Ride At Your Own Ris(c)k

After a long time, my mom and I set out together on a shopping spree. Since both of us now share a common fear of crossing the road right outside our house, we beckoned the auto rickshaw driver at the stand across the street. With the temerity of a bull-dozer driver he propelled his rickshaw right into the raging oncoming traffic. Unfazed by the flurry of honks, expletives and the burly bus that screeched to a halt microns from his rickshaw, he parked his ricketty steed in front of us, waiting for the damsels in distress to mount his chariot.

His coutenance reminded me of the masked marauder with a kerchief bound around his face and only two piercing macabre eyes visible. We told him the destination and the engines roared under his command throwing us completely out of gear. As we sat up and blinked at each other, he was busy weaving his way through the crawling cars and trucks as though he was playing road rash. It probably never crossed his mind that his was a 3 dimensional vehicle with 3 wheels! We clung precariously onto everything within our reach.

Just as we were about to recover from the horror, he kept honking incessantly at the cyclist ahead of him. After an exchange of ineffable expletives he got the obdurate cyclist to cede. He cut through the red signal despite the ominous PMTs and insane Sumos that threatened to pulverize the insolent rickshaw. I covered my eyes and peeked at mom through my fingers. She was praying fervently for divine intervention to deliver us of the evil rickshaw driver. I was ruminating that all these years of mom's prayers had been reduced to our survival in this rickshaw ride. Further, he decided that for greater customer satisfaction there should be some in house entertainment and the speakers behind us blared with infernal tunes. My mom let out a "Narayana" and "Hare Ram" to nullify the diabolical events around by sacred chants of the Supreme being. The rickshaw driver was, of course blissfully unaware that his ingrate passengers were ascribing execrable epithets to his valorous character. In his own eyes he was a superhero, nothing less than Shaktimaan, trying to transport two members of the weaker sex (pardon me, but all superheroes take this sexist stand) to their destination at lightning speed and fighting off Saitaan PMTs and Krur truckwalas who tried to sabotage his noble mission.

As we regained consciousness from our spiritual state of mind, we realized that he had driven his ramshackle 'ram pyaari' into a bylane which had recently been awarded by Radio Mirchi as the winner of the 'Sabse Bada Khadda' contest for the biggest and largest number of potholes. On the brighter side, we got to measure the shock absorbing capacity of the adipose tissue on our hind sides. Of course, we had ascertained long before that the upholstery of the seats had none and that Indian rickshaws were manufactured without shock absorbers. It also enlightened us about the innumerable nuts and bolts that were rhythmmically drumming their unfastened state into our ears. One of them happened to fall off and roll from our hero's head.

Unable to endure the ordeal any further mom requested him to drive by a different route. He snapped back asking why we hadn't informed him of our preferences before hand. Carping about our fastidious feminine minds, he swerved into the nearest lane a la` Michael Schumacher negotiating a turn on the F1 track. But we weren't in the Monaco GP because he almost ran into a a herd of jackasses ambling across the street. More expletives came spewing out as the phelgmatic creatures sauntered at their own sweet time. But our hero was adept at handling obstinate mules of both human and bestial forms. He pressed the horn and turned on the accelerator so that it sounded like a menacing bee threatening to sting the living daylights of any fleshy target.

With the animal caravan out of his way, he sped like an athelete covering the last leg of the relay after being handed the baton by his teammate. As we crossed the mall we intended to shop in, my mom asked him to halt. Unmindful of her request, he veered his vehicle through a 180 degree U turn with a flourish almost propelling us out of the vehicle. Before he could subject us any further to his superheroic stunts my mom and I screamed in unison loud enough to awaken Satan himself.

As money changed hands, we discovered that he owed us a few rupees. "Rakh lo" my mom said ridding herself of the masked villian. Encouraged by the generous gratuity, our superhero set off on his future mission to terrorize several other unsuspecting passengers by taking them on a rickshaw ride of their lives.