When the world is sleeping...

There are a few things that you wouldn't want to write about, and just leaving the blog idle for quite a while ain't any solution to that. Well but writing just about that is, probably.

Waking up early in the morning is something that I can never think of and have never been used to. Never. Most of the time, you don't get to do what you want to, and a few weeks back, I just had do it. Yes, wake up before sunrise to catch an early morning train.

Traveling by early train would mean waking up just on time, dumping all the scattered clothes around into the bag, checking the mails (yep that's a must), running a few meters down the street, realize that you forgot something that had to come along with you, run back home only to find that what you want is not in your room but safely sitting in your bag. Run back to the streets to take an Auto-Rickshaw (aKa rick, auto etc.) in all hopes to not see an empty platform when you reach the railway station. And all this happened that day.

I was kinda surprised to see a couple of these ricks roaming in the roads. Who would want to roam about in the empty streets early in the morning, missing sleep on top of that. This had always puzzled me ever since I was a lil kid not wanting to wake up early and travel somewhere. These ricks are seen on the roads all through the day. It's kinda tough to wake up early morning everyday in hopes of finding someone who is going to travel quite a distance and tip him a lil more than the meter (well if at all that was used). Something that can be compared to sitting in some IT company on bench in search of someone to get you some work.

But this kind of made my early morning search for a rick quite simple. I in some ways expected this guy to not agree on some rate since this is early morning and he got the whole day to wait for a better pay (maybe for a shorter trip too) and early-birds are 'expected' to be brisk and things which means more argument. Or so I thought. To my surprise, this guy hardly showed any interest in how much he is going to be paid, and all he wanted to know is where this rick needs to take me and a stare at the road ahead, which I later understood is a 'yes' to the journey. Am I still sleeping?

Our approximately 8 Km journey started and everything was just unusual. There were no attempts to rip the rick, no piercing through two vehicles that are so close to each other that you would doubt if a two wheeler could pass through it, and no constant mumbling from a dissatisfied rick driver about an unfair negotiation of the rates (which didn't happen in the first place). Early mornings have always been unusual.

It's been a couple of minutes and I could not resist from knowing the reason behind this early-morning hunt for passengers. And the obvious question - "So what time did you start work?". I probably should have thought twice before asking this. Or probably not. After a few seconds of silence came the answer, which at first didn't make any sense to me.

At 7.

At 7? There is still a lot of time for that.

No, it is at 7, last night.

Something that I didn't expect. Something that probably answers the reason for the indifference, the reason for the speed at which the rick is moving, the reason for no honking and on top of all that, the reason for not being bothered on how much he is going to be paid!

So do you work during the nights?

Yes.

Do you have some break in between to work during the day?

No, I work during the nights all through the year.

I had heard of some who rent their ricks to drivers where drivers get a commission and the owner gets the bigger chunk. But in that case, they usually rotate the night-shifts with more than one driver to see some balance. But it didn't happen to be the case here.

The rick driver continues...

I own this rick and have been in the nights for the past 18 years. The rates during the nights are higher (usually double) and it pays me better. Usually start my work at around 7 in the evening. Starting work at 7 in the evening and running all through the night means you get the 'busy' evenings to do a lot of quick trips *and* the deserted but 'better-paying' night trips.

Interesting, but strange. Now the driver doesn't want to stop, he found someone with whom he could talk. He now can talk on what he is doing and what his work is like, when the world is sleeping... Something that he probably couldn't for years.

He continues...

My usual day (rather night) starts at 7 in the evening in a place that is crowded like T. Nagar and you get some quick short 'good-paying' trips. You cannot afford to miss the evening traffic to make a couple of bucks since you never know how the night is going to be. Usually, you are sure to get four to five trips which mean approximately 200 to 250 bucks. But this might go up to 300 or even 350 if it turns out to be a good day. The whole point about the night thing is about the evening trips to make sure you don't go back home empty handed.

The whole night thing is about evening trips? Then why not start during the day and work till the evening, but I didn't dare to question him at this point, the nocturnal poor soul has just started talking.

Well, maybe getting up early in the morning is not the toughest thing on earth.

He continues...

Nights are always un-predictable. (Yes, why not, I thought). There are sometimes when you get a trip which happens to be urgent and you need to take them to a long distance, and you get the double of what you would normally get during the day. Double of a big amount is even bigger. And sometimes, you get two of them and what you earn during the evenings becomes nothing when compared to that.

I could see he was excited about this, but this excitement didn't hold good for long.

He continues...

But, that is a very rare thing to happen. Usually nights are when you have what you earned during the evenings and get back home with just that. You never know which person has a flight to catch during the night to be in that place to pick him up and drop him in the airport. It just has to happen.

There was silence and I didn't know if he was too tired to talk after a whole night's work or he was just upset about the way things are. He had stopped at a signal. It was too early for signals to be switched on and this signal was still not on. Kind of strange since ricks never stop for signals, on or off. I liked it since this is no roller-coaster ride that usually is, but was not used to it. It took sometime for him to scan the road on the left and right, decide that nothing on earth is going to travel that fast to hit us while crossing the road, and then set his rick back to action. But this was not all, there was more to come.

He decides to continue...

It sometimes happens that you do not get enough trips during the evenings or the nights. That is the reason I work until 7 in the morning.

Okay now what is that? Work during the evenings to catch the crowd, during the nights to get paid more for a shorter trip, and now during the day? I thought.

Continues...

Usually, the best place to halt during the early morning is a railway station or the airport. Airport is better considering its distance from the city but you need to travel to the airport empty to get a passenger from there which doesn't work out well most of the times. What if you don't get anyone while returning back also? In this case, the best place is the railway station just before some early morning trains would reach from other cities. That would usually be the last trip. The longer this trip is, the longer my work would go. This usually happens to be a long trip and you can easily make up to 100 bucks during that time. Depending on when this lets me to get back, I would hit back home, have a cup of tea, a piece of bun, a beedi, and go to sleep.

I really didn't want to know more about his family and things fearing some more bad news on that part. Maybe he has a family waiting for him, but how could he manage a living like this for the past 18 years? The worst part is after all this work, he does not want his self-owned rick to take rest when he is resting. He had managed to arrange another driver, who would work during the day, where he would take a commission and give the rest to this owner. He earns when he is sleeping too.

He was too worried about the money that he spends for his so-called breakfast and beedi and justifies that letting his rick for a day trip would help him with that. And, he would also extend his 6-day work week to a 7-day work week if it happens to be a not-so-good week for him. For money, he said. Huh, money? Okay what next? But, I didn't want to ask him.

I could now see the railway station come closer.

Continues...

We have reached and you have brought me to the right place. I am good to take my last trip, the early morning trains would arrive in sometime. I had not planned to extend my work beyond this trip today but since I am in the railway station anyway, it could get me a couple of more bucks. Could I drop you outside the station?

I could not digest this, was he going to take another one today. For money. Or whatever. All I could do was thank him for the trip and tip him 10 bucks more. First reason being he didn't argue for more, and second because he deserved it. And yes, I knew him better than what I did before.

He preferred to drop me out so that he could place his rick in a strategic position to catch his next pray, and keep himself ahead of other 'real' early-birds who would hit this place in sometime to start their day's work. I remember they used to say "early bird catches the worm". Well not anymore, probably we got to re-think about that. What about the birds that do not sleep at all?