Tuesday, January 02, 2007

oka oorilo oka rojulo okamokka autos

so i went to hyderabad for a day about two weeks back and was shocked rudely. no nothing wrong about the city. the weather was fantastic. crowds just like madras and a delightful early morning auto ride through banjara hills were all rather pleasant. it happened when my cousin and i headed to charminar. we boarded this vehicle that was commandeered by someone who can only be called the caretaker of dharma. in madras we would call it the auto and the person driving it as a highway robber. getting down at the charminar, the meter* showed rs 51.80.. my cousin, new to city, handed out 55 rupees with trembling hands expecting a short course in choice hindi/telugu curses or at the least a rebuke. we instead got Rs.3 in return. shocked badly i walked straight into one of the minars, forgot several website passwords including the one from where i had to print my online air ticket and so nearly missed my flight the next day. despite my condition, my camera managed to snap these




*an object that based on wheel revolutions and some amount of timing correctly calculates how much it cost someone to go from point A to point B if turned on at point A - in madras it sits on the left side of the auto and is used to balance the auto because the auto driver usually drives sitting on the right edge of his seat...auto drivers in madras dont need it as they are expert statisticians who use a combination of approximation methods and actuarial sciences to determine the mysterious variable called "flat rate"..footnotes nearly as long as the blog post, only on this blog

p.s. google helped me find this article when i was looking for a meter photo. obviously the author has not visited madras

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it okay if I am the only one who doesn't like Hyderabad?

catcharun said...

i'll allow it this time..what dont u like anyway?