Late on Friday evening, with butterflies in my stomach, I embarked on an assignment of hitching rides in autorickshaws on as many as seven different routes across town.

During my college days till two years ago, I had my share of scary experiences during journeys by autorickshaws in the evenings.

However, this time was different. To my surprise, the overall experience reassured me about the safety of women out in the evenings.

Except for one instance when I felt my safety compromised, of the seven autorickshaws I took rides between 7.10pm and 8.45pm, five had their cabin lights switched on in compliance with police guidelines. That made me feel relatively safe. On a few occasions, I found my male co-passengers being overcautious to prevent touching me even unintentionally.

At 7.10pm, my journey started from Frazer Road. Five minutes later, I alighted at Patna Junction. Then, I hitched a ride to Gandhi Maidan and thereafter to Raja Pul, from where an autorickshaw took me to High Court roundabout.

Taking another three-wheeler to Patna zoo, I changed over to an autorickshaw to Hartali Mor before taking the seventh ride to High Court roundabout to round off my assignment at 8.45pm.

Six of the seven autos had unique identity numbers, denoting the areas the three-wheelers belonged to. However, none of the drivers sported identity cards as directed by the auto unions.

The autos on the Bailey Road-Rajabazaar route seem to flout every rule in the book. At 8.16pm, I hailed an autorickshaw on that route at High Court roundabout. I peeked inside and spotted three male passengers on the backseat of the three-wheeler, which was dark inside. I mustered courage to take the extreme left position on the backseat beside a man aged around 45 years, who looked from a good family.

Minutes later, the man started brushing my right leg with his left elbow. First, I thought it was unintentional and chose to ignore. But when he kept on doing the same, I told him aloud to shift a bit.

Instantly, he got conscious and asked the passenger seated on his right to shift, telling him that I was feeling uncomfortable.

All this while, I expected the driver to react and speak on my behalf but he kept mum, driving on without bothering. The other male co-passengers also chose not to react much to my surprise.

According to guidelines issued by police and autorickshaw unions in the state capital, every driver must look at the backseat from time to time to check any untoward incident. I started feeling scared till I asked the driver to halt in front of the zoo.

Neither did the autorickshaw have a unique identity nor did its driver have any identity card. While paying my fare, I asked the driver “Why don’t you keep the cabin light on in the evenings?” he just smiled and drove off, implying that he hardly cared for my convenience and safety.