Where you go?!

"Where you go?!" This sentence might have been a question were it not fired off with the intensity of a death sentence.
"We're going to the bus station." I tried desperately to look and sound like a self assured tourist and not like a caffeine deprived American only recently returned to India.
"Ya OK." With a broad wave of his arm my new best friend waved for me to get into his rickshaw.
"How much?" I may have been tired but this was not my first time in India. Everyone new to the subcontinent makes a common mistake once. Getting into a rickshaw without first negotiating the price means that a satisfactory settling of accounts will never occur and in the end you will be hounded to your grave for more money.
"Ya OK." Again the arm waved for us to begin the ride.
"How much?"
"200 rupees."
"I'll give you 80."
"NO! This is not possible. Bus very far. 200 rupees ok!"
"80"
"Ya ok fine 150 morning price."
"90"
A small crowd had begun to gather around us now. Indecipherable voices savaged what little calm this process might have ever attained, "Bus very very far, best price 120 rupees."
"My best price is 100." We were now less than 40 cents apart on the price.
"NO! NO! 100 rupees not possible!"
I had nothing left to do but to play my last card. I shrugged my shoulders, turned my back and started to walk away.
From behind heard, "110 OK."
I breathed a sigh of relief. If the deal had fallen through then the process would have needed to begin again a mere two feet away at the next rickshaw.

Having left Chennai I still cannot say with any degree of certainty why they changed the name from Madras. Though the name may have changed I can say with complete certainty that the unbridled intensity of the place is everything I remembered from my time there fifteen years ago. Even the rickshaw ride to the bus station for our departure to Mamalaporum left me feeling utterly exhausted. Why Indians are obsessed with the idea of riding on a hyperactive lawnmower encased in a yellow shell with no protective value is totally beyond my comprehension. Even more inexplicable is why a seemingly sane tourist might willingly enter one of these contraptions and then cling to the preposterous belief he is in Disney Land and being crushed to death between two merging buses only looks like an impending reality. The opaque clouds of diesel smoke will not truly harm his health before his next visit in another fifteen years. With the constant cacophony of horns, desperately protesting brakes, and the never-ending staccato of Hindi music it occurred to this once-sane tourist:
I paid for this.
If I had paid just a little more I could have taken a taxi.
God damn this is fun!
The riot of India is debilitating and priceless