Know how a Jamia Nagar passenger calms down furious autowallah who relented coming to Okhla
One evening a resident hired an auto to reach his destination some 13 kilometers from Jamia Nagar. When the resident asked the auto driver to go by meter, he declined and instead quoted high price. To which the resident said he won’t pay extra and insisted on paying by the meter. The driver agreed after a few minutes of argument but showed his anger for being forced to do so.
“You cannot force local auto drivers to go by meter. I know all this,” said the driver and stopped the conversation. The resident said that is not the case as he always prefer going by meter.
[A resident once shared a story that how his friend was charged Rs 100 by a local auto driver to take a patient to Holy Family Hospital from Batla House. Many stories of local auto drivers not going by meter and asking exorbitant prices do the rounds in the locality. There are also many local auto drivers who go by meter.]
And as the journey continued, the resident asked the driver’s name to which he said: “I don’t want to talk with you people.”
It appeared that the driver was pissed off. On being asked several times, the driver opened up and said: “Just now a local resident hired me from Sarojni Nagar to Escorts. After reaching Escorts he insisted on going farther and then he came to Shaheen Bagh. When I asked for more money he got angry and even used abusive words.”
People here are like this, he said.
The resident tried his best to pacify the driver and said there are bad and good people everywhere and what happened with you was wrong.
The journey continued and in 45 minutes or so it came to an end. The driver asked money according to the meter but the resident gave him extra and said: “Be happy and smile. I am paying for the wrongdoing of that man who mistreated with you as you claimed.” The driver took the money and smiled and this is how the journey came to an end.
From time to time residents do talk about their bad and good experiences while travelling from Jamia Nagar or coming to this locality.
Some sixteen hours ago, journalist Asad Ashraf wrote this on his timeline: “I need to get in touch with people who live in Jamia Nagar because they have been denied housing elsewhere or chose to be here for safety reasons, face trouble ordering food and fetching cabs through apps like Swiggy Zomato, Ola and others. This is for a story I am working on. Leads will be appreciated. Share at asad.ashraf50@gmail.com. Thanks.”
(The resident has requested to not reveal his identity. The incident happened months ago.)
