Yeh hai mumbai meri jaan !!

"Bhaiyya Big bazaar ? " I say for the umpteenth time as I watch the autowallah zoom past me. Sometimes they dont even nod their heads implying a "No", they just accelerate out of sight. At others they manage to pass a wicked smile. I turn back and look along the length of the road, my eyes scanning the back seats of every auto that passes in the hope that some autowallah will have mercy and drop me off to work, the nearest landmark to which is yes, you guessed it , a Big Bazaar. " Inko Bandra tak ka bhaada chahiye " . (" They want to go to far away places like Bandra where they'll fetch larger fares") one passerby remarks observing the desperation on my face as the next auto ditches me.

Whats Ironical is that theres an Auto stand rite next to the soceity I live in. All that goes through my mind every morning as I start walking from my Mumbai flat is the hope that today I won't have to go through that humiliating ordeal of Auto wallahs zooming past you as if you just asked them to go to Jhumritallaya. Most of the times they will be going in the same direction as well but wont bother making a quick ten bucks. At others they will continued reading newspapers, chatting, drinking their morning tea, cleaning their autos and tightening screws with screwdrivers but its obviously taboo to carry a passenger to a nearby place.It amazes me.

So heres how it works. Me and my friends, four of us divide ourselves into groups of two each day. Our usual 'strategy' is to keep walking and asking every empty auto if he will forgive us for taking a flat 'near' our work place and bless us with his generous "lift" till Big Bazaar. I believe if we asked for lifts from cars we'd get to our office earlier. There have been times when we kept walking, and asking , then walked a little more, asked another bunch of autos, waited some more, walked furthur and furthur, and " Whoala " reached our office on foot. We tried naming places that exist nearby to fool them into it, " Bhaiyya hanuman nagar ?" " Station tak chaloge ? " But all in vain. On another occasion I and my friend Roshan were hardly 5 minutes away from the office by foot. But we still kept asking and one guy agreed. We took the Auto just for the satisfaction of having travelled in an Auto after all those efforts.

Each day is a struggle. A fight. When I get an early auto my face lights up like the ones my company manufactures. I surprise myself with my own reactions. This maximum city pushes my mind to wonder. Whether I will ever be able to decipher the psychology of these auto wallahs is left to time, till then I just hope I find my daily auto to work and back.