The Martlet

There we stood, my sister and I, laughing outside a Delhi nightclub. We’d spent the night dancing with a few friends (some Germans, a few Americans, Indians, and a French woman) but a day of shopping in hot, sticky markets had gotten the better of us and we’d decided to pack it in early. The rhythmic thump of surprisingly good house music was still pounding through the third-storey window above us. Cameras were undoubtedly still clicking away, taking photos for the next day’s nightlife section in the newspaper. Patrons were still paying extortion prices for drinks.

But we were done, choosing to quickly exit while the going was good and our wallets still contained a rupee or two.

The trouble was we had no way home.

Karan, the taxi driver who had dropped us off hours before, had promised to come as soon as we called. He had been affable, joking with us and giving us the now unnecessary geography lesson normally bestowed upon the city’s “ferringhis,” or white folks.

But Karan was nowhere to be found. His phone went unanswered, text messages ignored.

Truthfully, to say we had no way home is misleading. We had a way home. In fact, we had several. It’s just that we’d been warned against taking autorickshaws this late at night and had come to rely on taxis for transportation.

Autorickshaws, or tuk tuks, are ubiquitous in Delhi. Their green bodies and yellow canvas roofs zip around the city carrying passengers from one end to the other for roughly the price of one Victoria bus ride. Many of them are decorated with pictures of Hindu or Sikh gods, or their inside walls have been papered over with laminated cutouts of Bollywood stars. They ride so low that they often flood and stall in monsoon rains.

Tonight, we were surrounded by them. My sister and I were an island of white-girl in a sea of green and yellow.

Unsure of what to do next, we’d struck up a conversation with some of the drivers. We felt a measure of safety in the fact that there were two of us, but we were still careful not to come across as too friendly or entirely naïve. A few words in Hindi convinced them that, while foreign, we weren’t quite tourists, and they crowded around to offer us late-night tips on grammar and pronunciation. I was trying to bargain for a fare with one driver when our chariot pulled up: a brand-new, shining, convertible tuk tuk.

The driver honked once from around the corner and pulled up into the fray. He was toothy and short and obviously proud of his flashy ride (a new autorickshaw costs up to $3,000 CDN and his purchase was no small feat).

After saying our goodbyes to the other envious drivers, we hopped in and put our sore feet on the low metal divider behind the driver’s seat. Before long we were whipping down Delhi’s major streets toward home.

It was the quietest time of the night. The wind tossed our hair around as we flew past bank towers and people sleeping on sidewalks, past India Gate and the Parliament Buildings. People on motorcycles honked as they passed us, and at one point a woman of roughly 40 leaned out her passenger side window and offered to take a picture of us while we drove. We made cracks about the vehicle’s “natural air conditioning.”

Some friends who must have left the club right after we did cruised up behind us and honked, and we raced our buddies until our two competing autorickshaws had to split off to head for different parts of town.

India doesn’t always feel this free. Navigating the paths between India’s abject poverty and soul-eroding wealth can be frustrating and oppressive.

But riding in the back of that auto was like flying. At one point, my sister turned to me and yelled over the thrum of the healthy new engine, “I wish India could always be like this.”

I know it can’t, and it likely shouldn’t, but it’s moments like this that bring me back here, that keep me travelling.

We arrived home tired, windswept, and happy. I handed the driver his fare and a sizable tip, and the three of us exchanged equally toothy grins.

It could be that his roof was in the shop or hadn’t been installed yet, and that his night in a convertible was a one-time gig. But the next time I’m downtown on a sunny day I’ll keep my eye out for him and his tidy new auto.

If it’s not too much work, I’ll ask him to put the top down again.