Autorickshaws ruin Mumbai’s roads

The one hour commute to work is the best part of my day. It’s the only time I get to hear myself think. But mostly because I love driving — I don’t mind the traffic, and the noise doesn’t bother me once the windows are rolled up and the air conditioning comes on.

It wasn’t always this nice. I hated waiting for a rickshaw guy to deign to take me to the local train station, then running up the lopsided steps, navigating people’s bags and baskets, only to reach the platform just as a train was pulling out.

When I finally — usually after 10 minutes of waiting — entered the train, there’d be vendors selling everything under the sun, aunties trying to put their wailing babies to sleep on the seat, and other women looking patronisingly at me when I ask them to move their feet or bags so that I could get a seat too.

I ended up taking a cab to work almost every day. More expensive than — and almost as uncomfortable as — the trains. After about six months of tantrums, the husband finally relented and let me take the car to work. Initially, I felt guilty about blowing up so much fuel, but when I entered the office all charged up to face the day, I convinced myself it was worth it.

Driving in this city is a pleasure. In Delhi, everyone’s out to overtake the next car, even if their destination is 100 miles away. In Ahmedabad, you have to be wary of the signals — rickshaw drivers, for instance, stick out their feet instead of their hands to indicate a turn. In Pune, motorbikes monopolise the road, so naturally, there’s no lane system.

When I started driving in Mumbai, I was amazed at how organised the traffic was. Yes, there are jams, but they’re usually because of flyover/skywalk/metro/monorail construction and potholes create bottlenecks, not because people drive like maniacs.

The only thing I don’t like about driving is the rickshaws. Incidentally, they’re also the one thing I don’t like about not driving. The dudes drive like there’s no one else on the road and they don’t have a clue about how a lane system works. Even BEST buses, despite their size, try and keep to only two out of 3 lanes. These rickshaw guys barge their way into any available gap, and if a car so much as gets close to their dented fenders, they get out of their rickshaws menacingly, with sleeves rolled. Ugh!

So when I heard that a CNG pipeline was damaged and rickshaws were off the roads, I couldn’t control my glee. My sincere apologies to all those who had to suffer overcrowded and rickety BEST buses. Naturally, more people brought their cars out, but without rickshaws adding to the chaos of bad roads, we all reached our destinations much faster — I managed a one-hour-commute in 35 minutes. The roads were cleaner

After two days of zipping through Mumbai’s roads, the chaos is back. Too bad. Call me snobbish, but I’m hoping there’ll be a rickshaw strike or something soon...