One Exam.

This happened after the "Tank Bund" incident, by which time we had completely lost our trust in autos and auto drivers.

It was during our sixth semester, the last semester of our graduation. We had to write multiple entrance exams to get into postgraduate programs, including one called ICET. I applied for it and got an exam center that was very far from our college. Only one of my friends got the same exam center as me, so we both planned to go together. The exam was set to start at 10 a.m., and we needed to be there by 9 a.m., which meant we had to leave by 6 or 6:30 a.m. because it was very far. We decided to go by bus, needing to change three buses and take one auto to reach the college. However, we were unsure about the bus numbers; at the time, we weren't new to the city but weren't experienced with all the routes.

So, on the day of the exam, with a lot of confidence, my friend Ashu and I started from our hostel at 6 a.m. We were standing on the road discussing how to get there then an auto stopped in front of us and asked where we wanted to go. We told the auto driver our destination, and he said it was very far. He offered to take us for 600 rupees. We were unsure, thinking that taking the bus would take a lot of time and we might not reach the exam center on time, so we agreed to the auto(Biggest Mistake Again).

We put the destination into Google Maps and continued our journey. After traveling almost 35 km, we still hadn't reached the destination. Our college is in the exact center of the city, but we had ended up outside the city limits and couldn't find the college. There was a toll plaza on the highway and maps indicated that we were 5 km away from college. The auto driver stopped there and said he couldn't go any further; we would need to take another vehicle from there. we pleaded, he was unconvincing and we get out of the auto. He then demanded 700 rupees, and we gave him two 500-rupee notes. He returned 200 rupees and said he didn't have change, claiming we were his first customers and left. He had literally took 800 rupees from us.

We were stuck with very little money and couldn't afford another vehicle. The auto driver had dropped us at a tollgate around 7:30 a.m. we had plenty of time before the exam, we decided to walk the remaining distance. We walked without seeing a single person or vehicle, which was quite frightening. However, it was a bright morning, and having each other’s company helped us stay strong. As we continued walking, we began to see people and vehicles, we were relaxed that we were on the right path. By 8:15 a.m., we reached the destination.

We hadn't had breakfast or tea since the morning and waiting at the exam center for an hour and a half. we wanted to save money for the return trip. We had no idea what the return journey would be like, so we stayed hungry.
we finished the exam. this time we just have to go by bus no other option we don't have enough money to go by auto and have lunch. we came out of the exam center. there is a shared auto that costs 20 rupees per head it will drop us at a place in the city where we can take the bus to our hostel. we took that shared auto and dropped at a place but the problem here is we know that place by name but don't know where to take the bus. we were unable to comprehend what was happening we didn't know the area properly and we hadn't eaten anything since morning and we were dehydrated and standing in the mid-may sun. we had some sugarcane juice. we asked that person where can we take this bus they said that stand there, the bus would stop there. we stood there for 5 minutes and we took the bus to the central city bus stop from there our hostel was just 2 km away. after 45 minutes we reached the bus stop and the bus ticket price was 20 rupees per head. we finally arrived at the bus stop we were at the peak stage of hunger so we directly went into the biryani hotel at the bus stop and both had a plate of biryani. the way we ate that day, god damn we didn't even look at each other all concentration on food within minutes we completed the whole plate without leaving a grain of rice.
after having a nice lunch we took the metro and reached our hostel and the ticket price for the metro was 10 rupees.
so the whole trip cost us  900 rupees for travelling which means 450 per head in that we spent 400 while going and 50 while returning back.
once again we got tricked due to our innocence.