A Kings Ransom Indeed
Last week Mumbai was held to ransom by the transportation services, the idea being they pay more, we pay more.
The price hike is ridiculous in our sights but the rise in pricing of CNG gas, petrol etc has been the bleeder to the rickshaw and taxi guys. I know we give them a lot of rap for them trying to embezzle extra cash out of us, but man this has taken a big bite out of them as well.
We normally take this system for granted, catch a rick get to anywhere in a matter of minutes; sometimes the ride is bumpy, sometimes its just maddening (a rickshaw driver that was grinning like a maniac while zooming thru traffic without any qualms of meeting his death and throwing me to mine), sometimes its entertaining (chatty taxi driver explaining the reason certain places have certain names), but overall its a quick relief. No matter how many times we’ve cribbed and yelled about them, they’ve been very helpful and most forthcoming in getting us there.
But when these goofy pieces of the traffic puzzle exit the stage we’re pretty much left with a system that gets deeply affected.
Though honestly it must’ve felt great to find roads less congested, it inconvenienced a lot of us that would delay things to the last moment counting on these speedy means of transport to rush for us. Travelling required either walking for short distances or waiting in a persistent line for the bus whose numbers did not support the hereby exploding populace of Bombay. So merely reaching places late wasn’t the problem, it was upsetting a very well defined schedule that depended heavily on these means and they know this so well.
They strike, upset this schedule that we have going on and we give them what they want, with minor adjustments of course.
We do have a choice, but giving up the familiar isn’t exactly considered a choice, so sacrifices are made and plans are set on the table but primarily no one has it in them to give up said modes of movement. So we pay them a hand and a foot to keep us off our feet while cribbing about paying them a mountain of gold.
Truth be told it takes a kings ransom to get moving in this city, and as its rightly put in hindi – ‘Apna kaam karvane ke liye kabhi kabhi gadhe ko bhi baap banana padta hain!’
