This was a piece written in August that I just never thought to publish, for some reason. Given that I've revisited it twice in the last two days, now seems as good a time as any.
A story about an auto ride a fair few months ago. :)
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A story about an auto ride a fair few months ago. :)
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TN 3066
His name was Manikandan, and he
drove an auto; TN something something 3066.
It was dark when he pulled up in
front of me, a few minutes past 9 PM. I wasn’t scared per se, just a little
wary, the same cautiousness that rushes through the veins of any girl
travelling alone after dark. I climbed in, told him that haloed OTP number that
would let me get moving, and began fiddling at my phone. I was coming off a
work day that was running at 13 hours and counting, and just about getting used
to the concept of a commute. Spending over two hours a day on the streets was
not my idea of fun, and I was figuring out how to be “productive” in this time.
I sat there, in the sat behind him, checking if there was anyone I had to call
and say hello, wondering if calling my fiancé (preferably called boyfriend) at
this hour was a wise idea or if I should act pricey some more and hold off for
a few more hours. My beautiful indigo sari tied specifically that morning to
make a point at my workplace (yes, I am the only girl; yes, I wear kurtis
without dupattas; yes, I can wear a sari too; yes, I can play billiards with
you boys in this sari; and yes, you wait and watch I will show up in pants one
day) was a crumpled mess just about hanging on to my body enough to get home.
My brain was whizzing with everything that needed to be done – I was fresh to
full-time, “regular” hours employment and yet had not given up any of my side
“projects.” I had kept telling myself that they were not too many, did not take
too much of my time, and were not demanding too much attention, until I had
counted the previous evening. There were seven projects. Seven. And, as a
friend mentioned, a wedding to plan and physiotherapy to be on and a diet to
focus on. Half my brain was constantly thinking about how many litres of water
I had had so far and the other half was conscious of the possibility of back aches,
pains and general skirmishes being just around the corner. Somewhere in the
middle of all this, I was trying to keep a handle on work, other work, the
other work work, and life in general. So just that moment at 9:07 PM on
August 3rd 2018, Manikandan and Auto Number 3066 were not at the top
of my mind.
Manikandan had other plans
though.
It all started rather
unsuspectingly. He asked me if there was a “cutting” on the road ahead, a local
phrase to ask if there was a side street that would help avoid the madness that
is North Usman Road at any time of night or day. I told him we could only get
out through the main road, he doubted my expertise, asked me again, and got me
to admit I was not sure. I could have sworn he clucked his tongue at me for a
second before revving up that vaahanam of his and hitting the roads with an
unquestionable confidence. To be fair, I should have seen this coming. I had
made the booking after a work meeting (that was after a work day, on a Friday,
yes, I know) and he had picked up to ask where I was. I told him exactly what
my hosts told me – North Usman Road – Croma showroom – and the rest of it. He asked me if this was near the railway lines and I said yes
on a hunch, guessing off a previous conversation we’d had. He announced that he
wouldn’t be following the GPS directions, he’d come through the back streets,
and it would be faster. I put the phone down and unintentionally foreshadowed
the rest of my evening. “Theliva irukkaru,” I said. A few minutes later,
Manikandan was here on 3066, clucking his tongue at how little I knew of the
back streets of T Nagar.
I don’t remember how we began conversing. In
the beginning, I was explicitly uninterested, caught up in my own head
untangling my own web of thoughts. I must admit I quickly felt guilty and
wrestled with myself about what the “right” thing to do was – was I meant to be
present and engage with this man, an evidently chatty soul who needed nothing
more than the mash-up of Hmm-Rightu-Correct-Aamam-Oh to keep talking, or should
I use the time for more “important things”? After all, I’m likely never to see
the man again and I do have so much to do and it has been a long day, but
presence and engagement and humanity! Very quickly, I realised my voice was
doing the Hmm-Rightu-Correct-Aamam-Oh rotation while I was neither paying
attention nor doing my own thing. Soon enough, I gave up. Manikandan and TN
3066 won.
He spoke about so very many
things, more things than any stranger should talk to another, definitely more
than a middle-aged man is encouraged to say to a young girl at 9:20 PM at
night. He began talking of Saravana Stores, I forget why. Ah yes, we were on
North Usman Road, and he began talking of how there are two Saravana Stores in
T Nagar now, that there is not enough parking for either even despite
designated spaces, and then went on to give me a map of all the Saravana Stores
in the city. Two more in Velachery, one in Porur…I decided to take a breather
from my Hmm-Rightu-Correct-Aamam-Oh rotation and contribute to this
conversation, realising all he needed was a little nudge to keep going. I
sighed about how there is a perennial demand for Saravana Stores anyway, and
they seem to be doing well, so of course they are crowded. He jumped right on
the bandwagon. He told me how he used to buy shirts there for Rs. 5 but now
ends up paying Rs. 375. He told me how there are two types of players in the
textiles market – the RMKV, Nalli, Pothys and Kumaran types (he repeated these
four names three times, they seemed important) and the Saravana Stores types.
“Andhe naalu irukke, ange pona perukkage poraange. Rate-ukaage ille. Evlo velai
irundhaalum vaanguvaange. Raasiaane kadai nnu nambivaange. Saravana Stores kku
vandheenge naa enne model, design, elaam paaka maataange. Rate mattum thaan
mukiyam.” (Those four, people go there for the name of it. Not the price. No matter how expensive it is, they will buy. They like it is lucky. If you come to Saravana Stores, they will not look at model, design and stuff. They only look at the price.) To him, “ooru-kaarange,” or villagers, were defined by those whose colour palette
was limited. Oodha, violet and such were outside their comprehension. To them,
there was only pachai (green), nilam (blue), manjal (yellow), sivappu (red). At best, mittai colour (pink). That was
all they cared about, that was all they knew. But his wife was not like that.
His wife was the rare breed of people who shopped at Saravana Stores but also
asked about models and designs and also knew oodha colour. She bought all his
clothes, he never went even if she called him.
You see, she’d ask him to leave
his vandi and join her to shop, but this was a rented vandi, and if someone
turned the steering with a jolt a couple of times, the cycle lock would break
and who would be responsible for that? And anyway, he only wore those carefully
selected clothes a couple of times a year. Pongal Deepavali maadhri. For every
other day, there was the trusted khaki.
We were barely out of T Nagar by
now and had a long way to go. It was then that I got a sneak peek at the inner
lives of the auto driver community. He told me he only ever drove in khaki. If
he wore the carefully chosen clothes his wife picked out, he wouldn’t be able
to drive, he said. I had a flash of an image, Manikandan in a bright oodha
shirt turning on the auto and forgetting how to get it running. He disappears
for a second, comes back in khaki, and all his knowledge comes rushing back,
almost like if Samson’s hair had grown back in a second. But even as I was
drawing up Samson-Manikandan comparisons in my head, he had gone on to tell me
about others of his clan. How some of them could only drive if they were well
dressed, how some of them had a “lucky” shirt, how some of them complained if
the shirt got them Rs.1500 rupees one day but near nothing the next week, how
that led to jovial digs at how maybe it wasn’t washed right, how that let to
less jovial digs at how washing is done quite well in my house
thank-you-very-much. All just to tell me that Manikandan likes his khaki and
some others like their oodha. Got it.
Now that we were talking about
the wife, we may as well talk about the rest of them. Manikandan has two
children, I learnt. A girl in the 8th grade (who writes exams very
fast and yet still cannot finish them, because theriyale ma, varale. I don't know, I just can't.) and a boy
who is in the 10th grade (and is very self congratulatory about
getting 35 in exams even as others chide him, muppathi-anju elaam oru mark
ah! Is 35 even a grade?). The boy next door to Manikandan drives Uber
while Manikandan drives Ola. Why? Because the Uber app is largely English based
and Manikandan does not know how to read it. In fact, Manikandan did not know
how to read Tamil until he was 18 years old.
When Manikandan was an 8-year-old
child, the neighbours convinced his illiterate parents to send their second son
to school. The Nungambakkam government school refused to admit an
eight-year-old into grade one, saying he will face the brunt of bullying, so
they got him into Grade 2. The neighbourhood children promised to ferry him to
and from school every day and keep him safe. Until on Day 4, they didn’t. They
left him somewhere and the child lost his way, going straight instead of taking
a right somewhere. (He told me where, but of course I don’t remember). A
stranger saw this child carrying a bag and crying down the street, deciphered
the pictorial markers that he gave to identify his house, and brought him back
home. Those were the days of child kidnapping, Manikandan says, where they
would take “chinna pasange,” (small children) put them in a “koode,” (basket) pour acid in their eyes and
force them into begging. His mother, seeing her second son walk in with a
stranger, got frantic and demanded an explanation. The stranger was thanked and
education was forgotten about. In the words of his father, “padippu oru mayirum
vendaam.” (roughly, no bloody need for education) And that was that. The eight-year-old Manikandan began to work in the
“companies.”
It was when he was 18 that he
landed in the last of his companies, leather. You know the type that makes
handbags and purses for women? The ones that lets you open them and keep credit
cards and such? That is where he worked, in the company of many many “ladies.”
It was those ladies who realised he didn’t know to read. Anything. Not even ka
nga cha njya, the Tamil alphabet. And it was those ladies who fixed it. They taught him the
alphabet at an age when “mandai le onnum aeraadhu,” (nothing would get into his head) and the rest of his
education was the Dina Thandhi. Every day, he invested in the newspaper. Every
day he read. Every day he got fast. Now he could take care of himself. Indira
Nagar, Tiruvanmiyur, Mamallapuram, he demonstrated as we turned left from Tidel
Park. When he was 19, he learnt to read the time.
Manikandan grew up with no sense
of the world around him. The Three Ladies were responsible for his education
and emotional growth. They’d take him to work every day (he didn’t know which
bus to get on) and he’d land up at their houses two whole hours before they
were due to leave (how was he meant to know?) and on weekends, they’d introduce
him to the world of cinema (Udhayam theatre!). Many years later, he drove an
auto, struggling against the market forces that gave offers and discounts and
incentives to the customer, but cut a commission from his every ride. He’d
drive through side roads and dug up streets and suffocating traffic, you know?
For a savari (ride) that was priced at Rs. 46? And when he checked his account, he’d
only have Rs. 41. Why would they need my five rupees, he wondered. Sitting at
the back of TN 3066 heading towards the ever-red Tiruvanmiyur signal, I could
sense the weight of age and memory and struggle. The khaki collar and
salt-and-pepper head that made up my view were streaked with the colours of
experience, hardship, and stories that bore witness to it all. And that night,
for a reason I will never know, he chose to share them.
In those seconds on that street
that connected OMR and ECR, the minutes that led up to a house so
far removed from his own, there were many memories that were
shared. An eight-year-old boy scared on the streets. A father who didn’t
understand the spirit of education. A stranger who made him independent. A
large corporation that seems too vast to fight. A struggle for the dignity of
daily life. The weight of many years and many battles, all cloaked in a choked
voice, a pause just a second too long, a conversation from T Nagar to Tiruvanmiyur with a stranger in an indigo sari who thanked her
stars she finally paid attention.
