In August, on my way to Brunton Road, I had a ‘Falling Down’ moment – that event in the movie where Michael Douglas, trapped in an hours-long gridlock, loses his mind to road rage and begins a terrifying rampage. Though my Falling Down moment didn’t result in the loss of life or bodily harm, it caused me to make the most impulsive decision I’ve made thus far. Stuck in the traffic jam, I yanked out my cell-phone, rang a car dealer friend of mine and with barely controlled fury, asked him to meet me instantly and find a buyer for my car.
Since then, I’ve been car-less in Bangalore and because this city has nothing efficient by way of a mass transport system, have taken to traveling by autorickshaw. Nothing can give you a sense of a city than an autorickshaw driver’s rant. His world-view, tempered by conversations with the hundreds of passengers he ferries and by the sheer extent of the area he covers, is crucial to developing an opinion about the city you live in.
Two aspects of my travels in Bangalore’s autorickshaws have greatly helped shape my views on the city. The first is my ability to speak street Kannada competently (which means a liberal dose of the coarsest invective you can imagine) and the Regional Transport Office’s move to introduce driver identification details in rickshaws. The first aspect is a no-brainer – you append an ‘anna,’ ‘guru,’ ‘swami’ or ‘boss’ (pronounced ‘baas’) to your destination and give the driver a cultural or linguistic identifier, making conversation easier. Of course, the conversation becomes easier still and far more interesting if you merely state your destination and the guy, as is the norm these days, confirms in Hindi: ‘kidhar?’ and you, with a tinge of regionalistic pride, reply: “yakkanna, Kannada barodillva?” (what’s the matter brother, can’t you speak Kannada?”
The driver identification details, unfortunately, work only for passengers that are intimate with the city. The card bearing these details give you, among other things, two crucial bits of information: where the driver lives and when he obtained his drivers’ license. The first always serves as an opener; distance from the center of the city being a great way to start a conversation. For instance, on Friday, the rickshaw I was in was from Somanahalli, on Kanakapura Road. So, I began with: “Dinaglu asht doordinda barthira neevu?” “You travel such a long distance everyday?” And of the identification card says the driver received his license in say, 1982, you begin by reminiscing about a city that once was bereft of one-ways and, inevitably, the ‘outsiders.’
I have used autorickshaws as a means of transport for over 15 years now and, perhaps as a part of my first editors’ edict to engage with the people who literally transport a city, have always sought to strike up conversations with rickshaw drivers. But it’s only over the past three years that a blistering anger has crept into the conversations I’ve had. Much like the urban, English-speaking Bangaloreans I wrote about a few weeks ago, the Kannada-speaking rickshaw drivers, have begin to direct the invective and incendiary rage towards the immigrant, Hindi-speaking population of this city. A couple of weeks ago, on my way to dinner, I flagged down an auto near JP Nagar and a few minutes into the ride, began a conversation with the driver, Ilyaz. His identification card said he lived in DG Halli and that he’d had a license issued to him in 1980. Ilyaz began the conversation with a single word. “Software?” he asked. I replied in the negative and he fell silent. A few minutes later, he asked me again in Hindi: “Kya karthe hain aap?” “What do you do?” I said,” Barithini. Patrakartha naanu.” “I write. I’m a journalist.” By this time, we were near the Dairy Circle and in the midst of a mammoth gridlock. Over the next 20 minutes, Ilyaz let loose. Such was his fury that I feared he might stop the rickshaw at some point and goad me into joining his violent rampage against “those bastards from North India.” Ilyaz, who belongs to the Autorickshaw Driver’s Union of Bangalore, said just about everyone was disgusted with the way this city had degenerated. In Dakhni Urdu, he told me, “Inho, chinaalke, Dilli se aathi saab. Aaku ham sub ka gaand maarthi. Cheel daalna saab sabko. Aap dekhna saab, ek din bomb phatega Bengloor main. Maiheech lageyaga bomb.” (“These people are sons of whores. They come here from Delhi. They come here and screw us in the ass. We must skin them all. Just you watch, there will be an explosion one day. And I’ll be the one to plant the bomb.”)
Though he later admitted that he had come close to physically assaulting a few of his passengers who were from the north of the country, Ilyaz did say he would never actually refuse a northerner a ride in his rickshaw. He had a daughter in school and a son in college. When we reached our destination, Ilyaz apologized for his tirade, but not for thought process behind them. “Main Bengloor ka hoon saab. Musalman hoon, par yaheech ka hoon. Jab Cauvery ka lafda huva, main bhi maara ek do ko. Ab different hain. Ab who Tamil logan bhi hamare saat hain. Ab lafda hoga to un logon ko nahin chodenge saab. Main jaatu. Khuda hafiz.” (“I am from Bangalore. I may be a Muslim, but I’m from here. When the Cauvery riots happened (in 1991) I beat up a few people. But now things are different. Now the Tamilians too are with us. If there are riots now, we won’t leave those (North Indians) alone. I’m going now. May God be with you.”
Nice post..Have u been to Delhi’s rickshaws? Lol.
Nice blog…visit mine sometime.