Unruled Notebook

[For those who purposefully skipped Part I & Part II: Long before pagers were given free for the purchase of 1 kg of brinjal, there were cycle-rickshaws in Srirangam. As a schoolboy, I disliked them and suggested design modifications for them, in my mind. Then came the auto-rickshaws and I preferred walking and personal helicopters. To add insult to my injuries (from auto-travel), these auto drivers were re-christened "transport executives" in an essay titled "Crowd Psychology Near Any Roadside Bhel-puri Shop" by my MBA enemies. I stopped playing cricket with them. Proceed.]

Speaking of auto drivers, I have to speak of the policemen.

Opposite the main auto-stand which is beside the bhel-puri shop, is the Srirangam Main Bus-stand. Other minor bus-stands are all along the roads, wherever you get two buses to stop one after the other. There is a police station opposite to this main bus-stand and hence, beside both the bhel-puri shop and the main auto-stand, but behind them.

The brown-shirt-with-black-badge clad men inside this police station remember also to wear their black hats. They don’t want the bhel-puri shop owner and his minions to mistake them for the auto-drivers and admonish them about the ‘old balance’ (Such a shame to be asked to pay for your eating for what you did as a service to these shop-owners). On occasions when they forget their hats and this admonishment happens (the bhel-puri guys wait for such occasion, I guess), the policemen take it out on the auto-drivers in their usual (mamool or dol) way. The auto-drivers in turn take it out on their passengers.

To begin with, in Srirangam, there is no ‘meter’ system for renting the auto-rickshaws. There is a fixed pricing scheme – fixed by the auto-drivers. It is based on their mamool, which in turn is based on the degree of shame the policemen well up in their system, when facing the bhel-puri shop vendors. The rates are never exorbitantly high else you will quit traveling, but only a wee bit costly than what costly is for you. At any stage of your Life.

Of course, the autos are “free” for pregnancy. Nevertheless, it involves gender constraints, for you to use that facility, at least once a year. However, in comparison to the cycle-rickshaws, you don’t need to travel backwards or sideways anymore. Only, you wished you didn’t have to travel at all.

Especially, when you are very old (unlike me) and have to go to the Temple through the South Gate road – the most crowded street of Srirangam. When encountering a crowd, the auto-rickshaws, with their three wheels and lots of heavy yellow painted metal, can do the same curvilinear elastic movements that a flimsiest bicycle (like my sister’s BSA SLR without the cross bar) cannot.

With spectacular results, within and without.

The ‘solid’ you, sit huddled, facing forward and watching in bewilderment, the physics-defying things happening around you, on the road. You keep feeling you would meet The One in the real vaikunta before getting a glimpse of his idol-image at the bhooloka vaikunta (sobriquet for Srirangam, meaning Abode of Eternal Bliss on the Earth).

For some strange reason however, these same things (men and hen flying all around) have no effect on its perpetrator sitting in front of you. You wonder, perhaps, he is the one who knows The Path (no pun intended).

After all, he sits there serene, amidst a pandemonium that you seem to envisage in your immediate surrounding. He even keeps staring at the “Sri Ranga Thunai” (Thunai – protecting company) sticker in front of him, as if in contemplation of the God. He is performing his driving properly (Right Duty). Under his professional eyes, all Earthly Srirangam Distances are the same and all Srirangam Men are Equal (remember, no ‘meter’ and fixed pricing for homogenized distances). He knows exactly what he is doing with his profession (Right Action) and what its effects are, on you and the World (Right Knowledge). By his actions, i.e. demand to pay for his (handy) work, he inspires you to earn more (Beneficial to Fellow Men). He even helps the policemen (Feeds the Greedy, oops, Needy) and the similar looking pregnant women (Charity). Above all, he is driving towards (the) God (of Srirangam) with Inner Calm.

One of these days, somebody from the auto drivers of Srirangam is going to become a (Saint) Nammazhvar of Modern Times.

Probably that’s why Rajnikanth, the superstar of Tamil movies, that ardent seeker of spiritual path and solace, sang na autokaran, autokaran (I am an auto-driver, auto-driver) in one of his matured movies.

[For those who missed Part I: Srirangam is. Cycle-rickshaws were. Auto-rickshaws rule. Proceed.]

Proceeding with the auto-rickshaws, these are cushion seated engine-powered conveyances, with a black clothed top and a glass covered front, with the rest usually in yellow painted metal. They are also bestowed with red air-horns that make cheap and loud noises. Resembling that from a (group of) cat(s) caught in between the wall-corner(s) of the closing door(s).

The ‘starting’ of these yellow auto-rickshaws (of course, named Sri Ranga) with their red horns, is a sight to watch. The passenger inevitably sits inside. Most of the auto-driver is usually outside, with his one leg (on the auto-floor), one hand (on the auto-accelerator) and one part of the brain (left lobe), inside the auto-rickshaw. The ‘starting’ begins. It first involves a series of jerks with the starting lever, the vibration from which propagates over the entire auto-rickshaw with the passenger (shake well before use?).

On the 23rd time (count varies each time, depending on how bad the counting or the auto is), when the lever becomes almost vertical in rage, something happens. To prevent the driver from wrenching off the lever forever, the auto-rickshaw starts with a coughing wail. Similar to the sounds from a crybaby with whooping cough, about to be robbed of his/her candy.

The drivers for their part are indeed rough looking men (capable of committing the above deeds with the auto and the kid), clad in multi colored outfits, which in turn were covered in brown shirts with black badges. However, the hearts of these men were made of pure (yellow?) gold. At least of some such hard metal. Because, why then they were addressed as ‘transport executives’ by the guys with MBA degrees from the BIM, in one of their report titled, “Crowd Psychology Near Any Roadside Bhel-puri Shop”?

To explain further, Srirangam has (only) one of these bhel-puri shops beside the Srirangam Main Auto-stand. “Main” because, there is another smaller auto-stand, opposite the Devi Talkies that show old movies. That is, old for my father (Keechaka Vatham, Ashok Kumar etc.).

Getting back to the bhel-puri shop, it is a ‘joint’ where after a ‘sightseeing’ evening walk, college junta used to crowd-in for a brief, spicy chat. It is here that my BIM-graduate enemies got their inspiration for that aforesaid report. Enemy because, I used to hate all MBA aspirants and won’t play cricket with them (Nowadays, I hate all men of my age. I play video games.)

The transport executive title popped out of a particularly inspired rambling from my enemies, while sharing a spicy chat (conversation) over the buzz of the gas stove and the din of the bus stand. That report was second only to Umberto Eco’s “Crowd Psychology in the Sahara” (appeared in Focault’s Pendulum by Eco) and the report’s authors became an instant hit.

I personally hit more than one of them. But that’s another story.

[Srirangam is a small town 6km north of Trichy, the 'second capital' of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It lies on an islet, formed by the twin rivers Kaveri (Cauvery) and Kollidam (Coleroon), a tributary of the Kaveri. River Kaveri is as sacred as the Hindu Vaishnava Koil (The Temple) that Srirangam houses. No one seems to know in dates, exactly when the Koil came into existence. A brief history of the temple is given [ here ]. In Srirangam, myths, legends and history are inextricably blended to paint an often idyllic and fantastic world that is rich in imagination, nevertheless soaked in the ancient Indian culture. A brief contemporary vision of Srirangam is [ here ]. What follows are random thoughts, often related to this place, gleaned from the Chaos that once had a Srirangam boy as its outer shell, who is no more with us, in this seeming Cosmos]

Long before the days when pagers were given free for the purchase of 1 kg of brinjal from the Day Vegetable Market in North Uttira Street and East Adayavalanjan in Srirangam, were the days of the cycle-rickshaws. These are the three-fourth clothed on rainy days, three-wheeled (on most of the days), bipedal, solo driven transport convenience, with the passengers sitting in the “baby-seat”, travelling backwards. They are called Sri Ranga cycle-rickshaws in Srirangam.

During the Sri Ranga Matriculation school days, I usually am seated in between the Rexene-clad ‘big’ seat and the wooden ‘baby’ seat, on the aluminum clad floor, with legs dangling out of the contraption, traveling sideways.

By the way, in Srirangam, almost all nouns and pronouns carry “Sri Ranga” or its variant, as a prefix; Ranga vilas, Sri Ranga maligai, Sri Ranga Rice Mill, Sri Ranga cycle-rickshaw etc. Whether he likes it or not, even the God of the Srirangam Temple is named likewise long back, by the forefathers of some of the present day Sri Ranga pronouns.

To proceed with the story, when hitting the (Sri Ranga) road bumps of Srirangam, you are lifted a feet off the aluminum floor. Of course, the real fun is while coming down. Some crafty road bumps even get you off from the floor and onto the baby seat.

As a boy, I kept wondering, especially when coming down to the floor, “Why could they not raise the floor of the rickshaws a feet above?” Then, we don’t have to travel down a feet, to hurt our asses. Some bumps later, I came up with another thought of lowering the floor a feet below. Then, when encountering road bumps, you don’t have to be lifted-off at all, in the first place!

I felt ashamed that I couldn’t think the second thought first. I never spoke about them to anybody until now, as I no longer care about these rickshaws and rickshakarans. Before I proceed any further, even though most of those cycle rickshaws were named “Sri Ranga”, let me state that this essay is not about those cycle-rickshaws and the accompanied thoughts.

Because, before these cycle-rickshaws made a dent in my mind, came there the auto-rickshaws.

This form of transport changed my perspective of traveling to such an extent that, I still walk inside Srirangam and whenever necessary, fly out of it in a personal helicopter.