Ashok Kumar, 49
Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh
Hailing from Moradabad, Ashok Kumar, 49, moved to Delhi in 1983. After his marriage in 1994, he started driving an autorickshaw to earn a living.
Three months ago, his brother, who runs a small business, bought a car and got it registered with Ola. He hired a driver to run the car and the earnings from it served as a side income. A month later, having experienced the Ola system, he told Kumar’s wife and kids about the advantages of the cab service.
“Convinced by their uncle’s argument, my kids persuaded me to give up my autorickshaw and start driving a cab,” says Kumar. After riding an autorickshaw for 20 years, on August 17, Kumar hit the road in a new vehicle and a new avatar – Ola cab driver. Turning on the AC, he exclaims, “No sweating from now on.”
Mr. Kumar has two daughters – one pursuing BA in English Literature from Delhi University, the other enrolled in an engineering course – and a son who is in sixth grade.
“At the moment, it’s a no profit, no loss situation. I have to pay my car’s instalment as well. But it will pick up. It’s all about hard work. The more you drive, the more you earn,” Kumar says about the cab business.
Kumar belongs to a section of people who wanted and voted for Arvind Kejriwal as Chief Minister and Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. As he complains about exploitation by Delhi’s traffic policemen, he fondly remembers the 49 days of the previous AAP government: “49 dinme sab sudhar gaye the. Aur ab dekho, khule aam len den chalta hai ( In 49 days, things had improved remarkably. Now, there is rampant corruption).”
While many of his friends enrolled their autorickshaws with Ola – very similar to the cab system – Kumar chose not to. He laughs and says, “The company gave everyone a smartphone upon enrolling. A lot of them did not return those phones after de-registering.” He was also a part of the autorickshaw driver’s protest against Ola and still believes that some regulations should be put in place.
Kumar recalls his early 20s, when he was going through the recruitment process for Indo-Tibetan Border Police in Seemadwar, Dehradun.
“I had reached quite far, but then they asked me to give some exam in Delhi. I didn’t go. That is my only regret in life. Had I done that, I would not have been driving an auto or this cab. I would have a nice government job.”
