Ride Home

Yesterday I was out for dinner and coffee late into the night. This made the thought of getting an auto a dreary thought, and one for ordering of a pickup cab a comforting one. I pushed aside the skepticism and stepped out, and there was a lone auto-driver. His vehicle was parked in the opposite direction of my destination, so I ignored him, and decided to cross the road to lookout for an auto which was headed towards my home. As is common with drivers, he came towards us and asked where we needed to be dropped. My friend asked him, and he quoted a double-meter fare. That was the amount I had mentally agreed to pay for the ride home, so I didn't have enthusiasm to bargain. My friend on the other hand (a newbie in B'lore I may add) thought double-meter was exorbitant, and the lawful 1 1/2 times was fair. Moreover, he thought the driver had a shady hue with his unkempt beard, monkey cap, over-sized jacket and muffler. But he looked OK to me. So I pushed his skepticism aside, gave a quick good-bye hug and jumped into the auto. As he started the engine, my friend located another auto and began arguing with him for the inflated fare quoted. I rolled my eyes in dismay, and plunked myself comfortably into the seat till my auto picked up momentum. The ride began.
[conversation took place in Hindi]
He first commented ,'Oh! The U-turn is pretty far off. I didn't realise'. I nodded and made some unintelligible sounds of agreement. Unsatisfied with my enthusiasm for conversation, he tried again, 'These roads in Bangalore are pretty bad.' B'lore roads are like English weather - a take-off point for conversation when nothing else comes to mind. I took the hint, 'Yeah, its the rains. They play havoc with the roads.' 'No, no! Its not the rains. The roads have not been filled properly and tightly. The heavy traffic loosens it easily,' he argued.
Silence.
'Where are you from?' he asked. This was an evasive question, and dangerous one to encourage when you are alone with a stranger in B'lore. I said, 'Bangalore.' He read the hesitation in my voice, and began to explain that he liked getting friendly with his passengers. I admitted, at his asking the second time, that I was from Bombay. He guffawed and said, 'I can tell you are not from here. You don't look like a local.' I took that as a graceful compliment and assured him, 'Yes, I am not a Kannadiga.'Then he asked me about my mother-tongue and religion. This time I lied, unsure if my admission of my religion would have him scolding me for being an uncultured girl gallivanting so recklessly.
He continued to philosophize about passengers and auto-drivers being transient companions and how it was a delight to meet different people and talk to them. And he apologised if I was getting bothered by his small-talk, since not everyone liked to yak away to drivers. I egged him to continue, 'In Bombay people are used to having such conversations with their cab drivers.'
This took off the conversation on a different plane. He began ranting, 'A girl would never be in an auto alone in the dead of the night.' This made my heart beat faster, as I began to wonder if he was a psychopath, who would kill me for crossing my womanly-boundaries, so stringent in Indian society. I was back to my walled grunts of acknowledgment. He continued, 'In past 10 years, things have drastically changed in Bangalore. This is b'caz of the IT industry and call centres where people work around the clock in different shifts.' Sounded like he was a rational person. He changed tracks and told me about a girl passenger who recently boarded his auto. 'She smoked two cigarettes in the span of 15 minutes! Whatever people say, it's not nice to see a woman smoke. It doesn't suit women'. In my head I screamed, 'MCP! MCP'[Male Chauvinistic Pig], but said 'Ya, sure.' 'She even offered me a drag. I don't smoke, but it would be in-shulting to admit that in front of a woman, so I took a drag,' he sheepishly admitted and grinned.
Since he was speaking flawless Hindi, not the Hyderabadi sorts, I asked him if he was a local or had migrated. He said that he was often asked this question, and people refuse to believe when he tells them he is a local. I told him that I was pretty impressed that he spoke such good Hindi, and he rattled off, 'I speak in the language and diction of my passengers so that they are at ease communicating.'
As we neared my rented apartment, personal questions came furiously from him about my family and whereabouts, where I lived in Mumbai, if we owned a house, my sibling. I stoically lied, with my thoughts tilting on ideas of kidnapping and ransom we see in so many movies. He continued saying things, but now I was in a mighty hurry to get behind my apartment door.
The urgency now was to have the nightmarish thoughts about this potential predator stop asap. I had opened my wallet and had the Rs 100-note ready. As soon as the auto came to a standstill, I hopped out, handed him the note, and said the habitual 'Thank you.' He replied, 'God bless you. Take care. Good night'.
I was touched.