Beware.

Its no wonder that Bangalore's auto drivers are often heaped with epithets... arrogant, crooks, indifferent, heartless, rude... its an endless list. Up until now I had not had a really bad experience in dealing with them. In fact, when my parents were in town, they felt that these guys are a lot better than their kin in Pune. At least they readily took us wherever we wanted. 

But, isn't that how life bowls the perfect googly at us? A critical bug will show up only at the time of a client demo, it will never rain when you are prepared with an umbrella, a stream of buses will be available to a place you do not wish to go...blame it all on Mr. Murphy. 

I was determined to prove that the auto drivers here are worse than the ones in Pune, but alas!! My bad luck was really bad maybe.

That incident had actually managed to restore my faith on this community. OK.. maybe not completely, but atleast I did not A-L-W-A-Y-S look at them suspiciously. But, what happened a few days* back, actually brought me back to reality.

This is what happened-

Place: Thippasandra market.

Time : 8.30 am

Along comes an auto. 

Me : "Bhaiyya, Big Bazaar chaloge? Old Madras road par."

Autodriver: "50 rupees lagega sa'ab"

Me : "40"

Autodriver : "Chalo"

Place : Big Bazaar

I take out a Rs. 100 note and hand it over. The fellow gives back Rs 50 and starts fumbling around. I demand the remaining 10 bucks. He arrogantly replies back, "Paanch rupiya change nahi hain". Now thats surprising... There should not be any mention of Rs 5 here. The numbers just dont match up. 

Total fare - 40.

Amount paid - 100

To be returned - 60

Already returned - 50

Balance - 10

From where did this "paanch rupiya change" turn up from???

And thats exactly what I asked him. His reply, "45 hi bola tha sa'ab". I remind him about the exact conversation as described above. He had never quoted any sum other than 50. After trying to reason with him for a few mins, I finally agreed to pay 45. But, he still was not ready to give the remaining 5 bucks. Went on about the absence of any loose change with him. I finally got back Rs 10 from him, albeit after paying 5.

And this is not the only time such an incident happened. I once had to pay Rs 35 to an autowallah after deciding on a fare of Rs 25 from CMH road to my residence. He had the same arrogant attitude and firmly went on saying that it was always Rs 35.

Now, I fail to understand, how do I deal with such daylight robbery. I usually prefer to travel by buses, but have to take an auto once in a while. No use calling up the cops, we all know how efficient they are in dealing with such cases. I had always believed that pre-deciding the fare is better. At least, we wont be taken for a ride all over town, and then told to pay up exorbitant sums. But, incidents like these make me wonder. Isn't there nothing like a really fair deal? Could this be a very small contributing factor to Bangalore's traffic woes? I am sure people would prefer to use their own vehicle, if they had to encounter such crooks everyday. Alas, all we can hope for, for now, is that some sense of goodwill enters into these autodrivers and we can all have more pleasant experiences.

* - This was originally 'two days', but had to be changed to 'few days' considering the rate at which I was putting down words in this post.

PS - Dont start wondering about why I went to Big Bazaar so early in the morning. My intended destination was the Synopsys office nearby. But, asking for "RMZ Infinity" rather than "Big Bazaar would have made the fare higher. It would have made me out to be an IT-wallah, and supposedly we have loads of money to spare.