You Will Think That Half The Things Mentioned Here Are Fake

To understand this story you need to know what a rickshaw is.

This is a rickshaw, if you have ever been to India you have definitely seen one of these before. There are millions of rickshaws in India, and in an overcrowded city like Mumbai, the streets are painted with black and yellow as these dominate the transportation world. Now that you know what a rickshaw is let me tell you about my friends, my stupid, juvenile and somehow always managing to-get-into-trouble friends.

Living 40 minutes away from school and 20 minutes away from my tutor meant that I would have to use a rickshaw at least four times a day. To my great fortune, I had 3 other friends - Kabir, Avi, Priyanshu (you will need to know their names to follow through with the story) who would take the exact same route. If you ask any of us about our "rickshaw stories" we could probably go on for hours, but just for you, I'll keep it short.

Rickshaws are supposed to take only 3 passengers at once and they'll tell you that by having an "ONLY 3 PASS" sign next to the seats, well it being four of us we made sure that the cab driver didn't take the "ONLY 3 PASS" rule so seriously. We would find ways around it, either by just rushing in and begging the driver to take us or bribing the driver beforehand by paying him an extra 10 Rupees (that's around $0.14, or you can Google what the conversion to your local currency), that was about 30% of our total fare, which we would divide equally every day even if meant that one of us had to pay in coins. Four people in a vehicle that could barely accommodate 3 people meant that at least one of us had to sit on another's lap for the duration of our journey, lucky for me I was the last one out so I would usually be privileged with enough space. Keep in mind these rickshaws are open from either side, allowing us to experience the pollution filled Mumbai air and the constant honking.

One perfectly regular evening we were searching for a rickshaw like any other day it took us ages for someone to agree to take all four of us at once, overjoyed we jumped in, I was sitting comfortably in the centre Kabir and Avi to my either side, and Priyanshu sitting on Avi's lap as they had expressed their concerns more than once they were far from comfortable. This seating arrangement had already exasperated our driver. From the minute we got in, he began complaining about how the police would spot us and he would have to pay a big fine. Well in hindsight he was right, but being young and foolish we thought that all he was trying to do was make some extra money. Finally, but-not-so convinced he started driving. As I had mentioned before, Mumbai, crowded to the neck would make a 10-minute route last hours just because of the overwhelming traffic, so by now, we had found shortcuts that would take us through narrow streets, private properties and a whole lot of places we were better off not going through.

We call these streets gullies.

We enter gully No. 1. Now buckle up, because a lot is about to happen.

Chapter 1 - "The shouting"

A six-hour long math class wasn't close to enough to wear Kabir or Priyanshu down. While Avi and I were busy strategizing on how to win an ongoing game of PUBG, the other two were up to something completely else. Thinking that it would be funny, they started spieling at random pedestrians. I am not exaggerating when I say they were saying some extremely stupid things. Let me give you an example, they created this thing called the "YO GANG", the yo gang included basically everyone that that made the "yo" sign when either of them shouted the word yo (they also made the sign) at them.

You probably won't believe this but people actually replied, some of the strangers just ignored them, I truly still wonder why some replied. Attracting all of this attention didn't help with the driver being angry, by the minute we could notice him losing his cool. Halfway through the gully, the driver hit his tipping point, he hit the brakes as hard as possible, turned and looked at us, (I swear I have never seen a stranger, let alone anyone, this angry at me) we could sense something coming. There were a few seconds of silence, the seconds felt like a lifetime, and there it was:

"Get out of my rickshaw right now," his eyes had widened, hands still tightly gripped to the handlebars.

Chapter 2 - "The Escape" I

We stand on the roadside, having absolutely no idea what to do next, he stares at us for a little longer than comfortable and starts to leave, a slight sense of alleviation starts to set over us (this would not last more than a few seconds). While Priyanshu, Avi and I sigh in relief Kabir could not resist the temptation; as loud as he could he shouts, "Boooooooooo" his gaze straight towards the driver. Without hesitation, the driver turns the entire rickshaw and starts to beeline in our direction, our survival instincts kick in and we begin running for our lives.

You may have heard about someone being chased by a dog, or even by the police maybe, but this is probably the first time you would have ever heard of someone being chased by a rickshaw (if it isn't I would really like to hear that story), not the driver but the entire rickshaw.

Onto gully No. 2.

This was around 9 at night, in a city like Mumbai traffic doesn't really ask time before showing up, to be fair it never leaves in the first place. This was one of the rare routes that we had found that was free from the hundreds of thousands of daily commuters. We could have never thought that this would be used against us. We kept running. The three of us carrying our laptops and at least 2 thick, massive books each were running out of stamina insanely quickly, but all we could do was run.

Chapter 3 - "The Tumble"

So, there we were running, an the came "the tumble". Avi, not being able to see very clearly in the dim street lights, tripped over a slightly ajar manhole cover falling straight into the gutter (dry/empty sewer) nearby and as you would expect from us our first reaction was to laugh. Fortunately for him he was not hurt not but unfortunate for all of us the rickshaw was still chasing us, we went back to running. Within about fifty metres the street had come to an intersection with another street, this street was not so empty there were cars, shops and all the other bits of local Mumbai life. We had two simple options, we could either take a left or a right, every millionth of a second we took to decide the rickshaw was inching closer.

Over to gully No. 3

Chapter 4 - "The Escape" II

Call it a coincidence, we believe it was telepathy, all of us turned right. This street was crowded having to manoeuvre through signs, parked cars and fire hydrants, it was almost like one of those mobile games, had given the rickshaw some time to catch up. We were waiting for something that would give us a lead so that we could once and finally be free, we were waiting for an "in-game powerup", a few strides later, we found it (I believe found is a strong word, you'll see what I mean).

Priyanshu, being the person the furthest behind, suddenly began shouting and ran so fast that he overtook the rest of us. Me being second to last looked behind and saw two stray dogs we were being hunted (they are a very common occurrence in Mumbai). I don't have any proof but I still believe that the driver had conspired with the dogs. Like dominoes one after the other we spotted the dogs and boosted our speeds.

Chapter 5 - "Finally, Freedom"

In the far distance (it was really only 60-70 metres) we could see a rickshaw, still, standing perpendicular to us making it perfect for us to just jump in without having to change direction.

This was gully No. 4

As we had planned we hopped in and told the new driver to just start driving and he did, I guess some drivers are just nice. You could call it a happy ending (I would question your decisions if you did) but it was a wild ride.

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We are older now, some of us have personal chaufferus most of us have driving licenses, I couldn't tell you the last when let alone 4 even 3 of us have been in a rickshaw together. We meet almost once a month now, it's either some school or tuitions reunion or a birthday party, and just the words "rickshaw stories" is enough to spark a smile or even a slight giggle in all of us. Most of our friends just have the "not again" reaction to it just because of the sheer amount of times they have heard this story, that doesn't stop us from saying it all over again, and I promise by the end of it most of them are bursting out laughing.

If Avi ever reads this (and I know he will) he will 100% deny falling in the gutter but the rest of us can swear that it happened.

Before writing this I asked all three of them if I could use their names they can't wait to see how the story has turned out.