickshaw Chronicles…

I have started taking a rickshaw on my way to work every morning… because of two reasons… one, that he gets to earn, the plight of rickshaw pullers is known to all… but if I stop bragging and for once stop giving a social work angle to every story, the other reason is that I have started going for long morning walks and that means post morning walk rituals have me limping and doing my chores at snail’s pace… so instead of walking all the way to my workplace, I cut myself some slack and hire a rickshaw… so as it happens, my rickshaw-walleh bhaiya is the same everyday… even though there is no said deal between us, two parties… yet there is an unspoken understanding… that I’ll meet him midway and he will ferry me to my destination. He is a cute man… shy, lost and hard done by…

He went to his native village for a few days and assigned his friend the duty of being nice to me… his friend is a little over-smart… but, if poverty doesn’t entitle you a little cleverness, I wonder what else does… But, I did wait for my Man to come back and re-claim his job… He did and How ! A few days back it so happened that it started raining heavily in the morning… I, in search of adventure, decided to not wait for it to stop, finally put my umbrella to good use and gingerly started my long walk to my office… it didn’t take me long enough to realize I had made a mistake… it was a heavy rain… the roads were flooding up… there were crazy people on the road… the bigger their car, the more right they believe they have to treat you like dirt… quite literally… I somehow made it to the junction where he stands… I looked around but couldn’t find him… I muttered a few funny fishy substitutes of the F word in my mouth (not at him, but at the situation) and kept walking… already wet waist down… Then I saw him waving at me from the far end of the road. A sigh of relief, only to realize that the only benefit of taking the rickshaw would be that I wouldn’t have to walk… if I thought I wouldn’t get wetter than I already was, I was in for a surprise… My angel brought on the hood of the rickshaw in his quest to save me from rain… and I, already guilt ridden that he’d get drenched and maybe fall sick in the process, was about to fold my umbrella that he came up with an idea… he said that he will drive with one hand and hold the umbrella with the other… I realized it was scary, but given, that I am an Indian and have acquired the art of Jugaad by default, I let him try it… the end result was nothing short of entertaining… the umbrella was dripping tons of water on me… the hood was leaking… and after all the daredevilry, he was safe wet and I was soaking wet. But, that was, any day and anyway, better than being left high and dry.

And his originality doesn’t end here… I tend to pay him for three or four days in advance as I forget to carry smaller notes/change… and pay him a bigger one… for me, it is a convenient way of not feeling guilty by flashing a big note in his humble face… for him, that money is akin to wet cotton – heavy, clingy, failing to insulate heat… he almost fights with me for doing that, and when he does, I feel like clicking his picture and getting it published it in a popular daily… with the sensational tagline – ‘See this man carefully… He is a rare breed… he smells of honesty.’