The Less spoken

                                   In an attempt to record the simplest events of common people around and particularly in my milieu, I am presenting this article. I did not attempt to cogently organize this work and is just conflating different events in sequence.

                                               Young Auto-rickshaw Driver
                                    As like many other commuters, I also have a conviction that whenever I wish to board an MTC bus, there would be a gridlock or the bus-driver would be excessively slow or some neo-liberalists would protest for a petty matter. As like them, I too do not want any rationality or the spirit of inquiry to contest my claim. Hence many a time, I would access the alternative transport service providers--- the share-auto-rickshaws. The minimum governmental regulated price for boarding an auto-rickshaw is 14 Rs for 2 kilo-metres. But legality and practicality are often contradictory or apparently is accepted to be so. So I have to pay 15 Rs for boarding a share-auto-rickshaw for travelling less than 2 km, only to access the nearby sub-urban railway station.
                              As usual, I did not see any MTC bus one night and with no other options around, had boarded a share-auto-rickshaw. Share-auto became one, only when I shared the driver seat. The driver appeared to be a young fellow in his early 20’s and was so demanding when he said “NIGHT CHARGENAA 20 RS SIR, ILLANNA IRANGIDUNGA..”
                                When we had just started, the driver saw another auto-rickshaw stranded in the road and he decided to tow it. The guy did not seem to have any necessary paraphernalia to tow the vehicle and I was really anxious to see how that guy would tow the vehicle. To my surprise, the guy steered his vehicle to the side-left of the stranded auto-rickshaw and put his stretched leg on the back of it and thus accelerated both the vehicles at the same speed. No physics lab experiment could help me understand the Newton’s I law but this adventure. Both the vehicles were accelerated to the same speed and whenever some other vehicle crosses, the ‘towing’ leg would be pulled back. This adventure had lasted up-to the nearest petrol bunk and only then I re-gained my breath.
                              In our short conversation, the guy said “anna, ithellam assaultnaa…I had towed a vehicle in the similar fashion from Madipakkam to Sriperumbudur, to consult an auto-mechanic.”                      He himself declared that the drivers used to repair their vehicles only in particular workshops and for that they would even travel long. The auto-rickshaw races we often hear about are not between individual drivers but between auto-garages usually, he averred. No worry about the demands of any situation, he would send his vehicle to no other garage, he declared.
‘anna, enginelaam pakkaavaa tune panirukreaen..My vehicle would fly like a jetna..”
                           He seems to belong to the ‘racing tigers’ club which was spelled as “rasing tigers” at the back of his vehicle. And I ‘know’ he was a good guy since he had collected just 15 Rs from me.

                                                               A newspaper boy-vendor
                              I guess my newspaper vendor boy is an employee and not self-employed. The boy used to ‘throw’ the newspapers from the ground floor to the first and second floors. That too in the second floor he had to throw 2 newspapers to two neighbourhood houses. The mannerism with which he would throw the paper is so unique. On the fly from his bi-cycle, he would ‘throw’ the paper to the first floor. For the II floor, he would throw it so that it hits the front wall of the house and falls on the corridor. The next paper would suddenly be whisked then.
                           The boy said he had never missed to rightly position the papers and said he would even throw papers to the III floor. “YAARUNAA 3 MAADI VARAIKKUM YERI POI PODRATHU….mokka velainaa….”, he declared. Gratification and luminescence are conspicuous in his face when I enquired about his ability to accurately locate the paper. ‘payapulla, VETKAPATTAN….’
                                  Free elementary education was promised as a fundamental right even in the 1928’s Motilal Nehru Constitutional report and over 80 years had elapsed since but the right is yet to be made completely operational. So what?
                                                     
                                                                 Tender-coconut THATHAA
                               
                                 What purpose would you use a sickle? Or do we actually use it now? My mom uses it to husk the fibrous shells of coco and my sister-in-law wouldn’t use coconut unless it is husked. But a tender-coconut vendor declared that it could be utilized when someone intrudes on our home.


To be continued.......