Travails of the morning traveller

I want to write today about the travails of a morning traveller, the traveler being none other than yours truly. Scared at the state of being idle at home, I have forced myself to take up an internship at a personalized gifting company called Carpe Diem (www.carpe-diem.co.in) and I must say that I am learning quite a bit and enjoying this stint, at least till now. More details on that possibly in another entry.

Today's entry is devoted to how I get to my office at Gandhi Nagar, Adyar from the Race course. I did attempt once this extremely brave act of commuting in a 2 wheeler to office quickly realizing that at the end of the day, the freedom that accompanied it was not worth it. I soon admitted to myself that this is a mission towards instant unwilling suicide and quickly gave up. From that day on, my mornings have started with hassling with the Chennai autowallahs.

Negotiations classes by Prof Rangamannar Veeravalli intuitively make me apply ZOPA , BATNA etc to even the meanest of transactions, but the auto rickshaw drivers are far indisposed and unsusceptible to these tactics. So much so that today morning an Auto wallah demanded Rs.150 for this distance which entails a nominal Rs. 50 and I ended up asking him if he knew where Adyar is.

I finally managed to get an auto for Rs.60 as time was flying away and I had to be in office by around 10 am. In the sweltering summer heat, we finally manage to get our way going around the Saidapet round about, thanks to which the traffic does move.

This whole journey for the driver is a battle of wits, an attempt at outsmarting other fellows on the road, diagonally moving from one end of the road to another to make use of an available one inch of space. This is equivalent to a mathematical puzzle, except that you don't know where you are heading next. Discipline and courtesy are words that lose meaning and this is a game of accepted murder and I sometimes literally close my eyes and pray that I reach safely.
So much for me learning to drive in a Metro! I have to give my idea of taking up lessons a serious second thought.

Added to this is the amazing self belief that everyone here carries that honking is going to lead them straight to heaven. It irritates the hell out of anyone traveling in an open vehicle like this poor auto of mine and disorients the drivers, sometimes in to the danger of losing focus.
We are on the left side of the road when we reach the Madhya Kailash signal and I see a 2 wheeler tagging along our auto fully knowing that he was going to take a right turn to get in to the Rajiv Gandhi IT corridor. I sit amazed at the amount of planning that has gone in to constructing a multiple lane highway when the source of input to it is a bottleneck where vehicles have to wait for half an hour before entering it.

From that signal onwards my auto driver got cracking and gave me lessons on tube less tires, their technology, costing, which type of vehicles have those tires, how they fill hydrogen and then spanning on to lessons in inflatable air bags which cost 1 lakh etc...... I am learning lessons everywhere these days !