TN 07 A 5347. You won’t find this auto speeding along city roads. It remains stationed on Adikesavulu Street in Chintadripet.
The vehicle, abandoned about two years ago, is now home to R. Kokila and her three children. The family of four has nowhere else to go but Kokila is prepared to vacate the autorickshaw whenever its owner returns to reclaim it.
“I was born and raised on this street. After marriage, I continued to live here with my husband and our children. Nearly a year and a half ago, he left me. Since then, the children and I have been living in the auto,” says Kokila.
The auto looks like a laundry bag with clothes piled in the front. There is a make-shift kitchen just outside the auto. At night, Kokila sleeps with her three-month-old son in the back seat, while the older children — Prabhu (3) and Sana (one-and-a-half) — lie by the road with their grandmother Usha.
Kokila never went to school. She fell in love with Raghu, a coolie, when she was13 and he was 23, and married him subsequently. Ever since he has left, Kokila ekes out a living doing odd jobs.
“I earn just about Rs. 20 a day and have to depend on my mother,” she says. Usha sells flowers and manages to earn about Rs. 150 everyday.
Life is a bleak uncertainty for the family but 30-something Kokila is determined to make it. She wishes to educate her children and help them succeed in life.
“I’m illiterate but I want my children to go to school. I’ll try to help them as best as I can,” she says.
Keywords: economy, poverty, auto driers, living in an auto
The story although can be looked at a sorry angle, it shows a strong willed women who wants to live dignified without resorting to begging on streets. In the days when we talk about women's right in terms of sexual abuse, nobody seems to care about so many destitute women like Mrs. Kokila. I am not asking for one more subsidy from government with all crap that comes along.
Who is going to hold the man accountable, where is the child support he morally and supposedly legally provide. Where are the law enforcement officials who were supposed to drag him and through him behind bars? If people like him are left out we will see many more like Mrs. Kokila!
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