Raaskals!

They are sick, but u cannot do without them…
NO, am not talking about MEN… same species, but a different breed, they are… the Auto-Rickshaw Drivers of B’lore (ARDB).

As usual, the more I run away from things, the more they cling to me, so inevitably I have to rely on ARDBs….when sense of time evades me and I get late for work..and its always a test of my sanity.
Here is what most of the conversations go like:

Me: Dairy Circle??

First ARDB: (looks the other way... )
like shaking his head instead will kill him…..fucker!

Second ARDB: ditto

After 4 more ARDBs and walking for 10 minutes,

Me : (exhausted ..and to the 5th ARDB) Dairy Circle??

5th ARDB: (Something in kannada…)

Me (Irritated..): Dairy Circle…(then slowly), D-a-i-r-y C-i-r-c-le?

5th ARDB: Aaaaaaaaa..Daairee SarcaalAaaaaa???
(did i speak Italian?)

Me: (Nods frantically)

ARDB: Aaaity rupiss

Me: (not in a mood to haggle, but still tries) Kyun? Meter* nahin hai?

[*]Meter shows 37 bucks if u travel to ‘Daairee Sarcaal’ from my place! Chuts!

ARDB: (Something in kannada..)

Me: (Points to the meter) Meter..meeter!

ARDB: (Something in kannada, shaking his head)

Me: (holding four fingers up) Forty

ARDB: (Rapid kannada….shaking head frantically)

Me: (losing hope….and energy) Sixty??

ARDB: (Points to the auto to get in)

Me: (relieved but cursing inwardly at my poor haggling skills. Shud have paid more attn when I went shopping with mom!)

The misery doesn’t end here…I am more often than not treated like ‘invisible’ in the auto, a lot of drivers have:

• Stopped on the way to buy ‘tambakhu’ (and had a bidi while they were at it..!)
• Given a lift to more than one of their frnds (and hence have been made to sit next to me, and as anyone wud know, the frnds are no Brad Pitts!!)
• Asked another passenger to sit beside me for ‘wonly 2 minitts madam’, which of course was NOT for ‘2 minitts’!
• Picked up 2 huge gas cylinders to deliver ‘on the way’, ‘adjusted’ in such that my feet were almost mid air! (‘adjust maadi madam!’)

I detest them from the bottom of my heart. And to imagine in Delhi, shouting a ‘meter se nahin jaaogey’ while pretending to dial the customer-helpline number evoked atleast slight fear …
…I once even shared a light for my cigarette from the auto-wallah!...
[*sigh* saddaa dilli :(!]

In another news, at the NEW workplace I was so grossed out with the 'seating arrangement', I felt like I was sitting in a cheap internet café. (No wonder they boast of having 16,000 employees, if this is how they make ‘em sit in each dept. they can have 50,000! Bastards!)
However, by a totally unexpected change of fate, today, a peer offered me to take a individual wrkstn! I am so staggered that the whole feeling of having THE best workstation, that its still sinking in.

On the downside, my old neighbor has passed me the ‘you-lucky-bitch’ sneer more than once!