DeCoding the Wily Being – The Auto Rickshaw !

The 'Maze' made good reading. It reminded me of an article abt the auto-rickshaw that appeared sometime back in TOI, which was something like this :

Roads in India defy order & logic of any kind. The Indian road is mostly a dirt track & provides an avenue for hawking, parking, garbage dumping, etc. & struggles to attempt to provide a corridor for transportation amidst the chaos & anarchy.

And at its heart, playing a key role is the Auto-Rickshaw, a three-wheeler commonly referred to as “Auto”, the only such being of its kind, perhaps in the universe. The “Auto” does indeed seem so naturally & effortlessly Indian on all counts – by appearance, by its noise, lack of road manners, pollution & its undisciplined & unpredictable movements.

The auto is the Indian urban rat, a wily, crafty creature that dribbles its way through the Indian urban sewer. The auto deals with the road on a second-by-second basis, recognizing that the Indian road is the abode of constantly changing circumstances. 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. The auto defies the idea that the road is a straight line but sees it as a chessboard, contemplating its next move based on obstacles on it’s path & options available, however crooked they may seem.

In many ways, the auto is perfectly at home in twisty by-lanes. ‘Gullies’ & ‘Mohallas’ 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 & wriggles along, as it makes progress.

The auto, like most other things in India, always seeks to subvert order & insinuate itself wherever & whenever it can – it is common to see an auto climbing up a footpath or divider & get ahead of other more patient road vehicles. One can commonly sight an auto going in the opposite direction on a one way road, or even through a stop or red signal, appearing to go unnoticed & without ruffling any feathers. 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 vanished & distances, spaces & gaps seem to have disappeared, & yet, miraculously, no contact was made.

The auto, with the least effective wheel suspensions, is also a vehicle that transmits 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. Vehicle noise & some air pollution are quite natural & acceptable on the Indian road, as long as they don’t immediately damage ears or lungs. The speed the auto is capable of traveling has been carefully chosen – It is significantly faster than a cycle, but lesser 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”. 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 speed of the engine is thus made slower, but cheaper & in line with the Indian road & Indian circumstances. The engine seems to have been perfected to the ultimate & is versatile & very efficient to serve it’s purpose. 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 circumstances will compel you to yield to trusting an auto to take you where you want to go – Sort of.