On a Sunday morning...

“How much to Begumpet?” I asked the autowala who was generous enough to stop for me. “This goes till Ameerpet only. Rs.15” was his quick reply.Having been brought up with autorickshaws as the main mode of transport in Chennai, Rs.15 for 7-8kms seemed incredulously low. This is Hyderabad, I told myself and these are shareautos as they call. I understood the meaning of ‘share’auto pretty soon. Stop after stop, people got in and suddenly there were as many as six passengers and one driver in the small space! Four poor souls (including myself) in the back and one on each side of the driver…

Traffic signal junctions are a curious spectacle in Hyderabad. The flow of traffic is not well regulated especially in the evenings. I have been a witness to ten minutes of a single line flowing when the other three lines pile on the queue. On a Sunday morning though the flow wasn’t a problem. Looking at the traffic policemen, I was wondering if they would catch my autowala for overloading. Only when I saw other autos in the same plight did I realize the norm here. I also couldn’t stop being amused by the stick like figures of the traffic police. It used to be belly type ones in Chennai, I recollected. It added to the terror then (I didn’t have the driving license till some two months back!). The journey continued…

Tall, new, stylish buildings one after the other clearly meant that we were passing through Hi-Tech city and its famous Cyber Towers. All the major software concerns have their offices somewhere around this place including my office. Though on the outskirts of the city, it is one of the costliest areas given the purchasing power of the people living nearby. Real Estate at its peaks, all major exclusive showrooms, plenty of pretty women around (some spotted with cigars in their hands!), quite a place is this Hi-Tech city. Two of them got down when the autorickshaw stopped. Relief! Not for long. The vehicle was filled soon. Only this time a nice young woman sat beside me. It was quite a journey…

There is a humble gentleman in every guy. But one can’t help when a pretty girl is sitting beside. You start getting highly conscious of yourselves and start to look in different directions, do different things. I for one took out my earphones, switched on the radio and started shaking my head slowly, ostentiously enjoying the song being played. The song? There is one truth I found out about Telugu songs. All of them (well most of them) are simply copied from Tamil cinema! From A.R.Rahman to S.A.Rajkumar, every arbit song is dubbed and the radio is generally full of known tunes. Another truth: I hardly notice people conversing in Telugu here. Hindi is more prominent in Hyderabad which is clearly not the case in Chennai.

The autorickshaw passed through Madhapur, Jubliee hills (the varying altitudes of the roads got the place the name?) finally reaching Ameerpet. The lady got down and walked without caring for the poor guy who tried his best to seem natural. After making the payment to the autowala, I went in search of another to take me to Begumpet. Seeing the crowded ones come by, I wondered if shareautos here should be called spareautos (spare the autos!!)