Auto-Rickshaws in Delhi

I was visiting Mumbai a few weeks ago and hailed a taxi down to get to my destination. Before getting in, I told the driver with an aggressive tone (the way I deal with auto drivers in Delhi): “Meter se chalo!” (Go by the meter). He gave me this quizzical look, followed with a response“Yeh Mumbai hai boss, hum meter se hi chalte hai” (This is Mumbai, we always go by the meter).

This made me want to write an article to highlight my frustrations with the auto rickshaw system in our city. I blame the Delhi government for its current abysmal state. It’s a real headache to have to negotiate with auto drivers on every occassion, for every destination. I can’t remember the last time I paid the metered fare for an auto. The other hassle is that if they don’t want to go to your destination they won’t. I recently got out of an auto and a foreigner inquired with my auto driver as to how much it cost to goto the same destination I was coming from. He quoted her 2x the price. Now I understand the argument that foreigners usually earn much more and pay a lot more for the same service, but no one anywhere in the world wants to be taken advantage of. It is just one of the many reasons that make Delhi a tourist-unfriendly city.

I also sympathize with the auto drivers argument. I usually talk to them and they complain about how the price of CNG has doubled since the initial meter rates were set. The auto unions have maintained that in 2010 when the last revision took place, the CNG price was Rs 21.9 which is now Rs 39.9 (Reference: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-03-13/delhi/37681535_1_fare-revision-fare-hike-autorickshaw-unions). However the government has not increased the fares proportionally so no one wants to go by the meter – which is a pain to both the driver and the customer. In fact auto drivers went on strike in February and the Delhi government is ‘considering’ setting up a committee to review the fares. But how much bargaining power does a person who doesn’t have enough savings have? Eventually they have to go back to work to feed their families.

The Delhi government has a responsibility to regulate this sector. Transportation is a very important service in a city and to have it in such a chaotic state is shameful. The solution to me is a straightforward one – the auto union and government need to agree on a fixed rate of profit from each fare which takes into account annual inflation as well as CNG prices. This profit rate must be agreed upon for a 10 year period and renegotiated at the end of it. The meters should be revised annually to reflect changes in price of CNG and inflation. This must be enforced strictly by the police. Auto drivers not going by the meter should be  severely fined. It must also be mandatory for them to accept rides – they cannot turn people away when they are on duty. Finally, it is the citizens responsibility to ensure the law. We must insist on metered fares and inform the police if the auto driver doesn’t agree or is refusing a savaari.

I understand that we are a country with far bigger problems, so let’s fix the smaller yet hugely important ones first.

20 million students enrolled in English medium schools

20 million students enrolled in English medium schools

How useful is this? Would it be better for students to be educated in their first language and learn English as a 2nd langauge. An important 2nd language though, as English has now become a global language and we don’t want to give up our competitive advantage here.

Why Open Education is Awesome

Open education will help connect the world and allow information to be accessed anywhere an internet connection is available. This is the sole reason why developing internet infrastructure should be a top priority in developing countries.

Shantaram quotes

So I was perusing Shantaram again to find quotes from the book I really liked or had special meaning for me. Here are a few. I’ll keep adding more as I find them.  All these quotes belong to Gregory David Roberts.

• There’s a truth deeper than experience. It’s beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We’re helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any here would willingly pay. It doesn’t always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world. And the only way to know that truth is to share it, from heart to heart.
• Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart. Amore or Pyaar makes every man a poet, a princess of a peasant girl if only for second the eyes of the man and woman meets.
• One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.
• The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men. It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds and there are bad deeds. Men are just men —it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good or evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone —the noblest of man alive or the most wicked— has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God.
• The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say
• The simple and astonishing truth about India and Indian people is that when you go there, and deal with them, your heart always guides you more wisely than your head. There’s nowhere else in the world where that’s quite so true.
• The ancient Sanskrit legends speaks of a destined love, a karmic connection between souls that are fated to meet and collide and enrapture one another. The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognized because she’s loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement, every sound, and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say that we know her by her wings–the wings that only we can see–and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.
• She said I was interested in everything and committed to nothing. (Haha, this one holds special meaning)
• Men reveal what they think when they look away and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it is the other way around.
• Every city in the world has a village in its heart. You will never understand the city unless you first understand the village.
• Love cannot be tested. Honesty can be tested, and loyalty too. There is no test for Love. Love goes on forever, once it begins, even if we come to hate the one we love. Love goes on forever because Love is born in the part of us that does not die.
• Bertrand Russell once said that, “Anything that can be put in a nut shell should remain there.”
• Sometimes it is necessary to do a wrong thing for a right reason. The important thing is to be sure that our reasons are right, and we admit the wrong– that we do not lie to ourselves, and convince ourselves that we did was right.
• The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid ones and a hundred million cowards.