The amazing 4kms ride in auto

On the Friday afternoon, I wanted to go to ITPL (International Technology Park, home to many MNC software companies), which is around 4kms from my office, in Whitefield. The time was around 1205hrs when I came out of my office gate and went to an auto-rickshaw standing out there.

I asked the driver to come to ITPL for which, he said ok. Then, when i was about to sit in the auto, that driver asked me to pay Rs 40/-! The normal fare from my office to ITPL is around Rs 20/- (with Meter) but this fellow asked me to pay double the amount, that too in the broad day light!! When I asked him why, he started to tell that the normal fare (with Meter) will be Rs 25/- (one lie here!) and Rs 15/- extra is for him because 'he doesn’t get any passengers to come back here'. When i told him that from ITPL, he can get people and also there is an auto-stand out there, that driver did not agree and told that 'we people are not supposed to stand there'!! So, I moved out of that auto and went to another auto out there and thank god, that fellow took me promptly to ITPL without asking any extra fare. The fare came to Rs 18/-, for which I paid him Rs 20/- and got down. This ends one part of the 4kms journey and much more shock/surprise is yet to come… When I came back out of the ITPL, at around 1515hrs, I was in for a much more shock and surprise! There is an auto-stand just after the main entrance of ITPL. So, I went there and asked the first auto to come to my office, the same place where I started. The driver said ok and when he was about to start the auto, he told me that the fare will be Rs 80/-!!! I couldn’t believe my ears and asked him again how much, for which he said Rs 80/-. When I asked him why, he started telling that my office (which is 4kms from that ITPL) is ‘out-of-the-suburbs’ and once again, ‘it is very difficult to get passengers from there to here’. I told him that I don’t want to take his auto and started to get down by which time, from nowhere, a man came (I suppose he was one of the driver’s friends!) and asked me why I was getting down. I told him this fellow is asking exorbitantly, for the small 4kms ride and can you guess what his reply was? He also started telling that ‘my office place is out of suburbs and difficult to get passengers’ and he asked to somehow adjust and pay around 10 or 20 Rs less that what the driver asked! This irritated me a lot but since I was alone out there defending two bloody rogues (I really mean it!), I kept myself quiet. And yes, one more thing was that when I asked him there is an auto-stand near my office, from where they can get passengers, the driver promptly replied saying ‘we cannot go and stand in that auto-stand, we are not allowed over there’! I am not sure whether this is an utter lie or is this fact! Finally, I told both the persons of the auto that I will pay up Rs 25/- at max for which they totally disagreed and tried to pacify me to pay more…But I got out of the auto and started walking towards the bus-stop, but from behind I could hear them calling me to come back. Finally, before I went to the bus stop, I saw one auto coming down and when I asked him to drop me to my place, I quietly agreed and I paid the normal Rs 20/-. One good thing is that, there are still good auto drivers out there but the majority of them are spoilt, just spoilt for money and in turn spoiling and damaging image of Bangalore. I was just thinking that if these auto drivers can demand Rs 40/- or Rs 80/- from a localite, a Kannada speaking Bangalorean, then what might be the case with Non-Kannadigas or for the matter, some foreigners?? This is because the ITPL has got a very thick concentration of many non-Kannadigas and many foreigners, from many countries of the world and these auto ‘rouge’ drivers are there to spoil the name and image of Bangalore, just for the sake of good amount of money! As a citizen of this Bangalore, born and brought up here, I don’t want to see the image and reputation of Bangalore going down in waste due to this type of harassment. Is there anybody to listen to this and take appropriate action??