Five Rupee Faux Paus

Bangalore. After a long day's work, I started to my sister's home from office. I walked out to the road, enjoying the cool breeze, then spotting an Autorickshaw I made signs it to come hither. Hithered it did.

A bearded gent who was the my driver for the evening welcomed me aboard the auto. "Kahan jaana hai sir?'(Where do you want to go sir). he asked in Hindi. Now, Hindi is never a language I am comfortable in, Bangalore being a multi-lingual town, one does get to meet people who speak, Kannada, Hindi & Tamil all the time, so one gets used to it. Although my usage of Hindi though has suffered much ridicule in the past (much of it unwarranted I must say).

Anyway, my mind processed the auto driver's question carefully and then replied "Queens Road jaana hai" (I have to go to Queens Road).

"Meter kaam nahin kar raha hai, aap pachiis rupiya de do" (Meter isn't working, the fare would be rupees fifty) came the response from the bearded driver with a toothy smile. Again, my brain again started processing this response more slowly since this time numbers where involved now and for a banker I was not good at processing numbers fast in any language.

"Nahin nahin, mein, thirty ke zyada nahin doonga" (No no, I won't give more than thirty rupees), I replied with a firm voice. "Aap ko thirty dena hai? Theek hai, thirty de do" (You will give thirty? ok) said he.

I smiled. I looked around at no one in particular as if to say 'thats how you dealt with these guys'. A firm had is all it takes, show them who's the boss and they would follow you like lambs. I settled back on the seat like a man in supreme command of his surroundings.

In a while, my sister's residence appeared, I got off, triumphantly counted three ten rupee notes and gave it to the driver whose grin got wider. A sunny disposition these auto drivers have, I thought.

I walked in, greeting my sister and her family and eventually settled down in the living room and flipped through a magazine.

Something was wrong in my mind, the grinning auto driver's face kept flashing in my head. Finally, just to clear the air, I called my neice who learnt Hindi as a second language and asked what you said in Hindi for Fifty.

She said "You don't know? Fifty is Pachaas"

"Um. Then what is Pachiis?" I asked hesitantly. Dreading the reply.

Pat came the answer from the little one "Twenty Five".

Crap.