The Auto-Rickshaw Manifesto

The auto-rickshaw is not a vehicle. It is a philosophical position.

Consider its design: three wheels, which means it shouldn’t be stable but somehow is. An engine that sounds like a food processor disagreeing with itself. A cabin that seats two comfortably, three normally, and seven during festival season.

The Driver

Every auto-rickshaw driver is a libertarian. The meter is a suggestion. The route is a negotiation. The concept of a “fixed price” is a creative fiction that both parties engage in knowing it will be revised.

I once asked a driver in Bangalore to take me from Koramangala to MG Road. He countered with Indiranagar, which was not on the way. When I pointed this out, he explained — with the patience of a man explaining gravity to a child — that Indiranagar was better than MG Road, and he was doing me a favor.

This is the auto-rickshaw experience. You tell it where you want to go, and it takes you where you need to be.

The Physics

An auto-rickshaw occupies a quantum state in traffic. It is simultaneously in your lane and not in your lane. It will fit in gaps that don’t exist. It will make turns that defy the known laws of geometry.

I have seen an auto-rickshaw make a U-turn on a road that wasn’t wide enough for a U-turn. The driver didn’t slow down. He simply decided that physics was wrong, and the auto-rickshaw agreed.

The Sound

Close your eyes in any Indian city. You will hear them before you hear anything else — that distinctive put-put-put like a mechanical heartbeat. It is the sound of ten million individual journeys happening simultaneously, a city in motion, democracy on three wheels.

The auto-rickshaw asks nothing of you except a destination and a willingness to negotiate. In return, it offers the most honest version of a city you will ever experience — unfiltered, un-air-conditioned, and completely alive.