The dussehra ordeal

This time around dussehra we had hired a driver for my office journey. A few days before dussehra he asked whether we did vehicle pooja on the dussehra day. We said traditionally we north Indians do vehicle pooja on vishwakarma pooja day. The conversation ended here and we forgot about it. On the day of dussehra when we were relaxing at home, we got this call from the driver wherein he enquired if we were at home. Then he  announced that he was coming with sweets and other pooja materials and wanted to do a pooja of our vehicle. We were surprised as we had not perceived earlier that in this short span of time he had developed so much intimacy with our vehicle. So we obliged to his order of coming over and doing the pooja. He came over and did the pooja whole heartedly and gave us the prasad as well. We were half pleased and half suspicious at his gesture (the world is like that dear friends, nobody does anything selflessly, not even a pooja. If anyone puts up a selfless show it is bound to raise suspicions. )

The next day on our way to office the driver told me "you know madam yesterday this sir called me whom I used to work for earlier and he told that I and I only must come over to his place and do pooja for his vehicle. Since I was the best driver he eved had.i went over and did the pooja and just for that he gave me  bakshish (a token of reward given out of happiness) of half my monthly salary." I could very well see now where this conversation was headed.along with that the purpose of his great pooja at our place was also getting clear. Anyways to see his reaction and bring out his purpose more clearly I just replied "wow your sir must be filthy rich". He said "no madam it is a custom that everyone gives bakshish to drivers on dussehra". I was not interested in persuing this bargain of forced bakshish with him, so I simply told him to talk to my husband in the evening on the subject.  After reaching office I talked to my husband and informed him of the whole situation and the driver's expectations. In the evening my husband told him that we were not in a position to simply give away a huge amount in bakshish.also he had been providing his service to us for hardly fifteen days so the bonds were also not that strong yet and moreover he had already taken some advance money from us the second day of his service only and now he was forcing us to give him bakshish , that also not what we would give as per our comfort and will but as per his.  My husband told him the max amount that we were in position to give him and in reply he said "sir I can't come from tomorrow .pleass arrange for another driver." Wow. Isn't a bakshish supposed to be awarded out of happiness and isn't it upto us to decide on our capacity that how much bakshish we can give to someone. Well, not in this case. No wonder our culture is changing fast and instead of depending on people for various services we, in urban india atleast, are preferring to depend more and more on machines.

So this was our dussehra ordeal that left us wondering whether our decision of hiring a driver was out of our capacity or its that people are becoming more and more intolerant and greedy day by day.