Hello,
Auto rickshaw, a vehicle most commonly used in India across almost all cities / towns & provides earning & living for quite a big number of auto drivers. Just a few days back I met one such auto walah. In Bangalore, getting an auto is quite a task as most of the rickshaw walah will either not show any interest in the place you ask them to go or they will just ask you randomly some amount to pay which is like twice or thrice the actual. I have even seen few who will not even look at you, few will give expressions like what man...go catch some other auto, I do go to such places !!!
Among all these, I met this guy a few days back when i was going to my friends place from Koramangala to Indira nagar. I took the auto around 9.30 pm & he immediately asked me to pay one & half ! I looked at the watch & agreed to pay him the same. The auto wallah was a pakka Kannadiga driver, he spoke to me in Kannada only. I learned Kannada while staying in Bangalore over the last few years. Since I made a few grammatical errors he realised that I am not from this part of the country & he asked me immediately from which place I belong to ? I told him that I am basically from central india, Indore (MP). He was quite impressed by the fact that even after being a north Indian I could speak Kannada well. He started talking to me & told me that even he knows more than 5 languages which includes kannada, tamil, telagu, hindi, malayalam, marathi & little bit of understanding in English. He said as a child he wanted to learn all the languages but he could not study more than 8 th standard due to there poor condition. He said but that day he decided that his child will learn all that he could not. Today he is a proud child of an engineer son who works with big company in Bangalore. I was very impressed with his attitude & asked him why he still continues to drive auto when his Son is quite well paid & is taking care of him. He can see the curiosity on my face to know the answer, he replied - " sir, when I was young I thought I will learn all the languages, but I could not study them in school, but my profession has allowed me to meet people of all cast / creed / religion & i stated talking to people to understand whet they speak. I drooped even the foreigners & able to learn English. So today as you told me you are maharashtrian I wanted to test my marathi & so I started to talk to you. This way I am learning almost all the languages without spending anything & just to keep learning I drive the auto." He indeed spoke to me in marathi & spoke quite well. I taught him few more sentences & he was happy to learn more of the language.
By this time we reached Indira nagar, I took out the wallet & pulled one & half of the meter reading. He promptly said " sir, when I asked you for one & half, i just wanted to communicate more with you, so that you will bargain & will speak more to me before getting into the auto. I do not want one & half, you just pay me the meter & more over you taught me few more sentences in marathi." I was taken aback & was falling short of words. I was surprised that the man who must be about 58-60 years old by now has not given up his eagerness to learn new things. It was quite an experience that day which I thought will be worth sharing.
In life we do our jobs - the routine jobs but we do not try to do something new, we just keep on following what we see people doing around us. Life is an experience & each day brings something new to learn if we care to observe things differently around us. That day I learnt that we should never give up on learning new things irrespective of what age we are at, what profession we are into, what ever we learn can never go waste.
Keep discovering yourselves !! Cheers !!!
regards,
Praful
