The Auto Menace

Hey dudes and dudettes,
This blog is in tribute to all those Auto-drivers who live to transform the most easy-going, quiet individuals into raging, bickering passengers. All through my industrial training in Bangalore I ranted about the high rates they charged, but Bangalore's breed pales in comparison to Delhi's tribe of Auto-Rickshaw drivers. At least the Bangalore clan has meters, and most of the drivers abide by them, but come to Delhi and you'll find the drivers charging any amount they wish. Haggling for ten minutes makes them decrease the fare by 10-20 rupees which is hardly any compensation to your pocket. Then to top it all they have such rude language and absolutely no respect for passengers. I have had two bad experiences with these U.P. autowallahs: one charged 130 rupees where it should have cost just 80, and after driving some distance tells us "Auto dheere hi chalegi... kuchh pareshani toh nahi hai na" it drove me clean mad but we were running late and the auto didn't seem to be too slow so we went on, but with distance the auto slowed down to such an extent a bullock-cart overtook us at a point. I gave the driver a long sermon on honesty but he just kept smiling stupidly, then I gave him just 100 rupees(he still made a profit!) and he stood yelling and cursing at our backs.
The other was when we came back from the Ghaziabad RTO where we had gone to get my learner's license made. The driver overcharged, but that's something all auto-drivers do, this one was more insane than is usual among the tribe, he slept off while driving and when shaken awake said, "Kya aapatti hai? door door tak tirafeek nahi hai.. sone do" . Then he stopped at the main road and wouldn't take us to our society which is only a little way inside. When my mother asked him to drop us at the society he looked out of the corner of his eyes and in a most sarcastic tone said, "Madam tumhara dimag kharab hai". There he crossed the limit. My father stood ready to slap him and I pretended trying to pull my shoes off to beat him. That unnerved him and he apologised. ("Munh se fisal gaya bhaiya...").

People who know me are probably laughing their heads off at the thought of Vasudha beating somebody, even scolding somebody... but these mindless autowallahs have managed making me that angry. Its not something I am very proud of, I have managed to hold my temper through four years of college when some people gave me great temptation to lose it, but here, the autowallah finally got the better of me. But now that I have gotten angry enough to write a post on it, I want to put it to good use. Its high time we did something about the auto menace... I have thought of putting up posters in socities and malls informing people of the actual fare that should be charged and what they are being charged and encouraging them to sign, probably these signatures could be taken up to the DM or whichever person is involved (I have a very rough idea... only the poster part clear right now). The problem is not restricted to U.P. only... I went to Orissa recently and the autos there didn;t go by the meter too... this is a widespread problem so we could create FaceBook community or setup a website against such miscreants.... do you people have any ideas on how to bring auto-drivers to book? do let me know....