'Seven wonders & one, of an auto ride in Chennai'
Well, all of us would have heard a lot of things being said about Chennai. All sorts of people have said it too. From historical figures to politicians and movie stars (means one & the same in this part of the world), everyone has had something or other to say about 'singara' Chennai. Yet, when I ponder I begin to wonder...
I'm not someone who you would put your money on if you want your portrait to be done, but I wouldn't mind trying out my hand. But if you ask me to sketch a city for you, Chennai probably won't be the first one on the list. It’s not because I don't know it, I've come to know of it quite well. It’s challenging because I'm finding it difficult to describe it. I rely a lot on intuition & get a 'feel' of things around me. This 'feel' has many a time come to my rescue in 'life or death' situations. But when I ask myself what I 'feel' about this city, I'm finding it difficult to express it.
All the small little things that happen around you are what make a city what it is. Some would like to call it culture. Well, going by that definition, the culture of many cities that I've been to & you'd be familiar with are easy to spell out. Whether it be the bustling Mumbai or the foggy Delhi or the humid Kolkata, things come straight to your mind when you think about it. That's not to say that I've not witnessed the Chennai summer, I have and appreciate the effect it can have on you. Asked for a word to describe it, I'd say resilient Mumbai, aggressive Delhi & melancholic Kolkata...what about Chennai?
My own conspiracy theory is that the culture of Chennai is defined by the autos that ply on its busy roads. And I have my own half a rupee of thoughts on that. Nothing defines things better than the local trains of Mumbai or the blue line buses of Delhi or the yellow cabs of Kolkata or the auto rickshaws of Chennai!! For starts, getting into an auto in Chennai is quite a spiritual experience in itself. If you don't brace yourself, you'll be taken for a ride, literally.
Whoever wrote that 'All men are equal & some are more equal than others' must have had these auto drivers in mind. It seems there are 50,000 registered autos running in Chennai city. I'd rather say they are 50,000 different ways of God getting even with you & giving you a chance to wash off your sins in this planet itself.
1) In Chennai, the phrase 'for hire' is an oxymoron when it comes to autos. You can have a ride as long as the driver's destination happens to coincide with yours.
2) Meters are things that exist only in English poetry. And even if they exist, it’s like one of those gadgets that you pay to watch in a museum.
3) Rates for your ride generally depend very little on your destination, and more on the Fibonacci sequence. When an auto driver tells you a rate, his mind works on a simple equation - choose any random number between 60 & 200, multiply the gullibility quotient of the person in front, raised to the power of the educational cess, multiplied again by the temperature in Celsius. During night time, the additional factor of the number of Sri Lankan refugees is taken into account.
4) The auto drivers have their ancestry from Rome, or so you'd think as anything other than straight roads are frowned upon. Needless to mention, that your rate will be recalculated with the 'turns & side streets' coefficient.
5) The corporation of Chennai should table a bill calling for seatbelts in autos. You certainly can go places in an auto & inside it too. If you ask me, there are two sets of people who could benefit from this. One set are the entrepreneurs who are thinking of a weight reduction program, what could be more ideal than getting your bones loosened & muscles tightened or having your 20 minutes a day of high pulse rate. The other set are religious leaders, since I feel that more people really 'pray' in the back of an auto than in any church or temple.
6) Popular music channels should plan to have their next VJ hunt exclusively among auto drivers of Chennai. Who else can entertain their passengers with 'their' choice of music along with the enacting of the dance sequence?
7) The match making websites should take a leaf out of the 'share autos' of Chennai. The tagline should be 'connecting people' or 'a lot can happen over an auto ride' & these share autos are creating a revolution by bringing about what Thomas Friedman calls globalization v.4
8) The mushrooming training centers in Chennai should think of a new course in 'negotiation skills' or 'conflict management' & use the auto rides for experiential learning. Now this is something that even the top B Schools haven’t thought of, so if anyone uses this idea do remember where the royalty check should be posted.
Well, I'm not stopping with eight because I've run out of steam, but more because I like to call this 'the seven wonders & one of an auto ride in Chennai'!! So now having given enough credence to prove my conspiracy theory on the culture of Chennai, let me take a bow for the time being – “I need to take my auto ride home”.
I'm not someone who you would put your money on if you want your portrait to be done, but I wouldn't mind trying out my hand. But if you ask me to sketch a city for you, Chennai probably won't be the first one on the list. It’s not because I don't know it, I've come to know of it quite well. It’s challenging because I'm finding it difficult to describe it. I rely a lot on intuition & get a 'feel' of things around me. This 'feel' has many a time come to my rescue in 'life or death' situations. But when I ask myself what I 'feel' about this city, I'm finding it difficult to express it.
All the small little things that happen around you are what make a city what it is. Some would like to call it culture. Well, going by that definition, the culture of many cities that I've been to & you'd be familiar with are easy to spell out. Whether it be the bustling Mumbai or the foggy Delhi or the humid Kolkata, things come straight to your mind when you think about it. That's not to say that I've not witnessed the Chennai summer, I have and appreciate the effect it can have on you. Asked for a word to describe it, I'd say resilient Mumbai, aggressive Delhi & melancholic Kolkata...what about Chennai?
My own conspiracy theory is that the culture of Chennai is defined by the autos that ply on its busy roads. And I have my own half a rupee of thoughts on that. Nothing defines things better than the local trains of Mumbai or the blue line buses of Delhi or the yellow cabs of Kolkata or the auto rickshaws of Chennai!! For starts, getting into an auto in Chennai is quite a spiritual experience in itself. If you don't brace yourself, you'll be taken for a ride, literally.
Whoever wrote that 'All men are equal & some are more equal than others' must have had these auto drivers in mind. It seems there are 50,000 registered autos running in Chennai city. I'd rather say they are 50,000 different ways of God getting even with you & giving you a chance to wash off your sins in this planet itself.
1) In Chennai, the phrase 'for hire' is an oxymoron when it comes to autos. You can have a ride as long as the driver's destination happens to coincide with yours.
2) Meters are things that exist only in English poetry. And even if they exist, it’s like one of those gadgets that you pay to watch in a museum.
3) Rates for your ride generally depend very little on your destination, and more on the Fibonacci sequence. When an auto driver tells you a rate, his mind works on a simple equation - choose any random number between 60 & 200, multiply the gullibility quotient of the person in front, raised to the power of the educational cess, multiplied again by the temperature in Celsius. During night time, the additional factor of the number of Sri Lankan refugees is taken into account.
4) The auto drivers have their ancestry from Rome, or so you'd think as anything other than straight roads are frowned upon. Needless to mention, that your rate will be recalculated with the 'turns & side streets' coefficient.
5) The corporation of Chennai should table a bill calling for seatbelts in autos. You certainly can go places in an auto & inside it too. If you ask me, there are two sets of people who could benefit from this. One set are the entrepreneurs who are thinking of a weight reduction program, what could be more ideal than getting your bones loosened & muscles tightened or having your 20 minutes a day of high pulse rate. The other set are religious leaders, since I feel that more people really 'pray' in the back of an auto than in any church or temple.
6) Popular music channels should plan to have their next VJ hunt exclusively among auto drivers of Chennai. Who else can entertain their passengers with 'their' choice of music along with the enacting of the dance sequence?
7) The match making websites should take a leaf out of the 'share autos' of Chennai. The tagline should be 'connecting people' or 'a lot can happen over an auto ride' & these share autos are creating a revolution by bringing about what Thomas Friedman calls globalization v.4
8) The mushrooming training centers in Chennai should think of a new course in 'negotiation skills' or 'conflict management' & use the auto rides for experiential learning. Now this is something that even the top B Schools haven’t thought of, so if anyone uses this idea do remember where the royalty check should be posted.
Well, I'm not stopping with eight because I've run out of steam, but more because I like to call this 'the seven wonders & one of an auto ride in Chennai'!! So now having given enough credence to prove my conspiracy theory on the culture of Chennai, let me take a bow for the time being – “I need to take my auto ride home”.
posted by Musafir at 12:18 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home