Autowallahs of Mumbaipur -I: A series of unfortunate incidents

Share

Tweet

Share

Share

Email

Comments

By IndSamachar Bureau: I have the plot for the next Anurag Kashyap hit. The plot has conflict, action, drama, tragedy, comedy and just enough masala to make a ‘tasty’ film. Only, instead of the fast cars they are usually seen driving, the stars will be seen travelling in autos, and driving them will be the daredevil stuntmen who do it for a living every day. And then there are the omnipresent cops, who teach us valuable life lessons. I plan to call it ‘Autowallahs of Mumbaipur.’ What do you’ll think?

This tale is about two cousins – ‘A’ and ‘D’. ‘A’ lived in a middle-class colony of a central suburb of Mumbai and ‘D’ not very far away.

One evening ‘A’, his wife and their child had to go to the nearby D-Mart and they, as usual, decided to take the friendly neighbourhood auto. The couple tried hard to hail an auto rickshaw, but all they got in return was a shake of the head and a ‘Nahin jana hai uss taraf’ from the more ‘polite ones’. While this got ‘A’s’ goat, his wife calmed him down and explained to their child that the auto uncles were just preparing him for life and the series of rejections he would receive over time – from girls to companies to bosses and even from them – his parents.

But our protagonists’ tryst with the autowallahs wasn’t over for the day. They finally managed to get one who was willing to take them to their desired location. But, as fate would have it, there was a complication. The auto seemed to be finding all the potholes with precision. The driver, on being told to be careful, turned and retorted with the choicest of abuses (something that the child managed to pick up and store to be used at a later date upon his ‘friends’). It emerged that the not-so-gentle-man was drunk and still out and about. On being told to stop so that the trio could disembark and escape the ‘deathly ride’, the autowallah came to a halt almost immediately, almost crushing the toes of a traffic policeman standing at the spot.

‘A’ was actually happy with this, thinking naively that the cop would take some action against the drunk driver. But that wasn’t to be. The cop let the driver go without even the usual snide remark or Mumbaiya ‘tapli’ (‘A’ thought they must have been family friends and let it go). But the next moment, the policeman caught a senior citizen driving an auto so that he could ‘teach’ him some driving techniques. ‘A’s’ wife, let’s call her ‘S’, explained to their son that the whole experience was orchestrated by ‘God’ to ensure that they understand that life is precious and you never know when it will all be over. She told the kid that the drunk driver made her and his dad realise this and also reminded them to call all the relatives they hadn’t spoken to in a while. The cop uncle, she added, was trying to guilt-trip the people standing around into hiring the elderly man’s auto by pretending to ill-treat him.

Now, you would think that’s the end of it all. But hold on…

After completing their shopping, the trio approached the waiting three-wheelers, but were again given a dose of the ‘Nahin jana hai uss taraf’ medicine. Not having had the smoothest ride to the market, this was too bitter a pill for ‘A’ to swallow and he changed avatars – he turned into Natraj and started doing the tandav (or did he have an epileptic seizure?). The details are sketchy, but one thing is for sure, the auto he was holding on to shook like there was an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale. As his wife ‘S’ described it to her child, “The autowallah was ‘shaken, not stirred’” and thus agreed to their demand of taking them to their location that would see him not get any return fare. Luckily, they returned home without any more incidents otherwise ‘S’ was worried ‘A’ would turn into Parshuram and go about breaking autos.

To know the story of ‘D’, read the sequel that’s coming soon…