Funny Auto Incident in Pune

This incident happened in June/July 2003, when I was working in Chennai. Well that was the first time I am travelling to Pune. A s/w company requested me to come to Pune for a final interview. My friend promptly arrived at the railway station and picked me up in the morning.

We drove in his scooter to his room, I got freshened up and was ready to go to the company for the interview.

I asked him how should I go to the company? He said catch an auto and  pay the meter I was very much surprised, well coming from Chennai, you can know the reason. My company was located near NDA-Pashan road and my friends place was close to the railway station.

Somehow I took an auto and started my journey. Well, the auto meter was similar to Chennai (I am not sure if it was heated, like they do in chennai – to make the meter run like a cheetah). Surprisingly, the meter was running damn slow. My journey took almost one hour and the meter was running very slow. That is when I decided, if I get a job in Pune, I will travel only in Autorickshaws ).

I reached my company and saw the meter reading. It read 17 rupees and 40 paise. So, happily I gave 20 bucks to the driver and asked him to keep the change. He gave a funny look at me and said “give me 100 bucks”. I was like WTF? I said…”dude, read the meter, it says 17 under rupees and 40 under paise and on top of that I gave you 20 bucks and asked you to keep the change. So why should I give you 100 bucks”. I told him that he is cheating me.

That’s when he took some table/chart (similar to our log table) and said the readings are not rupees and paise, but the km reading. I said he is cheating me. But the table read for 17.5 km the amount is 90 bucks, I dunno the damn calculation for it

I tried to argue with him and that’s when he started howling at me and shooted some Marathi gaalis. I did not want to create a scene, so gave him 100 bucks and cursed him (of course, within myself).

I went inside the company and met the HR. I narrated the incident and he said, the driver is right (I cursed myself ) .

So, if anybody is leaving to Maharasthra for the first time, do take care of these

Apart from this Pune is a fantastic place, if you guys have been to MG road in Bangalore, you can see a similar place in Pune also. Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi