Mani's Auto Rickshaw and Friends!

Mani, our oldest and best driver, used to make his living carrying passengers in his auto rickshaw.  Auto rickshaws are the primary source of moving paying customers in Chennai. They have three wheels, a smelly diesel engine, and are built to carry three passengers.  We have, however, seen as many a ten in one vehicle.  They also are an incredibly cheap--sixty cents from the store six blocks away to our apartment building and that is without any bargaining. You can distinguish an auto rickshaw when they come from behind by their squeaky horn sound.  Two wheelers (motorcycles) sound like wounded ducks while the big buses are the gigantic tuba players.  Everyone moves away from buses.  Our Tata Sumo jeeps make a nasty, unpleasant sound.  The bicycles only tinkle.  Chennai is a city of deafening vehicle horns amidst an anarchy of traffic.

Mani has now retired his auto rickshaw to a side path amongst our beautiful coconut trees.  He drives regular cars and vans, so his auto rickshaw has become surplus.  It is fun to drive, but mostly it just sits too close to the trees around it.  For awhile, the children were interested in exploring its innards.  That curiosity, however, passed and so day and night it has had no visitors.  It is sad to be so neglected and lonely.

Then, a new family from the coconut trees moved onto our campus.  It may be the same family that has been around for awhile, but since monkeys tend to look alike, we could not be sure.  At any rate, they found Mani's auto rickshaw and fell in love with it.  I think they made Mani's auto rickshaw feel much better.  You can see why.  They play on and in it.  They are even more curious than the children, and best of all--they discovered a new use.  Everybody, even a monkey, needs to feel good about how he looks.  Now Mani's auto rickshaw is once again in service.  It is the place where the monkeys can come and check on their appearance before heading back up into the trees to start throwing the heavy coconuts at us.  Mani's auto rickshaw is happy again.

(Photos by our volunteer Theresa Claugus)