Haphazard views : A snooping psyche dissected

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Bangalore : Bang- Galore :)

Here's yet another post on our good ol' Bangalore, that is, "nammu bengaluru" .
I wasn't here for the last 10 days. I was vacationing back home for this brief period. Yesterday I landed at the Bangalore airport exactly at 8:15 in the evening and after collecting my luggage I came out at around 8:30. The moment I came out with hundreds of other passengers coming from different cities, taxi-drivers started shouting "Taxi Taxi.....Where do you want to go, Sir?......Need a taxi, mam?.... Let me carry your bags, Sir, and please walk up to my taxi..." etc etc......
Usually, if booked over the phone beforehand, a taxi from the airport to my house in BTM Layout costs around 180 rupees. This time I hadn't made any bookings so I thought I would take one. The driver I waved at showed me a rate-chart which showed that the fare to BTM Layout is 450 Rupees.I laughed at him and said "Do this to people who are new in this place,dude...not to me. F*** off with your taxi. I don't need it." In reply to this he said "Toh aap paidal chale jaao sahab, yahan airport ke paas toh aap ko auto bhi nahi milega" (Then you better start walking, Sir, because here, near the airport, you won't even get an auto-rickshaw.)
I thought for one second....he might be right because in Bangalore if you can't get a taxi there is only one other means of transport you can avail - an auto-rickshaw and since I had never taken an auto-rickshaw on my way to BTM from the airport before I wasn't too sure whether or not I would get one. As a few more taxi-drivers came and supported what he said, I walked past the taxi-stand to the main road which is 10 minutes' walk from there.I could do so because, of course, I didn't have a lot of luggage with me. Then for the first time I could see a lot of auto-rickshaws in an auto-rickshaw stand a bit further down. I looked backe at the taxi-driver and muttered "Bunch of liars." He just smiled and went back looking for another potential goat for slaughtering.
The moment I reached the auto-stand some 50 auto-drivers came running to me and a couple of them started pulling my bag. I firmly held on to it and walked towards an auto. The driver, here also, took out a rate-list from his pocket and showed it to me. As per the list the fare to BTM was 170 rupees. I had never taken an auto from the airport to BTM before but had come from BTM to the airport many a times taking exactly the same route so I knew it costs anything between 45 and 50 rupees. I told the auto-driver "I don't want to go. You people have now started openly robbing people". He said "jaao sahab, yahan koi tumhe isse kam paise mein le ke nahi jayega. Yeh naya rule hai Bangalore ka. Airport ke bahar sab kuchh expensive hai. yakeen na aaye toh woh policewalon se poochh lo." (You may go if you want but nobody will take you for less money than this. this is the new rule in Bangalore. Everything is damn expensive near the airport. if you have doubts, you can ask the cops also.) It's not that I have a lot of trust on the bangalore police. I know that they are one of the most corrupt species on this earth. Still I walked up to two policemen standing nearby and asked whether what the auto-driver was telling me was right or not. The said it was and showed me some papers which supposedly contained this new set of rules but I couldn't understand anything as it was fully written in Kannada. I wasn't convinced at all and continued walking till I found one auto outside the stand. This driver agreed to take me to BTM for 1.5 times the meter-reading as it was already 9:00 at night. He was cheating me, I knew this....still I agreed as I was exhausted and it still was a lot more reasonable than what I had just seen. I know all the shortcuts to my place and I was guiding him accordingly but at one place where we should have taken the straight route he suddenly took a right-turn and when I asked why he said from last week the route I had suggested had been made a no-entry. I knew he was lying because even after taking a different route he would have to come back on the same road as from that junction there was only one single road leading to my place. Since I knew he had no other option but to take me back to that junction I kept quiet. then after travelling for around 5 extra kilometres (that is, 25 rupees) he took me back to the same place and got quite a mouthful from me. When I reached my place the meter-reading was 74 rupees. I gave him a 100-rupee note and waited. He said " 1.5 ke hisaab se 11 Rupaye aur do". (give me 11 rupees more as you are to pay me 1.5 times the meter-reading ).
I said "you made me travel 5 kms extra which cost me 25 rupees.The meter-reading is 74 rupees now. So actually it is 49 rupees. So you have already taken 1.5 times what I should actually pay you. Now give me my 26 rupees back."
He got furious and said "kisne kaha auto-wale ko direction dene ke liye? ek baar auto mein baitho to sab kuchh auto-walon par chhod do. thoda sa ghuma kya diya, tum paisa wapas maang rahe ho? agar hamesha shortcut routes lenge toh humara dhandha kaise chalega?" (who told you to give directions to an auto-driver? once you get into an auto, leave everything to the driver. Only little bit I made you travel extra and you are asking your money back for that? how will we survive if we always take shortcut routes ? ) But I wasn't to leave without my money so after a lot of hue and cry he called us, the IT-guys, a bunch of "north-Indian suar ke bachche" (North Indian piglets) and got one "Mohammad Ali"-ish blow from me on the face giving him a black-eye. Finally I let him go as he gave me back 20 rupees and showed that he didn't have any more change left.
Another fascinating evening in "Namma Bengaluru".

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6 Responses to “Bangalore : Bang- Galore :)

  1. # Blogger Sriram

    lol.
    Working outside ethics seems to be the only way of survival people in our country know. Can't believe he had the audacity to say, "thoda kya ghuma liya tum paisa wapas mang rahe ho." The blwo on his face was well deserved.
    Nice post.  

  2. # Blogger Archana Ramesh

    rite....nice post to read...but happened?  

  3. # Blogger Apocalyptus

    @Thinks Heyz :
    Thanks. I think think the concerned authorities should introduce a strict guidlines for these auto and taxi drivers and anybody deviating from that should be punished.

    @Archana :
    Yeah it did happen. And for us, 'naarth indians' this is nothing new. This things keep happening here. I put this in the blog because this time it had crossed all the limits. In my two-and-a-half years' stay here I've come across quite a few such incidents. So have my other friends. These lower middle class people in Bangalore have a general feeling that we 'outsiders' have stolen their jobs and that's why they are getting derieved of many things. This indeed is the general perception among the lower-middle-class here. Even the cops feel so.  

  4. # Blogger Apocalyptus

    Yeah it did happen. And for us, 'naarth indians' this is nothing new. This things keep happening here. I put this in the blog because this time it had crossed all the limits. In my two-and-a-half years' stay here I've come across quite a few such incidents. So have my other friends. These lower middle class people in Bangalore have a general feeling that we 'outsiders' have stolen their jobs and that's why they are getting deprieved of many things. This indeed is the general perception among the lower-middle-class here. Even the cops feel so.  

  5. # Blogger The Guy Next Door

    You really punched the b*****d ? Good Stuff,mate - About time,too. I agree with your North Indian bias in South India, and maybe its the same for South Indians in North India , for Biharis and North Eastern People all over the country and so on. When will people learn ?  

  6. # Blogger Apocalyptus

    @ Sharad :

    Yes, Sharad. I did punch him. And, this wasn't the only time that I punched an auto-wallah in Bangalore. Four times I had to do so because they were abusing us, the so-called outsiders and job-stealers and once for self-defence as the drunk auto-wallah had taken out an iron rod when I refused to pay him twice the meter reading. However, after my fist landed on his jaw, he lay unconscious for some time and I called my friend to bring cops to that place. The cops came and took him with them with his auto and the senior constable who had come asked for 100 rupees. I didn't pay him anything and came back home in another auto...as I didn't have a vehicle at that time.  

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