It is impossible not to be enveloped by a sense of calm when you are in Thiruvananthapuram. The auto you’re in makes its way, unhurried, cutting through the heavy, salty air. You can see the undulating roads miles ahead, fluidly disappearing into swathes of lush, forest green. Sights such as these are the reason for the compulsive instagramming, you think to yourself. And just as you put your phone away, the corner of your eye catches a poster pinned onto the blue-grey Rexine. It is a smiling, Caucasian-looking baby in a hoodie, with a brightly-coloured parrot perched on his shoulder and a line that says, ‘You will always be the one I love!’
The baby theme is big, it seems, with nearly every auto in the city sporting posters with them. Crudely Photoshopped, one has a baby with Winnie the Pooh, replete with the aphorism: ‘Just one positive thought can change your whole day.’ Another has a summer hat with a plate of tomatoes(?!) saying ‘Success is the child of audacity’.
This décor seems all the more glaring when you have arrived from another city, like say Bengaluru, where the auto interiors are usually bare. A quick chat with a few locals reveals that they don’t find these images unsettling. It is, after all, something they have grown up with.
“The choices are all there in the upholstery shop,” says the driver, as we ride along East Fort one hot, humid afternoon, to reach Bindu Upholstery Works. Set up 35 years ago in Sreevaraham, auto parts, fabrics and tools are littered everywhere. As we tentatively make our way across the shop, we spot a worker busy fixing a poster of a baby with a bowl of fruits saying, ‘Time to cheer up know!’
“I have been fixing such posters for as long as I can remember!” he says. “Sometimes, the auto drivers don’t have a preference, but there are some, usually the middle-aged ones, who specifically ask for posters of babies.” Sujith, 25, shows us an A3-sized studio photo of a little girl and a boy affixed to his vehicle. “They are my brother’s children,” he says affectionately. “This auto belongs to him.”
His friend Shaheen chips in. “In villages, the drivers can decorate their autos with torans, lights, music and what not. If we do it here, within city limits, the vehicle inspector will catch you. These photos of babies are pleasant. So we like to use them.”
Mohammad Yusuf has been an auto driver in Thiruvananthapuram for nearly 36 years. He proudly shows off his reworked auto. “As soon as the customer enters the vehicle, on the opposite side, there is a bouquet that says ‘Welcome’. Once the customer settles down, on the left, I have put a poster of a child. Earlier, it was a poster with a scenery. I told the owner of the auto to change it. Once the customer sees the baby, dil shaant ho jayega.”
Maybe, there is a lesson in here somewhere. If there’s a service you offer, do something special to make your customer smile. It just might make the journey that much more pleasant for both the driver and the driven.