[selfdrive]

Day -1 and earlier

As with all normal taxpaying IT worker class (partial credit for this term to fellow bhpian @sajo) it was getting mighty unaffordable to continue at my existing workplace. Yes the commute was only 6 kms one way, but for some reason they expected me to work. To make it worse, they expected the work to be done at odd times, and even. For those who think that laptops and ‘flexi’ working hours are a boon, please read the fine print. Nevertheless, to cut a long story short I had to change my employer. The not so shiny part is that I am notoriously horrible at interviews. More so by those conducted by fellow desis. Not being racist here, just an observation. Somehow one organization still wanted to recruit me and issued me an offer letter.

The only glitch was that it was located on the other side of Pune. The organization i.e. My commute increased from 6 kms one way to 25 kms one way.
So I spent all the duration of my notice period ranting about how to tackle this commute. A note of thanks here to bhpian @mikon for not throwing me off the roof during any of our mini meets.

The problem is that my thin wallet is complemented by two petrol cars and one petrol (is there any other type?) motorbike. The motorbike was ruled out for commute by majority vote at home. Folks who have seen either my car ownership thread or TL will want to ask why I even try to put this to vote when I know the result beforehand. To be honest, I don’t really have an answer.

That left me with a choice of two petrol cars for my 50km per day commute. I considered selling one and buying a diesel car and tried to start with the smallest diesel car I knew. I reached the Chevy showroom and asked for the Beat OTR price. I got an answer of 7.2 L, and I laughed in the SA’s face. I still don’t get why it is priced like that.
Even after the job change I don’t earn as much. I learnt something else that day; I am also horrible at salary negotiations. I walk out of the showroom with more questions than before.

How will I ever get there?

[selfdrive]

At the next mini meet, fellowbhpian @ninjatalli asked me if I intended to take the office cab due to the nature of the commute. For those who don’t know, the commute stretches between the east and west of Pune, passing through the centre of town. No you Bangalore guys, we don’t have a metro. Nor a ring road to get mugged. So it seems a good idea that I can rest while someone else drives for 50 kms every day. The seed is sown for availing the office cab.

Day 0

A few weeks before I joined my new workplace, we had a ‘Bus Day’ in Pune. For a few seconds I wondered if I should take the bus to work. A casual glance at a passing rusted bus with seven deodorant less guys hanging off the footboard jolted me back to reality. I return to what is now Plan A. The office cab is the only plan. I repeat to myself.

Day 1 which is actually still Day 0

I drove to work as I had no clue of the cab driver, timings, pick up points etc. It took about an hour and I was busy playing the usual ‘spot-the-biggest-moron’ game. There really is a lot of competition on the roads. After I finished the day’s work, someone kind enough gave all the cab details and I was superglad for reducing my carbon footprint a little bit by opting for a cab. The cab is as good as a car pool, just that none of us have to drive. That has to be a good thing I told myself.

[selfdrive]

Day 1 of the cab, pick up

Armed with my newfound desire to cab it, I reached the pickup point at 930 as informed. The other people at my society gate were 2 huge dogs on their early morning round. I was standing in their way apparently and they growled. With a mixture of awe (fear really) and confusion I gingerly moved out of what I considered harm’s way. I haven’t seen these dogs harm anyone, but I didn’t want to be famous in the society for being the first one.

It was 9.35. I called the cab driver, 2 minutes he said.

I looked around trying to find something interesting. 3 kids came out of our society for their school bus, one of them a toddler perhaps in preschool. I would have looked like a giant version of them if I had a haversack too. There were a few joggers around who waved or smiled while passing. They must know me somehow though I have never been out jogging. Then I thought it was likelier that they knew the kids.

The preschooler’s superpainted Nano (neat idea for a pickup!) turned up, picked him up and left. In another few minutes, the school bus turned up and picked up the other two kids. I was left standing alone as the two dogs passed me on their way back. Even they had finished their morning work.
9:43, I called the cab driver again. 2 minutes he said. Is this a noodle ad of some sort? I thought to myself.

The royal chariot finally swerved into view at 9:47; a shiny new Chevy Tavera. I was expecting a beat up Indica with a ‘Changbhale’ sticker (copyright to whoever coined it) and LED strips under the footboards.

Things had started better than I had expected.

[selfdrive]

As for the final solution, dont focus on the destination, enjoy the journey. Well at least that is what I thought before I got into this office cab!

In the cab
The other key expectation I had was of the cab driver being an overspeeding maniac spitting out of his window while swerving in and out of lanes without indicators. The kind that we usually see driving around town. This guy was a total letdown. For starters, he was wearing his seat belt. He seemed surprised that I wore mine. Sir, no employee does that nowadays. Of course they dont, now pull up your jaw and lets be going.

This was better than I thought. But then he switched on the radio.

One went “ Radio xyz pe char, haan, superhit gaane, haan haan, chip chip chipak ke, haan haan haan". Translated, on Radio xyz we have four, yes, superhit songs, yes yes, stuck, stuck stuck, yes yes yes. I had not listened to radio in Pune for years and I was getting multiple reminders telling me why.

Flick, next channel. Oh those radio hosts in Pune! Are they recruited based on who can speak more nasally? Are they relatives of the one and only Himess bhai? And why do they have these jingles every minute? Radiyoooooo-ooo –ooo. I could have strangled this RJ and wrung his neck with my fingers.

Flick, to the sanity of Vividh Bharati. We had lessons in German. Decent enough, but the cab driver started staring at me while pulling over to pick up the second colleague. He pulled out a pen drive and looked at me with pleading eyes full hope. So we inserted the pen drive and Kumar Sanu took over. He is no Mohammed Rafi but this was at least better than all the radio nonsense.

Music sorted, we moved from crowded bottleneck to crowded crossroads to pillar picking up the other colleagues to fill up our cab. I got introduced to my environmentally conscious (or lazy) new colleagues one by one. For some reason they were all grumpy. Perhaps because they lost the front passenger seat.

This driver had too much patience for my liking. He was letting bikers cut across and other cars go ahead. He was in no hurry at all. To make things worse, for some reason he was always in the slowest moving lane. If he accidentally found himself in a fast moving one, he would promptly switch over to the slower one. With indicators, on the correct side too! We took an hour and fifteen minutes to cover an uneventful 25 kms. I was missing my motorbike.

[selfdrive]

Day 1 The return trip

After finishing work, I reached the cab lugging my laptop only to find that I had been beaten for the front and middle rows by a bunch of overeager colleagues. They got theirs back the same day.

I grudgingly found my way into the rear confines of the Tavera and tried to doze off as we left. After all I had chosen the cab to rest and save me from ranting at fellow drivers.

But one of my colleagues had different plans. Worse still, she was armed with her own pendrive loaded with the choicest selection of olfactory abuse that one can compile.
Where there is fire, there should be some fuel added. This Tavera had only rear speakers, so the volume was always kept higher than usual. I was in the rear seat.

The songs were shoddier than my tone deaf liking. Radha teri something, Radha teri something, repeat and chorus. Then the next track, Khiladi bhaiya Khiladi bhaiya, repeat and chorus. Are these songs or just repeat recitations and screams in chorus? Gulzar saaheb save our souls!

I could be tone deaf, but I didn’t want to turn completely deaf in the next hour. I said a silent prayer for Radha and Khiladi, whoever they were and pulled out my earphones and ipod. So much for resting in the cab. Another 90 minutes through the slowest lanes of the most congested roads in town and I was finally home.

I was missing my motorbike. And now my cars, the free revving petrols.

[selfdrive]

Day 2

After a night of tossing and turning due to the frequent thuds (beats) of Mr. Khiladi and Ms. Radha in my inner ear, I woke up not so optimistic about the impending cab drive to work. It is easier to find a rule obeying cab driver than a radio channel playing something other than what passes of in Bollywood as music.

Is that commute really worth 90 minutes each way, I thought while ironing my trousers. But I had to save the world by not driving around and wasting petrol. After all there was only so much liquid we could take out from a sphere till it started bouncing around like a deflated balloon.

Hang on a second, was that why we have had so many earthquakes and volcanoes and typhoons? Was that the reason for this foul burning smell? No hang on, that’s the overheated trouser. I was beginning to lose it. Whatever little I had left.

The son piped up. Our school bus is bigger than your office cab. And faster too. I cringed and gnashed my teeth. This cab commute was occupying every (ok, 1 big vacant) space of my head.

The same kids, dogs and joggers smiled at me. The same cab and same driver turned up.

There were multiple occasions during the commute where I had half a mind to throw the driver out and drive myself. Seated in the front passenger space, I kept pushing my right foot down hoping this slowpoke would accelerate but he would not.

Someone else would overtake us and fill the gap he created in front of us. I have always hated being a backseat driver. So far. I had refrained from suggesting lanes or routes. I find it difficult I to keep my opinion to myself at the best of times. These were nowhere near the best.

Then the chatter began. It was from the colleagues seated in the middle row. About some movie they saw that they thought wasted 2 hours of their time. Damn, I waste that amount of time of my life everyday in this cab. I dug out my ipod, plugged in the earphones and closed my eyes. Count to ten. Ten times. Raised by ten. Raise the volume.

The saving grace on this day was that I managed to outrace everyone else (even the driver) and grabbed the front passenger seat. Maybe I should have taken the driver seat while I had the opportunity. One hour 40 minutes of second gear crawl with the HU remote in my hands. The guy in the rear seat was actually enjoying the volume. I recalled the adage about the pig enjoying wrestling in the mud. Then I drifted back into the ipod world till I reached home.

[selfdrive]

Day 3

Same kids, dogs, joggers, you get the picture. By this time, I had bleary eyes and was really not looking forward to anything except the weekend.

Our friend continued his merry slow way and the middle row chatter moved to discussing how someone was passed over for some promotion or award. Something snapped. This is inside my head, not in his shiny new Tavera.

I asked him if he was from Pune. No, he wasn’t. He was from some other place smaller and less congested than Pune in terms of traffic. Let us leave that out so that we don’t stereotype people. To be honest, I don’t really care, I just forgot the name of that place.

Then I asked him why he took a route filled with schools, colleges and offices when he could take another slightly longer but relatively less choked route. He did not know of this route. Of course, I had to tell him of the holy grail. We reduced time on the commute and were down to an hour and ten even with his style of hogging -the -clogged - lane driving

The evening came with a replacement driver. A very fast and rash one, though thankfully this version did not spit either. Unnnervingly for me, he did talk on his mobile while driving. He did his utmost best to average the commute time for the week by swerving in and out of multiple lanes with one hand constantly on the horn. But he was still getting stuck in the wrong lanes and took more time than the usual (safer and so called slow) driver. I asked him if he was in any tearing hurry.

I pointed out the relevant lanes and route to him and told him there would be a complaint if he drove like that. Considering that he sobered down and followed instructions, I presumed I looked and sounded menacing enough.

Elsewhere in the cab, multiple conversations were in flow about different topics I could not care any less about. Does anyone else I know take cabs? I know a bhpian who takes the bus, but is it an office bus or the PMC one? I think even he drives to work now. I would like to know if any other bhpians have interesting experiences in their office cabs. But we are supposed to like driving, not sitting and being chauffeured (ok, freighted) around.

It is really very difficult to be seated in the front passenger area with nothing to do while someone else drives and decides what music to play. It never happens to me in my car. If I am in the car, I drive. Music could be chosen by someone else in the car. I was beginning to rant and rave.

This was not going well. I was missing my bike and my car. Now even my Rockrider!

[selfdrive]

Day 4

A different set of slightly older kids. Some other joggers, and just a few stray dogs. I smiled at no one in particular as both my left feet returned to their usual exercise routine and a more familiar and pleasing sound flooded my ears.

945 am. I called the cab driver.

He: Sir, I am waiting outside your building. Will you take 2 minutes or more?
These guys must be having noodles for breakfast everyday.

Me: Oh that’s great. But please don’t wait for me. I left a little early and have already reached office. Oh and do me a favour will you? Please don’t call me for the cab. I will call you if I want to take the cab.

The car keys were shining on my desk. Well not really, they were just sitting there. It was still my good old car, not a new one. For the first time in 3 days, I noticed other cars. All week, I was just busy worrying about the other person accelerating or braking on time. Or not on time. This morning I felt alive. Not as much as I would on a bike, but better nevertheless

I turned to my colleague.

‘It took me 35 minutes to drive to work. Do we need to inform someone to opt out of the office transport?’

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Street Experiences Section. Thanks for sharing!

Man, you have some style of writing. I was on the floor by the end of it.

[bblost]

A super good read as people wait for the Friday to end and the weekend to begin.

Thanks for sharing. As a wise man once said...you must "Live to Drive".

[sukiwa]

Absolutely loved reading, makes me think if I should summarize my experiences with office bus.
You have completed this experience quite fast, I wasn't expecting it to be ready this soon.

[ghodlur]

@Selfdrive

Simpley put...hillarious. Just replace the office cab in my case with the public transportation and it will become my experience. I felt using the BEST for commute to office for another couple of days and I would end up like Tusshar Kapoor in Golmaal doing only aeon aeon aeon.

Felt alive when I drove in my car with couple of office colleagues besides me (part of carpool). Even they stuck to their newspapers and iPods (and me look like their driver) but what the heck I was in my Fiesta, revving real hard.

I Live to Drive.

[Schoudhury]

Awesome .
It was almost like reading a book, i was actually able to visualize each and very scene
Going to office by cab is an awesome experience, and specially if we have couple of ladies how knows each other quite well, then you get to overhear all kind of silly/funny stories .

One more part about seating in the front seat next to the driver is , your natural instinct takes over and you try to hit the brakes or press the gas , thinking you are the one who is driving .

Cheers

[Warwithwheels]

Wow! Excellent read. And many thanks for making the world know the real significance of your TBHP Handle!

[ArunV]

@Selfdrive
Nice reading. Could imagine each and every second that you mentioned. You got a nice of way of writing.