The Invisible Passenger...

A lot of people curse the autorickshaw drivers for being errant with their passengers but trust me not all are of the same breed...For a person like me they are the life support system as I usually dont prefer travelling in buses.(My this particular habbit also got me rebuke from a friend who believes in travelling by buses even if its absoulately necessary to reach home early or even if she is too tired)...This gave me the chance to experience the good bad and the ugly side of these particular breed of homo- sapein who run from one end of the city to the other day in and day out..Sometimes the irritation in their tone or behaviour can be attributed to the fact that they themselves are a harassed lot-by the traffic cop, by unusually long jams in the heat and low wages all culminating together to make them take out their venom at the passengers...

I experienced different kinds of auto drivers, some exceptionally good and informed about the political scenario or the current affairs, some good at describing the laws of the road and traffic, and some discussing how they missed out on education but thier children are studying in the best institutions of the city...I generally start a conversation with them if the guy looks friendly enough as it kills time in the snail paced traffic of Delhi and also gives you some serious peek into others mind and their thought processes....

Now you must be wondering what has all this got to do with the title "the invisible passenger"..well it so happened that I was on my way to my office in south ex from lajpat nagar.I was as usual on an auto hoping he would make me reach on time as I was late on that particular day, but as luck would have it we got stuck up in the moolchand underpass for almost 20 minutes as a sand laden truck gave away unable to bear the weight or so I thought...This made us talk about the situation on the roads these days and so on and so forth..But soon he narrated an incident that happened with him just the previous evening.He was on his way from panchsheel when the auto was stopped by a lady of around 30-35 years as described by him.She waved her hand near sirifort auditorium and asked him to take her to lodhi road. He asked her 40 rupees for the same and she sat without any argument unlike the "delhi passenger".... He caught her glimpse in the rear view once or twice and saw that she was bearing an expression less face staring at the traffic as it passed by..Soon the auto crossed the defence colony traffic signal and was climbing the flyover when suddenly he saw his passenger was no more sitting behind...She just vanished into thin air and there was not a trace of her...As he narrated this both of us had a shiver running down our spine as it was something very unusual...He stopped the auto and started thinking all possible things that might have happened like the girl jumping out of the auto etc..but he could not believe his own theory as he did not even sense her movement out of the autorickshaw...

There was nothing that he could do but only sent a silent prayer and returned home earlier than usual to narrate and discuss it with his family...On my part I became suddenly aware that I was now sitting in the same space shared by his invisble passenger and didnot know how to react...I finally reached my office and paid him his due thanking him silently in my mind for sharing this amazing experience and making the otherwise routine journey a little more exciting....