Auto driver sounds off on meter mandate

What of commuters who do not insist on going by fare?

Reverse meter

‘Anna Nagar ponum, evalo? (How much is the fare to Anna Nagar?)’ A passenger was left embarrassed for asking this of an autorickshaw driver. The passenger had flagged down the autorickahaw near Koyambedu. The driver immediately called out to a traffic policeman standing nearby and asked why such passengers, who do not insist on going by meter fares, were not taken to task. “But you fine us if we don’t use the meters,” he said. The passenger slipped away quietly even as the traffic policeman looked the other way.

Fun travel

Trust the youth in Chennai to have their own little fun at the government’s expense. On Saturday evening, when buses were diverted at Perungalathur instead of travelling onward on GST Road towards Chengalpattu, commuters darted across the road to the railway station to board suburban trains. A group of young men, on their way to attend Narendra Modi’s public meeting in Vandalur, boarded the train and some of them even travelled in the comfort of a first-class coach without a ticket. They alighted at Vandalur, the station after Perungalathur, and walked across to reach the venue.

City’s own batters

At a recent public event in the city, volunteers who were adeptly managing the crowd began wielding bats to zap mosquitoes that swarmed in large numbers. In a city notorious for its mosquito menace, and where everyone, including the roadside flower vendor, is armed with mosquito coils and such to keep mosquitoes at bay, it was good foresight on the part of the organisers.

chennaidesk@thehindu.co.in