We met Lakshman in Dehradun. He was referred to us by the caretaker of SeeGreen, the place of our stay in Dehradun for five days.  We were told by the caretaker that Lakshman knows the local areas very well, is trustworthy and smart too. Our practice for several years, whenever we travel to a city or town has been, to park our car, and hire a local taxi, or other modes of local transport for obvious reasons.

all the four days that we had hired Lakshman, he was always punctual, very courteous, consistent in his demand for fares, and went out of the way to ensure our comfort. On the third day, we decided to chat with Lakshman to know more about him and his family. His father had moved from Bihar to Dehradun in search of livelihood almost forty years earlier but Lakshman had moved to Dehradun just five years back. He has been driving an auto for the last three years or so and owns three autos including the one that he used to ferry us those four days. While one is debt free the other two are on loan. He has hired drivers for the other two autos and has been regularly paying the instalments. Every time we paid him more than the trip fare and asked him to keep the balance as advance for the next trip, he declined and returned the balance amount to us. To me especially who has had a very poor record and experience with auto drivers, interaction with Lakshman was refreshing and reassuring. I also realised that Lakshman was extremely street smart to have understood the basics of building relationships with his clients to genuinely nurture and grow his business in a town like Dehradun. When it was time for us to bid goodbye, I felt like taking photographs of Lakshman, which I did. For a moment, I did think of speaking about his education but then decided not to. Lakshman appeared to be learning life’s lessons in his own way…

The entire Himachal tour for me has been full of experiences where I have to adjust and renew my perspectives of people and situations. Meeting the street smart Lakshman has definitely been one of them.

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