Bangalore

My first two days in Bangalore I only moved about on foot and explored my closer surroundings. On the third day, however, when the unavoidable gastrointestinal problems hit me and I felt too sluggish to walk longer distances at 38-degree temperatures, I climbed into an auto rickshaw for the first time.

It would be the only ride during which the driver duly and unbidden switched on his taximeter. It is a mystery to me why he asked for 30 rupees (almost 50 cents) although 21 were displayed. He pulled out a slip of paper and pointed at a table. So be it; the amounts are so ridiculously small there is no need to argue about them.

Since then I make use of such a three-wheeled moped now and then, usually for the route from the hotel to the Metro. Thousands of the rattling things drive about here, intoning a concert of horns, and are often so old that the rear seat might fall off while you’re getting out. Sometimes the drivers want 30 rupees for the very same route, sometimes 40, which I decline politely. Sometimes they do not even ask for a set amount, but are quite happy with the 20 that I offer them. The phenomenon of it is that I pay far more for the route to the Metro than for the ride on the ultra-modern city railway itself. Depending on how many stations I pass through on the Metro it costs me between 10 and 14 rupees.

Recently something happened to me that I had already read about in India travel blogs. I wanted to go from Cubbon Park to the Metro. After starting off, the driver said he would take me there very cheaply, for only ten rupees, because we are friends, because he is my brother. But first we’d stop off in a shop, and then go straight to the Metro. I had neither the time nor the desire to go shopping, but he did not respond to me. He rattled with me onto an out-of-the-way street; I obligingly entered the basement shop. There, other female German tourists who also did not want to buy anything and had been brought there by their auto rickshaw stood before a huge pile of pashmina shawls. I looked at a couple of shawls, then left and assumed that was that. I was mistaken! “Then we shall drive to another shop,” my driver decided, “and then I’ll take you to the Metro.” Who did I meet in the second shop? Two German tourists who were not in the mood for shopping, but had been brought there by their rickshaw drivers. We joined forces and at least managed to negotiate a good price for four shawls.

My driver had waited in the rear courtyard. As he was finally really driving me to the Metro he interrogated me about how many I bought and what I had paid. I suppose he was calculating his commission. He showed me a slip of paper, from which I could derive that he receives petrol vouchers for taking tourists to the shop. It makes sense, for petrol is hugely expensive here at about 1.10 euro per litre, whereby most of it is puffed out of the exhaust pipe in traffic jams. That is why the low-earning tricycle coachmen switch off their engines at every red light.

Now that I know this, I can better understand the rickshaw man who I merely asked for the way to the Metro on my very first day in Bangalore. He came along with me and would not leave my side until I had disappeared through the ticket gate. He said his shop was across the way and I ought to take a look at it. I have met him a few times since then and every time he latches onto me to take me to his shop. I always tell him I have an appointment and no time, but he won’t believe me. Well, really, a female European with a camera bag certainly does not look like she’s off to work.