The Shared Auto

Wondering what the title is all about? I mean, shared autos aren't all that uncommon, right? Well, make a trip to Gurgaon, and you'll find out why I'm writing about them. Better still, be forced to live (and work) here for two months. Then you'll really find out! Imagine the following scene: You live about 4 km from your work-place, with a ten-lane expressway in between. How long do you think you'll take to reach office? Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen? Well, if you're in this city, not less than 45 minutes, and that's on a good day. You see, the Einsteins who designed this little gem of suburbia forgot one tiny detail - the public transport. In Gurgaon, the word "public" and "transport" don't really mix. It's like Real Madrid and Barcelona fans. There isn't even a snowball's chance in hell of any sort of combination of the two. You've just got to deal with the fact - get a car, or else sit in three separate overcrowded, dusty and painfully slow autos to get to your workplace. It's that simple: Car or the Indian version of chaos-on-wheels. I'll try my best to upload pics of these vehicles, but like the Mumbai Locals and Bangalore traffic jams, you have to experience them to believe in them. Let me try my hand at a description - take a medium sized auto-rickshaw (about 50% larger than the Autos from Bangalore) and stuff FIFTEEN people into it. Bags, Sacks, Barrels, Small children... Everything fits, and how! Add loud dik-chik dik-chik music, painfully under-powered engines (obviously, the manufacturers wouldn't have had a passenger load of 15++ to contend with) and bingo, you have a typical "shared auto". A driver screaming random names and making interesting gestures at passers-by completes package. Wait a minute, I forgot to mention the best part. The "Shared" part of a shared auto comes from the fact that there needs to be more than one person in the auto, and they only ply on fixed routes (presumably, the random names the chaps keep shouting). Unfortunately, "more than one person" equates to a minimum of six. Hence, a half-empty auto behaves like a drunk lecher, angling its way near each pedestrian, (esp. women, and I've noticed this time and time again) almost intimidating them to get into the auto. No amount of pleading, coaxing or even cursing can get the driver to move a little faster. There is a single over-powering emotion: "must pick up passenger, stuff him/her in". Time constraints? Whatever is that? Abe India hai, boss! I sincerely miss those express buses of Mangalore :)