THREE WHEELS, A BRIDE AND A PROSTHETIC LEG

Autowalas (auto-drivers) have always fascinated me. I’ve rarely sat quietly behind an auto, always preferring to converse with them. Yes, there have been some occasions where I’ve selected to keep mum, owning to the drunken state of the driver, if he is in a bad mood or if he is on a call. On one such ride, a few minutes into the travel, I found the auto-driver missing a leg. And to my horror, I found that the prosthetic leg was tucked away behind me, in the storage area.

Horrified and bemused, I asked him about it, and he narrated one of the most romantic stories I’ve ever heard:

The guy was a truck driver, and his family was looking for an alliance. A girl and her family agreed though he did not have much to offer; it was in the final stages of approval. An accident took away a leg of the guy, and he called off the wedding and he asked his family to cut contact with hers. Still fighting the realities of walking around on one leg, adapting to a new way of life and being a social outcast, he got a call, six months down the line, saying that the girl is still interested in marrying him.

Flabbergasted, when he asked her why she would be spending her life with him, her reply was simply that she believed he was a good man.

With that belief, in the late 90s and early 2000s, he started to build his life in Bangalore, financed construction projects and soon rose to be a multi-millionaire, all on one leg, and a bride. He was one of the original land developers during Bangalore's rapid urbanisation. He soon branched into money lending.

At this point, I wondered if I was being taken for a ride while being on one. Why would a kingpin of construction of sorts, be riding an auto, waiting for traffic, and still, be stoic about the whole situation? Either way, I was eager to skip to the last part: how did he come to ride an auto?

Turns out, the people he trusted did not return the money, and instead of going underground, he sold his assets to pay his customers and to sustain his livelihood, was left to run an auto, and his wife duly followed him.

While he was narrating this tale, I saw around me that the notorious Bangalore traffic suddenly seemed a necessity. I was glad that we were crawling towards our destination. There was no hurry why this story should come to an end. He took to his situation, accepted it and dealt with it, and his wife duly followed him.

And this is the beginning of so many other stories too. Why do they choose this profession? The heat and dust come in during summer, and the rains submerge their vehicles, the traffic cop extracts his pie, and the local parking mafia extracts a fee; not to mention the cost to maintain an auto, per year, which comes to around 20,000 INR. If you meet with an accident while riding in an auto, you do get some hospital charges, paid for by the auto driver. And those living in Bangalore might understand why autos hate the living guts of Rapido, the bike taxi service, which operates without any of the added costs, and for half the price of an auto ride.

In my childhood, I remember the rickshaws being cycled and my sister being carted off to school. These were similar to the ones seen in the movie “City of Joy”. Men would sit, chew tobacco, smoke beedi, and when a passenger would show up, cycle with all their might, their sinews visible, grunting while their sweat would drip, quickly wiping it off with a towel.

Auto drivers also serve as living historians, watching a city transform through its roads, buildings, and traffic. And so if you happen to chance to take your eyes away from the phone and meet the eyes of the driver through the mirror, make that extra effort to engage them in a conversation: about the city, the weather, the traffic, politics, ride-sharing apps, their towns, and the stories of their migration.

You might as well come across an interesting love story, or fall all in love again, with a humble auto ride. And if you do notice that the guy is missing a leg, well, he will be happy to narrate it all over again.