The Autorickshaw

A lot of discussion has been done about autos in a recent thread. I had earlier made a post about the auto that I had come across, & am posting it again for the benefit of the newer members, purely for the humour in it ! This is how it goes.....

DeCoding the Wily Being – The AutoRickShaw

There is something about Indian Roads that seem to defy order & logic of any kind. The Indian road is indeed a functional anarchy that resembles a street. And at its heart, playing a key role is the Auto-Rickshaw, also called an "Auto" or "Three Wheeler", the only such being of its kind, perhaps in the world. The "Auto" does indeed seem so naturally & effortlessly Indian on all counts – by appearance, by its noise, lack of road manners, pollution & especially with its movements.

The auto is the Indian urban rat - a wily, crafty creature that wriggles its way through the Indian urban sewer. The auto deals with the road on a second-by-second basis, recognizing that the Indian town is the abode where situations & circumstances change by the second. Twisting & turning all along its way through traffic, chaos & mankind in no particular order, every inch of territory on the Indian road is fought for & gained not by courage but by guile & cunning by the auto. The auto defies the idea that the road is a straight line but sees it as a chessboard, contemplating its next move based on every possible option available, however crooked it might be & forces it's way through obstacles that it can undo on its path, even with con.

In many ways, the auto is perfectly at home in twisty by-lanes. "Gullies" & "Mohallas" – these seem like the perfectly natural neighborhood for the auto. The auto mimics their lack of linearity with "Made for each other" ease. In fact, even on straight roads the auto contrives somehow to avoid the sense of linearity by sheer habit as it zigzags on its way.

The auto, like most other things in India always seeks to subvert order & insinuate itself wherever & whenever possible – it is common to see an auto climbing up a footpath or divider & get ahead of other patient road vehicles. One can commonly sight an auto going in the opposite direction on a one way street. The auto also brings to us a vastly enhanced sense of sub-atomic distances by intruding so close to the vehicle ahead that limits seem not just to have been tested, but to have disappeared & distances seem to have vanished, & yet, miraculously, no contact was made.

The auto, with the least effective wheel suspensions, is also the best vehicle in the country that can transmit the topography of the Indian road into the passengers’ innards, converting travel over road bumps, potholes, debris, pebbles, stones, etc. into an efficient digestive experience.

The key to understanding the auto is to understand its design. The principle governing its design is perhaps the overwhelming view of compromise being not a lesser choice, but an inevitable & ideal choice. All else be damned, but cost has to be minimum – even, miniscule.

The speed the auto is capable of traveling has been carefully chosen – It is significantly faster than a bicycle, but less than that of cars or other wastefully expensive means of transportation. If this were looked at from the reality of Indian roads, it travels at the "ideal speed". Thus, the speed of the engine is made slower, but cheaper & in line with the Indian road & Indian circumstances.

Take the case of its suspension – this too is self-limiting for its speed – if the auto travels too fast, one’s insides would mimic that of a violent food processor. The engine seems to have been perfected to the ultimate & yet is made with no frills.

Vehicle noise & some pollution is quite natural & acceptable on the Indian road, as long as they don’t immediately damage ears or lungs. Yet the engine is versatile & efficient – it can use all kinds of adulterated fuel, even adulterated kerosene or adulterated diesel. And it can run for indefinite periods without lubricating oil & /or cooling water. What’s more, the auto can also be used as a mobile rest house for overnights at remote locations where it has ended the day in its wanderings.

The auto is a shanty on wheels & represents the idea of personal transportation promising to offer protection against the elements, without offering any guarantees. In a larger sense, the auto accurately captures the "hybrid mongrel" nature of Indian towns. It also affirms the Indian belief that life is hard, but there can always be a way around it. And you will yield to trusting an auto to take you where you want to go – Sort of.