Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91

Vol. XXVI No. 03, May 16-31, 2016

The stories auto drivers have to tell

by Vincent D’Souza

I have a working title. A marketable one.

It could be for a book. And I wonder if a publisher is interested.

But for now, my first working title is simple – Madras Auto ­Stories.

Till now, I have known over 10,000 auto rickshaw drivers. They used to be the city’s lifeline in many ways.
Not any more. They are being wiped out. They know it and it is a painful and wretched death.

Maybe some of them will survive. Or maybe the Metro will kill the weak who hang around the stands and stations.

I have had a love-hate relationship with these men. But I can tell you that they have the best stories to tell. And on a summer’s evening or a December night, on a long sawari, all they need is a tickle – to open up.

And that is what I have been doing for a long time. Getting them to open up even as I get transported to my destination – Mylapore, Central Station, Vepery, Guindy…

The other night, Sekar was at the wheel. That extra revenue was the hint that triggered our conversation. And it was all about auto racing on the highways outside our city.

Auto racing is an awfully dangerous, no-holds-barred sport. Drivers don’t spill blood (they do get scraped) but many put their own vehicles on the betting blocks for the ‘auto-or-nothing-at-stake’ race.
I have had a taste of the races. One driver took me on a recce ride in Tambaram on a misty Sunday morning and gave me an adrenaline high.

It was, and is, illegal but when you want to witness the stories and get to the bottom of them, you break some laws.

Sekar told me how on one weekday, just outside Tambaram, he was accosted by two autos on either side, and challenged to a race. “They get a high from taking on strangers from other parts of the city,” Sekar said.
He had to keep his word and be on the grid for the start of the race the following weekend, just past midnight.

Auto racing is a blood-thirsty sport. And as you can imagine the driver’s animalistic trails take over.
Sekar won and went home with some decent booty.

Every auto driver has stories. Mostly of the underground. The underbelly of the city. And of our neighbourhoods. And these are the stories that also tell you what your city and mine is all about. I listen to them.

Stories of Mylapore’s advocates and Vadapalani’s stunt actors. Of Kasimedu’s fishermen and Koyambedu’s flower traders. Of wealthy north Indians on the Marina and petty criminals of Walltax Road.

Stories of the changing faces of colonies and galloping real estate prices in our neighbourhoods. Stories of the eating hot spots of the city in the 1960s and movie-going trends in the 70s.

– (Courtesy: Mylapore Times.)

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