"THIS is the second time I am going to the airport this morning," my rickshaw man said. It was 6 am, and he had made the trip to and fro once, which meant he must have left at 4 am.

"IT was a wasted trip," he added, "I got no passenger coming back; it was too early..."

I told him politely to stop chatting and put up a bit of speed. I was, as usual catching a flight by its tail, and had little time to spare.

"I'LL try my best, "he answered, turning his head a little. "It is all a matter of luck."

LUCK held. We encountered none of the bottlenecks that plague the route from my house to the airport even sometimes early in the morning, and the signals were in our favour most of the way.

HE was hardly in his prime. A retired uncle was how I would have described him, a few front teeth missing, his head quite grey, his stubble even more so, and the hands that grasped the handlebars, and which he had once in a while waved airily backwards to emphasise a point, were pretty gnarled.

BUT surprisingly, he was going along at a fast clip, manoeuvring the rickshaw with a dexterity and speed more suited to his son's age than his own years.

WE took the slope uphill to the edge of the lake that lies en route, and even as I admired what I call my private Lake District, a tempo in front dipped into a voluminous pothole and a plastic container inside its unguarded interiors let go of its load of ripe tomatoes.

THERE they lay, a pool of richly glistening red balls rolling on the road, and the tempo trudged on, regardless. My driver was upset at the waste. He put his power behind the throttle, but it was of no avail; the tempo had topped the curve and put up speed that he could not quite match. A bus driver had already motioned to the tempo driver about his loss, but it was the alertness of a schoolboy who ran as if the devil were after him and waved till the driver noticed, that saved the tomatoes from becoming instant ketchup.

"WHAT a dumb driver he is," my rickshaw man said. "Even when the 'buswallah' alerted him, he paid no heed..." He looked as if he would get off to reprimand the tempo driver, but luckily, he turned his attention back to the task of getting me to the airport...

WHEN we reached, I was surprised to note that he had accomplished the journey in less time than it usually took me even early in the morning. And without being really rash...

I COMPLIMENTED him on his driving. ''When the passenger does not hassle you, a driver can concentrate on driving," he said, pride touching his voice. He told me too, that he had taken up driving a rickshaw after he retired. "Forty years I worked for the govern-ment," he added, "and now for the past seven years, I drive this rickshaw to feed my family.''

"WHAT did you do?" I asked. He turned to look at me, his bleary face wreathed in a smile that was almost wicked. "Kya madam, did you not find out from my driving?" he asked. "I worked for the BEST - I drove a bus."

HE pulled out his purse to give me change, and showed me his licence. "Look, here is the first photo that I took for my licence when I was 18," he said, and I saw a callow youth staring solemnly back at me. He turned the pages and I saw his life unfolding before my eyes, he was later a man, obviously husband and father, with a white cap on his head, and later, I could see the bags of strain that lined his eyes, and then his latest photograph, stubble, grey hair et al.

I LEFT him then, with the change he offered me. It was my small tribute to the fact that in a continent of careless, unruly, sometimes manipulative rickshaw drivers, I had finally met a man who took pride in his work and his skill, and pursued his profession with passion.