The Rickshaw Ride

It all ended ok, and we got home safe and sound… but I’m pretty sure we won’t have a lot of rickshaw rides quite as interesting as that one…
We’re not quite sure why the auto-rickshaw drivers passing by our language school so often refuse to pick us up and take us home. Perhaps it is the geographical proximity to one of the main train stations in the area, and the auto-walla thinks he can get more money there… or perhaps it’s something in the neighbourhood that makes them avoid foreigners. We will stand outside the school for up to ten minutes before we can find an auto-walla that agrees to take us back to Sukhdev Vihar, our home. Now this may not sound like a long wait, but when you are used to having between 4 and 13 auto-rickshaws available to you no matter where you are, even when (or perhaps especially when) you do not want them, it seems like a long wait. The bus stop is a mere 3 minute walk away, and despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic adventure that the city’s infamous Blue-Line offers, it has become a failsafe for us coming home from classes. However, we would rather not take the bus because it usually involves waiting 10-30 minutes on the side of the road with men staring at Andrea or urinating right behind us, and then once we’re on it we’re no more than sardines in a tin. Then it stops all the way home (hopefully without hitting someone, as they are wont to do), and our 15 minute commute turns into an hour long marathon.
The odd auto that does stop to offer us a ride usually quotes some outlandishly obscene rate, sometimes up to 150 rupees for our 30 rupee ride. We kindly remind him (in our bestest Hindi) that we can take the bus home for 3 rupees each, (like 7 cents), and start walking away, and every once in a while this lets him know that his bluff has been called, and he responds with the traditional, “ok-ok, 50 rupees…” and we get it down to 40 before getting in and going.
This afternoon though, nobody was taking the bait, and we really wanted to get home. Our fourth or fifth attempt yielded an auto-walla that was at least open to the idea of taking us home; we just had to talk him down from 80 rupees. I responded in Hindi that the meter (every auto-rickshaw has a government issued meter for fair fares, and 90 percent of those meters have somehow stopped working) would show about 30 rupees if used, and he argued by first explaining to us which roads he needed to take to get to our house, and then why the colossal amounts of traffic on those roads warranted such significant inflation. We thanked him for his explanation, but replied by letting him know that we had actually taken the route more than once. I mentioned that even during that hectic day earlier this week where the traffic lights were out at the biggest intersection in the area (the traffic was backed up more than a kilometre in each direction), we had only paid 40 rupees. I offered him 50. He said, no, this was impossible, our house was so far away and he needed to be paid fairly. I pointed out that fair would be to use the meter, and he disagreed. So, we began to walk away, and our bluff worked. “Okok, 50 rupees.” But I guess he still felt the need to legitimate his stance, so upon sitting in the drivers seat in front of us, he turned and carried on explaining why he needed to be paid more, even though he still agreed that he would do it for 50. I finally had to politely ask him to get going, and he complied with a smile and a nod.
Our drive home began as any other ride would, with the exception of an exceptionally weak motor beneath us that seemed to balk beneath its less than sizeable payload. As for the auto-walla, he just kept on talking about all the traffic and people who try to rip us off because they see that we are foreigners. We just nodded and offered up a weak, “Uhm, uh-huh,” because saying, “You’re that guy” didn’t seem like a nice thing to say at the moment, but it was surely in my head.
Besides pulling out right in front of a speeding car and seeming not to notice, he was up to very few antics, and seemed like a nice enough guy, so we engaged in conversation.
“Where are you from?” we asked.
“U.P.” (initials of a neighbouring province). “You from Israel?”
Andrea laughed. I’ve had more than a few people ask me if I am middle-eastern. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afgani, Egyptian, etc.
“No,” I replied with a chuckle. “I am Canadian.”
“Oh, very good!! You are very rich!!!”
“No, I am a poor student.”
“Canada, America. Rich.”
And on the conversation went, until we got to a red light. He continued talking about foreigners and the crooked politicians until a she-man approached from the right side of the vehicle, asking for money. Now, generally, when beggars ask for money they explain with actions or words that they are hungry, and desiring money for food. Not guy-girl. He(?) just shoved hiser hand in front of Andrea’s face and I guess expected us to give. We didn’t. The driver shifted his position so that he was facing the other direction and stopped talking and motioned for us to be silent as well with a comical “don’t talk or acknowledge” shiver of his head. After about a minute of holding his hand there, our sexually confused friend got upset, and with a scowl took a swat at my wife’s face. Andrea pulled back and She-Ra missed and walked away. I couldn’t believe it.
“What did he want?” Andrea asked.
“Money for his family” said the driver. “I like peace. He fight. He very angry that you don’t give. Why fight? I drive careful and people get mad, but I like peace. So I smile and do peace.”
We agreed that this was a good option, and conversation continued while we watched passing cars narrowly miss other passing cars, and people walking down the road with enormous loads balanced perfectly on their heads. Tea stalls and mobile vegetable salesmen mingled with stray dogs and some very incessant crows. But before we could get up a decent amount of speed, we were slowing to wait for the next light, and the next comical happening.
As we slowed to a stop we heard a very excited, “OOOOOOH!!!!” and looked to the right to see street children on the median get up from where they were sitting and chase down our auto until it was completely stopped. On our right was a government jeep not more than 6 inches from us, with their open window right beside us. The two men in the vehicle looked on while the drama began to unfold. Two boys circled around to the left of our vehicle where there was a small opening in the traffic. One boy had a drum hanging around his neck which he beat in what could almost be described as a rhythm, and the younger one, (perhaps 5 years of age) had bright red dots painted on his cheeks and a hat with a ball attached to it by a foot-long piece of twine. He clapped his hands in our direction with an arrogant wag of his head and a smirk that belied his youth, and grabbing the ball he whipped it around his head and proceeded to dance in a circle, all the while keeping the ball in orbit around his tiny cranium with an intriguing bobble. Then he bent over backwards and performed some contortions before moving on to more amusing and yet fairly impressive physical feats. His partner continued to beat his drum and we continued to watch.
Andrea reached in to her wallet and withdrew a few rupees that we could give to them, and upon noticing her movements the younger boy called off the grand finale and approached the side of the vehicle with open hands. He smiled about the rupees, but from his closer vantage point he could see a plastic bag sitting in between Andrea and myself. All it contained were some Christmas decorations we had just purchased, but he pointed to it and got very excited. His partner tugged on his arm and made mention that it was time for them to leave, but the younger refused to move.
“He wants food,” the driver mentioned to us.
“We have no food!” I muttered in the best Hindi I could muster. The older boy upgraded to a more intense version of tugging, and was seemingly trying to convince his young friend that if they stuck around there would be trouble. The auto-walla chuckled lightly to himself, and the government men were by this time quite enjoying the proceedings, both were straining to catch every subtle nuance of emotion in our faces. The young boy refused to move and continued to point very persistently at the bag with a grave look of concern on his face.
“Chocolate!!!!” he blurted out with the most intense look of desire I have ever seen in a 5 year old.
“No chocolate!!” I replied with a smile, trying to keep myself from laughing too hard. The driver and the government men however, were by this time laughing fairly hard. The light turned green and the boys backed away with a dejected look on their faces. We were once again on our way.
“This is Shiva!” Our driver pointed out a picture on his windshield as we started to gain a bit of speed again. “You know Shiva?”
“Yes we’ve heard about him.”
“He my god. He very good. I live by the Ganga, the holy waters. My mom is the cow. I am Hindu. I pray to Shiva. Do you pray?”
“Yes, we pray to—“
“To Christian?”
“To Yeshu,” I replied, citing the Hindi name for Jesus.
“I live by the Ganga. Very famous water. Your God Jesus?”
“Yes”
“Ok, good.”
“Shiva. Peace. My mother is a cow. I drink milk… milk is from the cow… my mother is the cow. I eat only vegetables. Do you eat meat?” Now, we don’t quite know how best to answer this question when we are asked by a Hindu. We assume they all know that we eat meat, but you never quite know how militant people may get bout their religion. For all we know this Hindu hurls sharpened carrots at meat merchants in his spare time. But he seemed legitimately nice and ‘Shiva. Peace.” and all, so we answered him straight up, even when he asked if Canadians eat cow.
“Yes.”
“Cow? Mother Cow?”
“Uhm, yes, but only in Canada, not here”
“Really? Ok, in Canada that is what do, but we do not eat the Cow. It is our mother. It—“
“You can stop here,” I interrupted. We had arrived at our street, and it was time to disembark.
We got out and I whipped out the wallet to pay the man, when all of a sudden he hopped out of the auto and in a second was standing with his smile not more than 8 inches from mine, and he continued our conversation.
“Ok, I like peace, and you good people. Very nice meet you. I am happy to take foreigners for rickshaw… Shiva… Peace… Cow…. Etc.”
And finally we just kinda said goodbye and walked towards our gate in hopes that he would get the hint. He did. A genuinely nice guy… but man, what a crazy ride that was.