The Highly Anticipated Indian Auto-Rickshaw Exposé

Next up in the fascinating highly anticipated exposé series is a piece on the extremely popular Auto-Rickshaw. Easily the most common way to quickly get around town in Bangalore, this three-wheeler packs a punch and often features a driver who knows no fear.

Last night we headed out for Inception as a group. Most people went to dinner beforehand. Richard and I stayed back at the office and ordered a pizza. We knew it'd take about a half hour to get to the theatre from the office, so we left an hour early in an attempt to find a rickshaw.

Our decision to not go to dinner was clearly going to be a blog post the moment we stepped out the door. Monsoon season is still in full-swing. The rain poured on us for 40 minutes as we waited, walked, and attempted to flag down ricks.

Oddly, drivers here will often refuse to take you places. We were refused by four different ricks in our efforts to get to Garuda Mall. Finally, someone pulled over and decided he'd take us, but only for Rs. 150. It felt like overpaying by a few rupees, but we were drenched and quickly running out of time.

I've never experienced a ride quite like this before. Fortunately I was able to capture it in brilliant high-definition. Below is a 1 minute and 20 second video of our journey. Feel free to watch it 30 times for the full effect of the ride.

Honorable Mentions

As for the movie, it really was quite good. Certainly deserving of all the hype. Fun fact: Indian theatres feature an intermission. I spent all 10 minutes of the intermission in shock as the thriller was abruptly cut-off. Hindi movies are apparently made with the intermission in mind.

I saw a poster as we left the theatre for another movie. I call this one "blending in".