To deposit a cheque

My ghetto company doesn't believe in electronic deposit of salaries, so we get cheques handed to us by hand. We were told, "Don't discuss your salaries with anyone else." with my idiot manager even adding an unnecessary, "Your actual salary doesn't always have a relation to your position." I'm praying that that means he's making less than us. *Please Please Please*

Anyway, that means that for the first time in forever, I have to actually go deposit a salary cheque in an ATM. The closest ATM is about a mile and a half away and I wasn't looking forward to walking all that distance in the heat. I tried to get a cycle-rickshaw to take me there but while bargaining I realized that apparently I am too cheap to pay a man an extra Rs. 5 (on my way to deposit a cheque about 10,000 times that amount) to carry me for that distance. It turned out for the best anyway - as I was walking, I found the best mangoes I've seen this season so far. Pictures of me with mango juice all over face coming up in the next post. (Seriously, I can't put in words how excited I am about getting my hands on these mangoes! But more on those later.)

As I was standing there in the bus stop waiting for another rickshaw or bus to take me to the ATM, a car pulled over to ask me for directions. Now being as I'm new to the city, I figured I wouldn't be able to help that person much but I knew exactly where he needed to go and told him how to get there. Then I asked him if he could take me there since I needed to go there as well. He said, "Sure, hop in." As we were chatting, he mentioned he drove all the way in from Punjab and had to go to a meeting in Sector 10. I told him I was new to the city as well and he asked me where I came from. Hyderabad, I said. "Oh, I'm Telugu too!" he replied. Wonderful! So we chatted a bit more. He asked me about restaurant recommendations and in particular S. Indian restaurtants, and again, I felt comfortable giving him directions. Eventually we reached our destination(s) and said our goodbyes. It was a nice surprise running into a Telugu guy.

I deposited the check at the ATM, their check deposit machine broke down and I ended up "depositing" my cheque into a weird looking slot. I hope I'll be seeing that money again. On the way back I realized that my chances of getting a cycle rickshaw were even worse, just looking around. So I resigned myself to walking back. Unless, I could get a ride from a motorcyclist. So I stuck my thumb out, not really expecting anyone to respond. But man! I guess it was my lucky day. The very first driver who saw me, stopped, and I got on. He explained that he wasn't going where I was, so I told him to drop me off where our routes split. But as we got talking and he realized that I live in the same neighbourhood as him, he decided to go a little out of the way to drop me off right at my office!

Nice people. And I even took the food out of a poor rickshaw driver, so bonus points for me.