I am a very keen observer of the human behaviour. I like to look at people and that is my favourite pass time whenever I am travelling alone. Today what caught my attention was, shared auto riders.
The shared auto-rickshaws are basically three people sharing the same auto to go to a common destination. I feel the concept of the shared auto-rickshaw is a very intelligent one. Mumbai is a very densely populated city and the number of public transport doesn't match or even come close to the population. That is why you would see people hanging from trains and buses to reach there destination, by hook or by risking their lives.
Coming back to why shared auto-rickshaws caught my attention was this, when someone steps on to our personal space we usually get really closed up or we start backing off from the person to get our space back. This theory doesn't apply when you are sitting close to each other in an auto, so close that part of your arms and legs are touching the other person and it doesn't bother us. It doesn't bother us that we don't even know the person sitting so close that he might as well can feel your pulse. It sounds intimate but it is not even close.
The people who are you are sharing your personal space is usually a middle aged woman with attitude problem or a middle aged man with a stinky sweat problem or a young petite girl who gets squeezed between other fellow passengers or generally a young guy with a backpack and loads of dreams in his eyes continuously looking at the cars passing him by.
The sitting so close to one another in such a small and confined space is really strange to me. Does it make the journey easier because all of them are strangers? Would it have been any different if they were acquaintances? I can't help but wonder.
Some times the auto stops working and all the three are then asked to de board the auto and stand on the side of the road awkwardly as the autowala tries to fix the problem. This situation is even worse than sitting next to each other. This situation involves eye contact with the other passengers and also a lot of coaxing to the autowala to fix the vehicle sooner so that the passengers can sit with each other.
There is always a big sigh of relief when the autowala successfully solves the problem with his vehicle. But god forbids if he is not able to, then the passengers starts looking for another auto, another set of strangers to share the space with till they reach the destination.
As soon as they reach the destination, the passengers never bid good bye or even look back at the people they were travelling with in such close proximity. They move on with their lives until the next ride. I wonder after they have reached the destination do they ever think about each other?
The shared auto-rickshaws are basically three people sharing the same auto to go to a common destination. I feel the concept of the shared auto-rickshaw is a very intelligent one. Mumbai is a very densely populated city and the number of public transport doesn't match or even come close to the population. That is why you would see people hanging from trains and buses to reach there destination, by hook or by risking their lives.
Coming back to why shared auto-rickshaws caught my attention was this, when someone steps on to our personal space we usually get really closed up or we start backing off from the person to get our space back. This theory doesn't apply when you are sitting close to each other in an auto, so close that part of your arms and legs are touching the other person and it doesn't bother us. It doesn't bother us that we don't even know the person sitting so close that he might as well can feel your pulse. It sounds intimate but it is not even close.
The people who are you are sharing your personal space is usually a middle aged woman with attitude problem or a middle aged man with a stinky sweat problem or a young petite girl who gets squeezed between other fellow passengers or generally a young guy with a backpack and loads of dreams in his eyes continuously looking at the cars passing him by.
The sitting so close to one another in such a small and confined space is really strange to me. Does it make the journey easier because all of them are strangers? Would it have been any different if they were acquaintances? I can't help but wonder.
Some times the auto stops working and all the three are then asked to de board the auto and stand on the side of the road awkwardly as the autowala tries to fix the problem. This situation is even worse than sitting next to each other. This situation involves eye contact with the other passengers and also a lot of coaxing to the autowala to fix the vehicle sooner so that the passengers can sit with each other.
There is always a big sigh of relief when the autowala successfully solves the problem with his vehicle. But god forbids if he is not able to, then the passengers starts looking for another auto, another set of strangers to share the space with till they reach the destination.
As soon as they reach the destination, the passengers never bid good bye or even look back at the people they were travelling with in such close proximity. They move on with their lives until the next ride. I wonder after they have reached the destination do they ever think about each other?
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