The autowallah was sprawled across the seat of his vehicle, with his legs dangling from the other side, with an angelic smile on his face, his mouth agape, and a fresh trail of drool chasing his fresh growth of a goatee.
The autowallah was sprawled across the seat of his vehicle, with his legs dangling from the other side, with an angelic smile on his face, his mouth agape, and a fresh trail of drool chasing his fresh growth of a goatee. I stood there, mesmerised by this wondrous sight, feeling guilty about what I was about to do. Then I went and whispered in his ear, Chakala?
The reaction was instantaneous, and short-lived. His face went through a set of extreme emotions ufffd from shock, horror, disbelief, to bewilderment, hysteria, and panic. Wordlessly, he tilted his head in the fashion only an autowallah can do, and gunned his machine to life. So far, so good.
Pretty soon, all my worst fears had come true, and I was hanging on to dear life. Our man had a clear disregard for traffic rules, and he was an alumni of the RoadKill Rednecks Institute for the visually challenged. Between nearly missing a bus by 0.12 inches, and almost maiming an old lady who was brave enough to venture out on the road at that hour, my man confessed that he had secretly married his accelerator three years ago in a cloak-and-dagger ceremony, especially conducted for such kind of things.
Acting brave, I pushed my feet through the bars, till the autowallah could almost smell my feet, or lick between the toes. The autobhai didn't seem to take any notice or offence by this little maneuver of mine, and kept killing or maiming people, sometimes by just honking at them. All I could do was look dazed and pretend that I was abducted, or just being dead (a specialty). It worked because most of the people were dead anyway.
My man sat back, and lit a 502 pataka. After about eight attempts at making smoke rings, he gave up and settled for the boring, hazy patterns. We still hadn't spoken a word since I had whispered in his ear, and clearly he wanted none of it.
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Wow, we moved three meters! Autobhai didn't bother to gun the engine, and simply pushed it forward, the beedi in his mouth blinding him partially in the process. He came back coughing and cursing, back to his usual form. I got out to assess the situation. An ocean of vehicles greeted me. I came back in quickly.u00a0
Footnote: After about 2.5 hours of waiting at the same spot (with no walking space, mind you), I decided to walk, and did too. It cost me a lot of patience, Rs 200 and another 40 minutes, to reach where I am sitting now. It caused me two sore feet, a lot of mental agony, and permanent brain damage.
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