Honk, honk, honnnnnnnnnnnnk………….sound from the auto brought me to heels as it was already late to start for my destination. After lot of hurdles and tensions of last minute check ups, I boarded the Chennai’s most distinguished transport, which is much hyped about its fares and driver’s behavior. As usual on the way I forced out a genteel conversation with the punctual auto driver who generally remains silent. After touching many topics on day to day affairs, I gently inserted the subject of article in The Hindu on how to handle auto drivers which was published few days before with great amount of cautious and well balanced words. He accepted the views of passengers, but exposed the other part of reality.
Auto drivers too are conned by passengers and also ill treated. Some persons board auto and ask to be dropped in front of complexes. When they reach destination, they suddenly realize that they have misplaced their wallet, ask driver to wait for some time at the gate (as in many complexes autos are not allowed inside) to fetch money and slip through the other gate. He says this type monetary damage too can be put up with, but what to do for their life and social security problems? Autos are the most easiest and unproblematic vehicle to be hired in city. So they become easily the transport medium for miscreants and criminals without the knowledge of driver. In the end these drivers are harassed by police for no fault of theirs in the name of investigation. Today even some women passengers provide nightmarish experiences for auto drivers. The crooks in the guise of womanhood force them to part with their money by threatening with woman harassment complaints. He lamented that there is no proper law, consortium or government set up to guard their welfare, but only present to fix the meter charges!
After hearing his part of discussion, I rebuked back “Then you mean we have to accept the harassment on both sides silently?” He replied back with the lines of an economist theory which he read from one of the news articles and follows. “You are father of two sons and have brought a cake for them. Both of them want to have a bigger share of it, then how could you satisfy both? Simple, just lay the constraint that, let elder son cut the cake into two pieces and youngest choose his piece of cake from them. Automatically justice will be done for both.”
After hearing these lines and grasping its content, I realized that we had reached our destination, Have You?
Tipped by,
Kanagasabai S
Shed light on the other side of auto wallas
ReplyDelete