Rickshaw Unions - Fighting for “The Right to Cheat”

Unbelievable but true. That someone could actually fight for the right to cheat. It doesn’t end here. The cause is supported by political parties across the board. Let’s begin at the beginning.

Rickshaws and Mumbaikars have a love hate relationship. They love to hate but cannot live without each other. A year ago, a few ordinary people got together and started a "Meter Jam" campaign, a day when Mumbaikars would not use rickshaws. A way of showing the rickshaw drivers that they need to change or else. The 1st campaign tasted some success, but 3 successive attempts did not receive any response.

Last week Mumbai rickshaws suddenly went off the roads. The reason. Police has started a campaign to check rickshaw meters. Most rickshaws that were checked were found with tampered meters. The strike was to protest against the checking of meters. Unions got into the act. And since unions are run by political parties, they too wanted to be part of the solution, to a problem they created to begin with.

And the justifications were even more unbelievable. The first was that the only way rickshaw drivers could survive was by tampering with the meters and cheating the passengers. And of course, they would only ply on routes that were lucrative, and if it meant refusing passenger, well that’s yet another Right.

In India, all of us know and fight for our Rights. We forget about our responsibilities. The Union has a positive role to play. Ensure that its members the rickshaw drivers are taken care of. And so is the passenger. Here however the Union play an adversarial role. They bother neither about the rickshaw driver nor about the passengers. All they are interested is in the power of running the Union. And if it means that both the rickshaw drivers as well as passengers suffer, then guess what, yet another Right.

It’s sad that because of the internal clashes between the 5 + unions that exist, everyone ends up losing. The rickshaw drivers because they lose their livelihood on days of strike and several potential passengers on other days. The passengers who lose the convenience of a friendly neighborhood rickshaw. And the city which loses its claim to be a people friendly place.

Mumbai rickshaws and their drivers provide a service that is one of the most cost effective and efficient services, not only in India, but across the world. If only the drivers get together and form a group that disassociates from all unions and does their job, as best as they could. I’m confident that their business will go up by 100%. They may lose the 10 – 30% they gain by overcharging. But the additional revenue will more than make up for that.

Already there are a few nice things hapenning. Such as "Call a Rick." A few things that all of us in Mumbai would love to see
a. Rickshaws never saying No, and taking you wherever you want to go.
b. Meters that are not tampered.
c. Safe driving without unnecessary honking.

Even if 2 out of the 3 becomes a reality, I for one will increase my rickshaw usage from an average of Rs. 100 a month to about Rs. 1000. And you know the best part. I’ll still be saving money, (petrol and parking is expensive), the pain of driving. All in all. Happy Me, Happy Driver, Happy City.

Todays Kids Communication – Good or Bad

Recently I was driving to a meeting with a colleague and he mentioned something very interesting. “Today’s kids just can’t communicate”. It wasn’t something that I had thought of, and so wanted to know how come he felt so strongly about it.

He went on to explain that he was working with several youngsters and they were just unable to communicate effectively. They couldn’t compose sentences, write correct e-mails, or frame decent letters. I have 2 teenage daughters and all I see them doing is communicating. Either on their phone, sms, bbm, e-mail, facebook, twitter, …

I completely disagree with my colleague. The audience, which is us is probably the one that is unable to get it. Think about this. They are able to get across exactly what they want to say, in under 160 characters. It’s almost like they have their own language. Just as the traditional Englishmen wonder what language the world that speaks English speaks, we too are not able to appreciate the power of this new language.

Today’s generation or Gen-X as they are popularly referred to can teach us quite a few tricks on communication. This generation has probably made more leaps in communication than any other that has preceded them. Most of us parents complain that they don’t talk to us and we don’t understand them. Think about this. Isn’t this exactly what our parents thought of us ?

The good news is that we’re quickly catching up. School teachers now use Facebook and BBM (Blackerry Messenger) to communicate with their students. And its mainly about assignments. They are expected to e-mail their assignments, thereby losing the primary excuse of “My mom threw it out by mistake”, or “My dog ate it”. Students then come up with “Oh, I sent the e-mail. You didn’t receive it. Must have been a typo”, and trap themselves when the teacher retorts with a “No problem”, forward it “Now”.

The major negative that I see from all of this connected or online social activity is its addictive nature. Kids prefer chatting and playing online than actually going out. If they are able to balance their online social life with their offline social life, they should be well equipped to face the world. Both online and off.

Ganpathi Bappa Mourya

Tuesday was the immersion of Lord Ganesha from Mabel’s house. Traditionally I’ve been bidding Ganesha, Goodbye over the last 10 years or so, and it seems to bring me luck. Whilst I’m neither religious or superstitious, why take a chance.

Prem and Mabel usually keep the statue or “Murthi” as its called in Hindi, at her home for 5 – 6 days depending on the auspicious day for the immersion. During this period, she invites family and friends for lunches and dinners. This way the Rajagopalans ensure that they gets to host a meal for everyone they know at least once a year. Great idea. Something I should learn to do.

My turn to be invited with my family was last Thursday. That was Family Day and everyone in the family turned up. The food supervised by Mabel was awesome. Mabel manages to serve great food, although she can’t cook to save her life. What matters is the end result and for that she gets a 10 for food. Don might give it a 4.5, but that’s because he’s picky (or what we call “Thingy”) except when it comes to his 2 kids. The vegetarian fare consisted of more than 15 dishes and would make a 5 star buffet feel inadequate.

My 2nd invite was on Sunday evening when Mabel had invited my friends and their family. Yes. Even my friends don’t escape the Rajagopalan radar. Why spoil a winning formula. And so the fare on the menu was a replica of the first. The awesome part is that it was just as tasty and equally enjoyable. Kowshik was at his absolute best and let out a few secrets that his wife Sunita had no idea about. Dancing bars, wild nights, cop chases, … Not sure how badly he got beaten up. Luckily for me, Ivy wasn’t around.

And my 3rd visit was on Tuesday. To bid Adieu. It was a popular day for immersion and so the traffic that’s usually bad was worse than normal. And I drove directly to the venue of the immersion, at Shivaji Park. There were no cars parked, but being late, I just parked at what seemed to be safe, and ran to the beach.
Prem, Mabel, Simbu, Chintu (their 2 kids), and Reia (my daughter) were already there. Waiting. As soon as I came, they started the puja. Completed in 2 minutes. Did a Darshan (a nod and a small prayer to the murthi) and waved goodbye, as the local who was going to do the immersion made Prem carry the murthi, till the water before taking it from him. That’s probably the most that Prem has walked with a weight in his hand in the last few years.

All of us went and had a traditional lunch as a bistro nearby. After lunch, I went to pickup my car, and horror of horrors, it was missing. Honestly, I had expected it to be, but took the chance since getting a proper parking might have taken another 15 minutes or so. I went to the Mahim police station a couple of kilometers away to get it back. Was told, that they were not towing cars today. May have been parked nearby.

Went back, and hailed a police van. A very helpful cop, told me the likely places they may have parked it in. In the very first place pointed by him, found my car, beautifully parked. Happy that I got it. Happier that I saved the Rs. 500 fine and towing charges. Thank you Ganesha. Or as we say, “Ganpati Bappa Moriya Pudhchya Varshi Lavkar yaa” - a Marathi verse chanted whilst bidding Adieu meaning, “Oh Ganpati My Lord, return soon next year”.

Little things make a big difference

Sept. 2 is the day when I celebrate my birthday. It’s never been a major event. Its normally just another day. And so I went to office, like any other day. And was hard at work, like any other day. Checked my mails. And in the digital world, every bank, mutual find, insurance and whoever else had my data sent a e-mail card. All impersonal, programmed to automatically send these. Nevertheless, it did feel nice that at least the digital world knew that it was my birthday.

Got a few “Happy Birthday’s” on Spark, our internal messaging system.  Just as I was beginning to feel good, that so many people knew and remembered, one of them unkindly pointed out that our login system shows the days birthday. One more “Thank You” to the digital world.

And then there was a commotion outside my cabin. I peeped out and saw a lot of people there. They were colleagues and sat in an office down the hallway. Since our Admin Manager sits in this office, I assumed that they had come to see him, and went back to work. Felt a little bad, that none of them realized it was my birthday and had walked in and wished me.

That’s when Pravina came in and called me out. They had got a beautiful birthday cake. And all of them sang “Happy Birthday” whilst I cut it. They also gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, which is as fresh today. I thanked each of them for having taken all the trouble.

What’s surprising is how I felt. This small but beautiful and meaningful gesture meant more than any gift anyone could have given. It was amazing how good I felt. It was touching. And that’s when I began to wonder.

All of us love it when people do these little things. Yes, how often do we do it ? I’m now more than ever conscious about how these little gestures can mean so much. And hope that I’ll be able to bring a smile to many faces. My target – At least 1 a week until my next birthday.

And thanks Pravina and all of the others involved (too scared to take names, in case I miss any), for your gesture. Every year, I become older. This year hopefully, I’ve gotten a little wiser.