Spotting graffiti on rickshaws is not a very uncommon thing. Most of us would have spotted our own share of strikingly funny and serious graffiti inside the rickshaws and on its exteriors too. I added to my share of rickshaw graffiti spotting the other day as i was leaving for work. As soon as i crossed the road to hail for a rick what caught my attention was a parked rickshaw and the word "girls" on it. That made me look at it again. And that second dragged my feet to the rick. And that closer inspection made me involuntarily take out my mobile and click a close-up of the graffiti. It read thus:
"I HET THE GIRLS"? Strange. I began looking for a logical correction - "hit" seemed to be logical. Maybe the rickshaw-waalah was from the league of extraordinary romeo-men! And we have the global excuse that English is a funny language - therefore the spelling mistake was forgiven him. So this rickshaw-wallah romeo (RR) was hitting on girls and publicly announcing it too? In short, he was directly telling all girls that he's hitting on 'em and all us guys that he's hitting on all girls right under our noses? Crap! No, that can't be it! I thought i needed to look for a better logical correction to that misspelt word. Ahem!
Now i had to look at it from a different perspective. So i stepped back and looked at the "bigger picture". And thus it spoke:
If you look closely, there's a second line of graffiti below the current line that's under discussion. You might not be able to read the second line clearly. It reads "Maut Ki Raftar", which would mean "Speed of Death" when translated literally. And a logical explanation would mean "
i drive at the speed of death". Some guy! So i assumed that the RR wanted to write "
I HATE (THE) GIRLS"
To sum it up, his graffiti reads:
"I HATE THE GIRLS
MAUT KI RAFTAR"
So this RR could also be called a Rejected Romeo (again, RR!) Rejection in love might have caused him to hate all girls and maut ki raftar might be either his style or his skill or whatever he feels it is. I did not have time to ponder too much. Before long, another rick stopped in front of me and i got into it murmuring "i HET to go to work..." ;-)
On a parting note - an incident that my aunt narrated to me. My aunt works in Gujarat and is nearing "senior citizenship". She was traveling by a rickshaw to a nearby place and she was startled by something she spotted on the rickshaw driver's head. So she asked him urgently "Bhaiiya, aapke sar par kaunsa operation hua hai. Sab thik to hai? Ye kitne stitiches lage hain?" The rickshaw guy laughed for a bit (much to the annoyoment of my aunt) and said "Aunty ji, this is my new hairstyle a la Aamir Khan style" :-D
