I am the aam autorickshaw driver that you hate

Dear Bigger Apples,


My story is a little similar to the municipality mango clerk from Ratnagiri. Instead of Ratnagiri, I blossomed into a mango fruit at Patna.

I lost my parent mangoes when I was only a small keri. And being a Keri without a tree, I was very sour and bitter to taste. My friend mangoes were all rag-pickers and that's what I did through my childhood and early teenagehood.

I fell in love with a pretty looking Keri ragpicker. She loved the movies and we used to often travel to nearby villages to watch open air movies. We also used to gather up the leftovers after the show and practise the dance steps that we had seen.

That's how I came to know about this big apple Mumbai and the bigger apples who lived there. It was my dream to come to big apple and become alphonso mango moviestar aka mithunda and govinda.

To cut a long story short, myself Keri and herself Keri came to mumbai and tried our shot at the movies. One thing led to another and instead of acting or eating alphonso mangoes, we built a hut of thrown away mango crates. Myself Keri started driving an autorickshaw (a huge improvement from ragpicker and a little less than that coolie amitabh bachpan) for a alphonso apple sethji and Herself Keri started producing three more keris and washing clothes for other big apples and alphonsos.


Now coming to the main seed of this mango post - myself Keri, my autorickshaw and the fruity things I do that makes all you big apples so red in the face. When I started driving the autorickshaw, I was in awe of the places I will visit in big apple mumbai and all the different apples and mangoes that will sit in my autorickshaw. I was always eager to be flagged down and drive these big fruits to different places.

I drove on the Bandra - borivali belt, usually in andheri. I remember looking up in awe at all the big apple buildings and when I looked straight ahead I saw big apple cars crawling among autorickshaws. Doing this, I first broke all the suspension of my auto and even managed to break its nose on a car ahead. Many beatings and abuses later, my alphonso sethji executed me by wiping away five months of salary. I was also to pay for the fuel and repair my rickshaw for the next five months.

Poof, bang and boom - I landed on earth and have never left it eversince. By loans and various other secrets that I wish not to divulge I repaired my auto and paid for the fuel. I flatly started refusing any journey within two kilometers from where I was flagged down. I flatly refused to ply my rickshaw on road craters bigger than the moon. Fuel prices started becoming as costly as alphonso mangoes and even jaali fuel made Keri chutney of my family income. 

I found out a pleasure for a different kind of fruit/veggie drink - one that made me wonderfully happy at night and sick in the morning. Little dry crushed leafs chuna marke became my chewing gum of first choice. By this special drink and special chewing gum (that turned blood red when I spit it out) , I could bear the moon craters, I could bear constantly inhaling black smoke in serpentine traffic jams, I could bear the constant monstrous noise from my own auto and others around me, I could bear my alphonso sethji's abuses and much more, I could bear my auto breaking down every third day, most of all I could somehow bear the constable mangoes constant heckling and needless fines and finally I could bear the constant cries of the big/small apples/mangoes questions of asking why are you saying NO. 

I say NO, because of all the above reasons. I say NO because I believe I am running a business and can refuse a bad investment of time and fuel.

I also OVERCHARGE and have rigged my meter Keri chutney style because I need to feed myself Keri, herself Keri, three little keris, pay for fuel, give money to sick mango cops, give my bloodstained money to the alphonso sethji who owns this god-forsaken contraption and finally I OVERCHARGE because I need that magic drink (fondly named as Desi Tharra) and that magic chew to bear it all. Yes, I earn but never enough, never enough....and there are no promotions in my job.

So, my dear big apples, 'I am sorry for inconvenience caused - but work in progress, not charity.'





Mango wala wink P.S - And big apples - fyi - I earn nearly the same amount by ferrying all you alphonsos as I do by taking special mango girls at night to mango hotels and back. I earn as much by taking kiwi fruit tourists to setting wala hotels and if by the grace of Alphonso mango almighty - a Washington apple happens to flag me down, then I expect unexpected diwali bonus. So, I shall here-fore say NO and rig that meter darned fruity.

(Cartoon image of Autorickshaw courtesy : http://shashwat-artisticblur.blogspot.com/2010/05/auto-rickshaw-ravan.html)