Definition: Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called avarice or covetousness.

Best typified in: Chennai’s formidable autorickshaw drivers aka highway robbers on three wheels aka gurus of greed.

Greed is a sin that even the most holier-than-thou probably commit, but none so blatantly and blissfully as the autorickshaw drivers in Chennai. They are by far the greediest lot I have come across and they don’t mind admitting it to your face. If you want a crash course on indulging in this deadly sin, these guys are your professors.

When I lived in Chennai a couple of years back, the supermarket I bought my groceries from was barely a kilometre away from my house but sometimes I couldn't walk back because of the heavy bags so I would try and flag down an auto. I'd tell them where I needed to go, give them the option of quoting their price first (they would never run the metre for such a short distance, heaven forbid!) and watch in amusement as they'd fire away… Rs. 20, 25, and some would even say 30! Err…I don’t remember leaving home with a dunce cap on my head.

When you’ve been dealing with this special breed for a few years you come to learn that they will always, and I repeat always, try their luck. After all, they can never be sure if the person is a poor lost soul from out of town. Hardly an opportunity to let slip by, right? Their luckiest days are when they come across such people. That’s when they strike gold, literally. So anyway, it used to be fun to watch them try desperately to fleece me before I would finally say, “Ten bucks. Shut up and drive.”

So what’s their excuse for charging so much? Don’t even make the mistake of asking them that because for some reason they think you don’t read the newspapers and will tell you that petrol costs Rs 70 or 80 a litre. Times like these I would really wonder if there was indeed a dunce cap on my head that only they could see.

Other excuses included “midnight charges” (6:30 pm), “one way” (you probably know there are no one ways but I’m just trying my luck), “traffic jam” etc., but my personal favourite is sure to crack you up. I once met a driver who said, “This auto cost me nearly 2 lakhs to buy and you want to pay me only Rs 20 from Nungambakkam to Nelson Manickam Road.” Hello? Was he actually planning on breaking even with that one ride!

One of my colleagues used to take the same auto home from work every single evening and pay Rs 50. Before you think that’s a discount let me add that the distance she travelled was barely 3 kms. She told me it was the nominal rate because that’s what her "friendly" driver told her in the beginning. She believed him but found it hard to take me seriously when I told her she was being duped. I finally convinced her after a long and tedious account of all my auto riding experiences. But I'm pretty sure that while she was mustering up the courage to confront him (didn’t I tell you auto drivers are a formidable breed?), he was probably building his dream beach house somewhere along the East Coast Road!