And by public demand ....

This is one of my longest blogs .. also one of the first .. written about a year and a half back ... it isnt great . But it really is an experience I'll never forget.
This one's for Ms. Ayesha Beryl Dsouza who sticks by how it the funniest i've written ..
I miss the PSA and the Union . Thanks for all the attendance and the great times .. Cheers .....


This particular incident happened on the way to the station when we were going to Hampi about a month back. My good first male cousin on my good mothers side Prashant was visiting from Australia. We hired three autos to get to city station, one with the elders, one with my good parents and good sister and in the third auto (the most fun one!!) my good self my good cousin Neeru .
Now good cousin 'Shant had a bit of a wierd habit. He would ask anyone who made eye contact with him ' how it was going' This would happen with strangers on the road, waiters, salespeople and even beggars. When beggars approached him to ask for money, good cousin 'shant would smile and say 'hey! hows it goin ?' now im sure if the beggars understood they'd prolly say 'how do you think its going dumbass? I have four kids, a drunk husband who comes home everynight and beats me up, ive been knocked up again and with absolutely no self dignity i'm asking misers like you for money' ... anyway .. coming back to why i started writing this story.

On our way to the station, 'shant started conversation with the auto driver. Much to our luck he was a drunken maniac.
Conversation went like this:
'Shant('s) : Driving autos must be fun huh ? this thing gearless?
D : naah .. five gears
's: youre kidding ..
auto : correct five gears.
Crazy cousin from australia took this as an opportunity
's: Is it easy to drive an auto?
auto: english dont know's : translate that into tamil
D (in retarded tamil): auto driving kashtama? (is it difficult to drive an auto?)
auto: no no very easy
's: cool .. i want to drive an auto ... will you teach me?
auto (with a sudden mastery over the english language): yes. i teach you , if you teach me english. you give me telephone number.. i will come to house and teach
D and Neeru tried to make 'Shant understand not to make conversation with crazy auto driver type fellow.
Inane conversation went on despite efforts to stop them from talking.
auto : ande 'fucking' na yenna (what does fucking mean?) at which point good cousin Neeru tried very hard to jump out of the auto.
D (bravely) : ade rombe kette varthon (thats a very bad word)
auto : apadiya , ore naal ore ponne cholite 'listen' , naa chonne ' you fucking'.. ( one day a girl said listen and i said you fucking (fucking what ? ) .. )mauto (continuing) : na nanchen listen na kette varthon, naan chonne you fuckin ( i thought listen was a heaps bad word , so i said you fucking)and the idiot kept screaming the four letter word its continous tense .. i'm dreading to think what people on the road woulda thought...
D and Neeru had to fight urges to throw 'shant out for starting this..
'shant(whispering) : this is freaky man... finally it seemed like God was trying to help us.
The auto guy pulled into cantt. station, at which point i'm-suffering-from-foot-in-mouth-disease D says : hey . arent we supposed to go to city station
's: shut up! lets get out and get another auto .. ( apparently not too happy with 'how it was going')too late .
D took the divine opportunity and shoved it back in God's face. Thank you very much good sir .. but id rather ride with the drunk fool for another half hour and hold on to dear life...
auto guy heard this and said : no problem , i go to city station.(at this point Neeru resigned to her fate , started writing her will and began cursing that she would die a virgin )
Good mother rajashree decided to call on D's phone (voice cracking and connection breaking up ) : Kanna , Our auto's run out of gas, we've stopped near canttl, it'll take sometime , dont worrt if were late...
D (I'm-still-suffering-from-foot-in-mouth-disease) : WHAT ?? YOURE AT CANTT ??? MOM ? I CANT HEAR YOU ? THE AUTO ? STOPPED ?? YOULL BE LATE ?? YOURE BREAKING UP !!
auto ( never missing an opportunity to use profainity) : kya chuth (what a cunt).. no gas ? kya ? kahaan hai ? cantonment mein ? maine bola mujhe malum .. me follow i said.. me follow to station ... quite convieniently forgetting that he took us to the wrong station.fortunately .
good cousin 'shant kept mum all the way to the station. When we got there, D , Neeru and Shant did a little song and dance routine thanking all the Gods they could name for safely getting them to the station ..
The auto driver though hadnt forgotten about the you teach english, i teach auto deal .. m.a.d : i give you 400 rupees .. you give number .,,. i teach auto .
'shant: no im not from here ....
Luckily at that time the other good autos (carrying the rest of the extended family that was visiting Hampi )also reached their destination (which happened to be the same as ours! ..)
The other autos charged rs.80 while yours truly asked for a hundred and insisted on asking for phone numbers.... my granmother argued with the man about 20 rupees .. at which point to avoid spending anytime in the general viscinity of the idiot, D said .. just give him the money and lets go!and hence we made it to Hampi with no furthur hiccups .. but good cousin prashant couldnt stop about how India sure was a wierd place ..