Republic Day Special

Here's a Republic Day special. One to warm the cockles of your heart - wherever the cockles maybe in the heart. Bharat mata ki Jai! And jai to all her sons and daughters wherever they may be.

As my profile currently indicates, I'm based out of Surat, Gujarat. Yesterday, I had to go to the Holiday Inn here (yeah, Surat is actually big enough to have a Holiday Inn!). The company had organised a session for target setting and similar things for the group I am working for. And so, early in the morning, at 8:45, I set off from my home. The only way that I could get to Holiday Inn was by good ol' autorickshaw. Now, as is true with a lot of cities in India, the meters that have been installed in rickshaws are pure showpieces. More put there just to give you the faint gasp of hope that maybe, just maybe, things will be fair. But no. And so it's down to good old fashioned haggling to determine how much I would pay for my ride.

Actually, I didn't have to haggle too much. The rickshaw chappie asked for 30 bucks. I'd figured that the ride would cost roundabout 40 bucks. Hey, I wasn't complaining!

The ride was uneventful and shortly I reached Holiday Inn. I got off and as normally happens, I discovered I didn't have change. So I flicked out a 100 note and again, as normally happens, the rickshaw chappie didn't have change either. After much digging into all his pockets and into the furthest recesses of his wallet, he managed to dig out all of 60 bucks. Figuring that this was God's way of telling me to pay for what I thought was the fair amount, I accepted the amount and decided to ditch any further arguments. The rickshaw chappie gave a consoling 'I'll give it the next time.' Yeah right! It's not like Surat's your average village where everyone knows everyone and things accounts are kept with strangers like that. So I gave a knowing smirk which said exactly all that and strode off to Holiday Inn where the meeting passed off as eventfully as I'd figured it would.

I returned to office at around 2:45. Didn't feel like doing much work. Checked mails. Replied to mails which I would normally not. Sent Citibank customer service a highly frustrated mail for not sending me my e-statement. Chatted about with colleagues. Waited for 5:30. Then tried tracking the India-Pakistan match for sometime. Decided that waiting for 5:30 without doing anything would be more interesting than the match.

5:30 finally arrived! And I scooted from there as fast as I could. Returned home and watched TV. Listened to music on my iPod and read a novel. Missed a call from my boss. Oops. Called back boss. Big mistake! Got summoned to work at 7:00 in the evening. Damn. There goes a quiet evening.

Quickly changed and got ready. Went down and asked a rickshaw whether he would take me to workplace. 'Theek hain' was the response. I hopped into the auto while the chappie started it up.

A hand reached across from the driver's seat in the rickshaw next to mine. It had ten bucks which was given to my rickshaw driver. 'Aaj subah ke liye' ('For today morning') was the explanation.