Rickshaw woes

In the February of 2010, I moved to Gurgaon. Much of the first month was spent house-hunting in Gurgaon's many squalid colonies by foot, on a cycle-rickshaw, in a borrowed car, or a ramshackle Tata Indica rented out at Rs.800/- a day.

Come Saturday morning and I’d bobble through the streets of Phase 3, in a rickshaw about to crumble, looking up at Millennium City. Often I’d alight, leaving the rickshaw-puller an extra ten-er, it was easier to keep pace with the property broker on his motorbike, by foot. Some days, friends were kind enough to transport me about town.

The day I finalized my lease, happened to be a Tuesday, Gurgaon’s official holiday. Although offices continued to work through the day, the rickshaw-pullers on the street were absconding. I stepped out of the hotel room, scanning the streets for a savior. He came in the form of an elephant-sized auto-rickshaw that ferries twelve people over short distances for Rs. 5/- a day.

To my relief, I didn’t have to be sandwiched among Gurgaon’s many sweaty men; I had the rickshaw all to myself for a mere Rs. 20/-. I whizzed past all and sundry, feeling like a rickshaw queen. How ridiculous I must have looked!

All packed in and settled into a matchbox-sized house, my Gurgaon rickshaw woes continued. Getting to work on a cycle rickshaw sometimes took me over two hours. The sun burning down, the dust in the wind.

The journey to Delhi was another ordeal, an elephant-auto, a bus with hungry, gaping men and broken panes- we were at last across the border!

Thus arrived the Delhi Metro. Delhi came pleasant at last, but Gurgaon was still a menace. You’d alight a swanky air-conditioned metro imported from God-knows where, and climb onto the oldest form of transport known to man- the cycle rickshaw.

One fine November morning, along came the Radio Tuk-Tuk. Dial an ant-sized auto-rickshaw and you could zip about Gurgaon at Rs. 8/- per kilometer. If you were lucky, the rickshaw would actually turn up at your doorstep, and not leave you stranded and hoping.

Hoping at least the newly launched, women’s share-an-auto would come by. Or, perhaps a recently launched Rs. 10/- a km cab would stop for you. Alas, they never do.  (Tell me if you spot one.)

Given the incredible thing that competition is, however, one fine summer morning in 2011, hundreds of green and yellow auto rickshaws begin to fill the streets. All of Gurgaon’s villagers had turned to the cause- transporting Gurgaon’s hapless, car-less- in response to the Government’s half-hearted measures. At eighty odd rupees for short distances, no less…

Racket or not, what a joy to roam Gurgaon’s streets with a little dignity. In a year, the cycle rickshaw had come a long way, still bobbing although.