Autowalas

Another morning waiting by the main intersection of Nizamuddin East and Mathura road; the sands of Rajasthan are up early, floating in the air making their way to the ears, eyes and hair of all the commuters. The papers tell summer in Delhi has been the hottest in 33 years so far and it certainly shows on the faces of people who are less fortunate and cannot afford a driver and a car with AC. A sense of exhaustion and despair fills the Monday morning on a busy crossroads. I'm running late as usual and trying desperately to wave for an autorickshaw, which are aplenty, but all full. Finally, one of them stops by me. The driver is your typical type, a man probably in his mid-thirties with at least ten years more on his face with white patterns of dried running sweat running all over his blue uniform. He looks at me with a mixture of annoyance and boredom. Running late, I'm already irate as well. I tell him where I want to go, he spits on the ground turns away and restarts the engine. I grab his rickshaw, jump to the backseat and tell him to at least drop me to the end of the road, where autowalas often hang out, to which he reluctantly agrees.

After a distance of about 200m, I'm not expecting to pay more than 5rs and casually jump off and thank him. He returns the thank you with a loud grunt of "20 rupees!!" and almost gets off his vehicle when I tell him he cannot be serious. I'm in a hurry so I  have to solve the conflict quickly and so I give him 10rs and tell him to kindly get out of my face. I run to another autorickshaw and repeat my destination request. It's 8.15am and he looks like he's drunk already. He's hunched over the dashboard of the rickshaw trying to roll a piece of chewing tobacco into a gum-sized ball. He slowly turns his red eyeballs towards me, sneers and says he's not interested. Frustrated, I ask why, he tells me to fuck off and continues rolling his tobacco. I'm almost ready to punch someone, when I'm miraculously saved by a third auto, which seems to be driven by Sai Baba himself.

The city's iconic green and yellow three-wheelers are an incomparably handy and vital mode of transport, but convenience comes at a cost. Delhi's auto-rickshaw drivers have an infamous reputation all over India as rude, nihilistic, dishonest and greedy scumbags. They are considered iconic of the city's general mental landscape, which is some kind of a mix of laissez-faire violence and rampant corrupt opportunism. Everyone has their own story of the unruly auto-rickshaw driver and it is especially the foreigners, unaccustomed to the nihilistic vibe of Delhi, that get traumatized by their rude demeanor or ruthless scamming attempts (for example, see the earlier post "Hot in the City"). A quick Google search reveals that this seems to be a popular topic of lament in expat blogs and discussion forums where Indians and foreigners rant how something should be done to them to keep them in order.

Samosapedia (South-Asian urban dictionary) describes the autowalas accordingly (click on the South-Asianisms for definition):

Common Traits/Features :

(i) If they think you're new in town, rest assured you will end up kangaal because they will take you all over town before depositing you at the destination, which was just three km away from where you started. But see, you are getting nice tour of the place, na?

(ii) You mess with them and you just might be the main component of tomorrow's lunch curry. (Think I'm simsimply making joke aa? Try it if you want to be simply going snake taking and putting in pockit) Make no mistake about it, they're one fierce lot.

(iii) Don't expect to be given back the change once you have paid for the ride.

(iv) They are full chalu types, and confirmed rowdy rascalla rangapas

(v) Every time it rains, double meter will happen off.

The entry further goes on to specifically describe Delhi autowalas accordingly:

In one word - frightening. The seedy guy will turn around in his seat every single time he stops at a red light (to letch openly at you, in keeping with the capital's great tradition of making women feel horribly unsafe). They will put kai for anything female that moves. Forget the government based system of charging customers by the meter, at the end of the journey you will be unceremoniously presented with a 'rate sheet', which bumps up the price by almost twice the amount shown on the meter. Who came up with that? Presumably the auto union of the city. If you know whats good for you you'll pay up without making any khupp. Speaking in English or a South Indian language will earn you a frosty-nosed stare, so stick to Hindi.

The poor reputation of Delhi's auto-drivers is no secret, they have gathered an infamous reputation to the extent where the Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dixit demanded that the city should do away with autorickshaws, one argument being that the drivers are "unruly and harass passengers". The announcement came around the time when the hype surrounding the Commonwealth Games of 2010 was at full swing. The authorities were rushing to make Delhi "a world class city" as quick as possible, which essentially meant sweeping poor people, bad infrastructure, animals and piles of garbage under the carpet - in other words all things unpleasant that might offend the international guests and tarnish the image of a shining New India. Impolite behaviour of the drivers seemed to be the final straw - embarrassments such as these would not be tolerated when prospective foreign investors were on the way.

Most people in Delhi find very little sympathy for the autowalas, most of whom are poor migrants from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, in other words people the middle class Delhi generally dreads. However, these same people who they very often remain dependent on, hence the uneasy coexistence. There is no arguing against the fact that a vast majority of autowalas are indeed a grumpy and greedy bunch, but they are also products molded by their circumstances. These are men who face constant hardship and stress in their everyday. In order to secure their livelihood, they are forced to deal with small time crooks who lease the autos, bureaucrats who they usually have to bribe to get permits and above all, people much more infamous and scary than them, the Delhi police.

A very recommendable article by Simon Harding on the Kafila blog sheds light on the harrowing everyday of the autowala: 

Delhi’s hated auto-wallahs are, it appears, not naturally nasty, aggressive people. Rather, they are under huge financial pressure. They pay half their daily wage as rent or hand over thick wads of cash to financiers at the end of each month for outrageously priced vehicles, which they have little hope of ever legally owning. Transport Department officials demand bribes from them for the most basic of services whilst they are easy prey for policemen in search of quick cash. Somehow, in the midst of all these repayments, rents, bribes and challans, the autowallahs have to feed their families. Who can do all this on just Rs.4.5 per km? No wonder the meter is a dirty word as far as most auto-wallahs are concerned. Go by the meter and their families would starve.

Harding further goes on describing the process of obtaining a permit to drive the vehicle - a situation that can easily give a man a bad temper in the long run:

Auto-drivers must carry roughly sixteen documents with them at all times, including a licence, a commercial badge, vehicle fitness certificate, pollution control certificates for the past year amongst others. To get each compulsory document, the driver must make an application to the Transport Department. However, each application requires a long list of supporting documents (as many as fifteen), which most auto-wallahs simply do not have and have little chance of obtaining: A fifty-year-old driver applying for a commercial badge may be asked for his old school certificates from rural Bihar in the 1960s whilst Delhi ID and ration cards are standard for many applications, documents which migrant drivers do not possess and have virtually no chance of getting. Aware that these requirements are impossible to meet, Transport Department officials solicit bribes from drivers to overlook gaps in applications and often even to process complete applications.

The drivers certainly are being cornered from many sides, but it seems even within themselves there is concern about the rotten eggs. One autowala who was dropping me home explained how so many of his colleagues simply overcharge foreigners so that they can get drunk in the evening, buy chewing tobacco or beedis and possible pay the occasional visit to G.B.Road in Old Delhi. While double up the prices to pay the bills and feed the family, there are many who simply do it because they can.

The fact remains that the autowalas of Delhi indeed give their passengers a hard time constantly and on daily basis they certainly face hardship that the general Delhiite would never have to deal with, but it does not completely explain the general hostility and dishonesty that one faces daily. The autowalas of Mumbai are often cited as the polar opposites of their Delhi colleagues - always going by meter and never cheating, while still having to deal with similar pressures. Be it as it may, the general bad attitude as well constant pressure from authorities are only blowing air to the hot coals that the autowalas as well as the general public have walk on in this city.