Wait...I had written this long back when I was in B'lore and forgotten about it...and today I find this hiding among my drafts :)
Read on now...

Bangaloreans are familiar with this term; one and a half...altaaf!!!
Well this is not about that show on Radio City. This is just one of those funny encounters on a busy morning. Me and my friend, are as usual late for the office. It's a dull monday morning, but that hardly makes any difference for us. We have missed our bus and the next trips start late in the afternoon. We might not exactly move mountains back there in the office, but then turning in half a day late...er...a tad bit too much to digest. We decide to take an auto to out office. It so happens that we have to go all the way to electronics city and no 'normal' autowala would take us there for the 'normal' charge! The rest of the rendezvous....
Me(stopping the auto): Electronics city jaana hai
Autowala(thinks for a while): haa ji
my friend and myselg board the auto
My friend (whispers to me): I am surprised...he did not ask one and a half!
A.W(after 10 minutes in a busy signal): Madam, 20 Rupees extra de do!
m.f (whispers hastily to me): Did he hear me???!
Me (to the A.W): yeh ab bata rahe ho...tabhi batana tha na?
m.f: abhi bhi kuch nahi bigda (almost jumps out of the rick..one hasty soul!)
me: (to my friend)wait, we're late. (to the autowala) tikh hai. jayiye, dekhi jayegi
after this the auto moves on, we are engrossed in our own conversation. sometime later, my friend notices the fare on the auto meter and almost shrieks!
m.f: Yeh kya? itni jaldi 30 rupees, yaha tak aane ke to 20 lagte hain
a.w: madam itna hi lagta hai
me: hum roz jaate hain, hume pata hai (yeah yeah, we travel every day on this route, and like we can afford it, by a rick!...BTW, it was the first time!)
my friend is still mumbling something. I am tired and we start talking again. finally after about half an hour, we reach our office. i ask the autowala to stop outside our gate.
me: By god, it's 130!!!
m.f: See! it takes 70 normally. What did I tell you?
me: Aapka meter to tikh hai
a.w: Yeh all right. one and half do!
m.f: That's it, I've had enough! aapka auto already one and half hi dikha raha hai!!!!
a.w: madam paisa de do. mujhe hindi nahi maaloom!
me: !!!!!!!!!!!!...to abhi tak kaun si bhasha bol rahe the?
a.w: hindi nahi maaloom (hindi suddenly changes to broken format). paisa do
me: Acha. fine. Abhi mudo, Electronics city ke entrance pe traffic police khadi hai. They'll translate for you. Aur woh batayenge tujhe kitne paise dene hain.
m.f: haa, tab tak hum auto se nahi utarne wale (holds adamantly to the iron rod on the side as if she suspected he would drag her out!).
a.w: kya madam? tikh hai 130 de do
me: 70 se zyada ek kaudi nahi!
m.f: haa. tab tak yahi baitenge, hum dono ko aur koi kaam nahi hai. (how true!...but one should not be this honest!) ya to 70 lo, ya phir entrance pe jao, waha police baat karenge
a.w: Subah subah kya madam.
me(handing out a 100 note): Paise lo aur baat khatham.
a.w(understanding that there's no other way he could get rid of us): ha 80 leta hoo, magar change nahi
me: change mein leke deti hoo, go to that shop
a.w: ruko, mere paas 10 hai chelega?
me: 80 loge to baaki 10 ayega?
a.w: kya madam itni badi office aur 10 rupay ke liye
me (gritting my teeth, we know how much they pay us!!!): woh sab rehne do, agar mein 10 kam deti to tum lete?
m.f: ha haa....waise bhi they dont pay us! (lady, one more confession and I can kill myself!)
a.w: tikh hai ruko
fishes out another 10 rupee note and leaves. we are glad that we won a battle and weren't robbed of our money and walk away into our office ... to do, well, nothing, and get paid almost nothing in return!

Posted by Sat at 10:25 AM
16 comments

16 Comments:

If it was chennai, you would have paid Rs.200. Be glad that u saved 100 bucks. :-)

By  Anonymous, at 12:06 AM, July 02, 2006  

:))) seriously, those autowalas coming to EC take your money for nothing! I took the auto whne I went to attend my interview, and looking at the extortion, resorted to getting up soon after I joined :))

By  KC!, at 5:10 PM, July 02, 2006  

Nice Post Sat! I liked your naration. Reminded me of my experiences with Autowala's in Chennai, Mangalore and Bangalore. I am very familiar with the one and half concept that prevails in B'lore and M'lore.
There is a general notion that people in Electronic city gets paid a lot, I feel its the image created by Infosys to the outside world.
In Chennai I had a interesting and funny experience. I travelled from Trichy and my Bus dropped me at Dasaprakash on Poonamalli High road at 6AM. From there I just had to cross a under bridge and since I had a heavy luggage I thought I will take an auto, One autowala approached me and after I told him the place, he asked for 45 bucks. Mind it the distance is going to be 2 KM max. I started laughing and he later came down to Rs40, I said I dont want, he immediately started shouting at me as if I did something wrong. Well I shouted back at him after that and got another onlooking auto and reached my destination at the meter rate, since I was satisfied with this autowala's sincerity I gave him tips of Rs5.
I dont mind paying them if they are truthful and polite.

By  KK, at 10:47 AM, July 03, 2006  

Hahaha.. Nice write up and very true as well :)

By  Ponnarasi Kothandaraman, at 11:55 PM, July 04, 2006  

Hahaha.. Nice write up and very true as well :)

By  Ponnarasi Kothandaraman, at 11:56 PM, July 04, 2006  

Hahaha.. Nice write up and very true as well :)

By  Ponnarasi Kothandaraman, at 11:57 PM, July 04, 2006  

Aiyy idhu enna echo effect-a? ;)
thanks :D

By  Sat, at 4:49 AM, July 05, 2006  

I wud appreciate if you have added a english translation for all those hindi words.. as not many who visit your blog might understand hindi.. samjae kya?(did u understand?)

By  Story Teller, at 11:11 AM, July 05, 2006  

Karthik;
right...chennai auto fares are atrocious...in fact i was a bit surprised not to find the meter there...i'm so used to seeing it in tht spot; i asked one auto wala 'adhu enga...' he looked puzzled for a moment, got what i meant and said 'adhu theva padathu madam!'
Usha;
right so...and if u want to take a bus to electronics city...well i can write another write up on that!
kk;
you know they normally hike their charges three times when u need an auto the most...esp early morning near a KPN/sharma travels drop off point ;)
DT;
yeah u're right; but a bit too lazy to transalate the whole thing into tamil; besides the entire conversation actually took place in hindi...and translating it kinda takes the fun out of it...so indha time hindi padam paakura maari otikeenga...samjhae kya ;)

By  Sat, at 1:40 AM, July 06, 2006  

You got it right! I came by KPN when that incident happened.

By  KK, at 1:49 AM, July 06, 2006  

electronic city makkalay hope u've ventured near PVR or multiplex...blore saara makkal manikkavum...ithellaam..bachelor pasangalaukaaga katti vaikka patta sumaarana cinema theatres...enna thaan iunthaalum namma oor satyam alvaukulam ila...main matter...any show..morning noon or nite...u go and try to catch an auto frm the theatre....for the rates they ask...u can watch three four movies back to back...at times i wonder whether i shd go for a pulsar or put some more money and by an auto..!!!

By  gils, at 10:22 PM, July 06, 2006  

I guess its because of the curse of Autowalla that you are out of Blore now :-)

By  Harish, at 1:51 AM, July 07, 2006  

Could I take the pleasure of saying "U R TAGGED!!!"?

By  KK, at 10:05 AM, July 07, 2006  

uh-oh!
now that looks like hard work...er i'll try

By  Sat, at 3:07 AM, July 08, 2006  

wats this tagged thing?

By  gils, at 11:12 PM, July 08, 2006  

Very True

In Chennai its always a war between autowala and us.

Oflate I am just giving what they are asking, i dont want to get scolding from them.

By  sri, at 7:20 PM, July 21, 2006  

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