the rickshaw fare

Forty rupees he wanted from the INA market to my flat, which is a twelve-minute walk I have done a hundred times but today I was carrying a bag of vegetables including a very heavy pumpkin and it was 39 degrees. I said thirty. He said forty. I said thirty-five. He said forty, final. I paid forty rupees. It took five minutes. And for the entire five minutes I sat in the back thinking about the pumpkin, which cost thirty-five rupees, which means the pumpkin cost less than the ride, which means I spent more on transport than on dinner itself, which is the kind of arithmetic that will make you miserable if you let it. I paid and tipped him five more because it was very hot and he was old.