Rickshawalla...

CNG’s and rickshaws are out. Cost had started adding up, especially paying as I was, the shaddha chamra, the firengi price. I asked a student-looking young man for directions, for college students everywhere are part of a single international brotherhood of the young and hopeful. “You are a guest in my country, if I do not help you then I am shy to saying I am Bangladeshi,” said Mashfique, my new best friend. And so we walked for the better part of a kilometer to a ticket stand where burly men sitting behind wooden boxes shouted like it was some kind of high end auction. I hopped unceremoniously onto the accelerating footboard, for buses never stop moving in this place. I landed with a thump into a bus full of amused expressions, regained my balance, and starred out the window at the shanty towns, the sweeper women and rickshallaw traffic jams we passed by...

Jao, rickshawalla,
Stop rickshawalla,
Aste aste rickshawalla,
Dore dore rickshawalla,
You ferry my princely self around town for pennies on the dollar,
I’ll sit here and play Rudyard Kipling.
Bame, dane, eidike, oidike, ei pasha, oi pasha,
Jao rickshawalla, jao!
I only see your face when it’s time to pay,
Sometimes not even then
And then we’ll haggle over a few dimes, because haggling is chic,
Onek door, rickshawalla? The sun is making me tired,
And I left my chati home,
Because where I come from, chatis are for rainy days
And sunscreen is for sunny days, and deodorant is for sweaty days
And AC for hot days, and bottled water for
Those unpleasant thirsty seconds between when we are full