Kozhikode owes its pseudonym ‘City of Truth’ mostly to the honesty of its autorickshaw drivers. But the recent years have seen their popularity take a dip due to the increasing number of complaints received against the city’s autorickshaw drivers.
Last Monday evening, an autorickshaw driver’s unusual good turn has become a rallying point for the city’s police force, the district administration and prominent citizens to jointly revive the 5,000-odd strong community’s good name.
In January, Noushad C.V., an autorickshaw driver in the city, waited for three hours outside a private hospital for his passenger to return and claim his bag of valuables.
“It was a trip from the railway station to a private hospital. He forgot the bag and I waited outside until he came back looking for it. He just took it from me, said ‘thanks’ and walked away,” Mr. Noushad recounted.
Three months after this incident, it was time for the city to pay back Mr. Noushad for his honesty.
Today, he was gifted a new autorickshaw. The vehicle is the first ‘Safe Track’ autorickshaw equipped with amenities like drinking water, emergency helpline numbers, newspapers, radio, mobile chargers, among other facilities. A visually-handicapped person needs to pay only half the meter charge. The vehicle was donated by Baithuzzakath Kerala, a charity group.
“We saw news reports about Noushad’s good deed. We were curious to know why he did it. So we spoke to several autorickshaw drivers in the city. Most of them said it was an usual occurrence in the city, people always forget things in autorickshaws. Noushad is an exception. For a person who showed honesty to the society, we decided we should give him back something,” said P.M. Janardhanan, a retired senior police officer and patron of Trauma Care, Kozhikode, which led the campaign for Noushad.
Trauma Care has already trained 463 autorickshaw drivers in road safety and accident rescue. Mr. Janardhanan said 100 of them would be chosen to run more Safe Track autorickshaws in the city. Speaking at the well-attended function, which saw autorickshaw drivers and their families rub shoulders with senior police and transport officers at the Police Club, Elamaram Kareem, Beypore MLA, referred to the recent complaints against autorickshaw driver community and said small acts of kindness to passengers and social responsibility would go a long way in repairing relationships.
“Help the senior citizen get into the autorickshaw. Help the lady with her bags. Those who work in the service sector meet people all day long, behave well with them,” Mr. Kareem said.
“An autorickshaw driver is one of the first persons a traveller meets in the city. The autorickshaw driver’s behaviour is the first impression the tourist gets of the city,” Rajeev Puthalath, Regional Transport Officer, said.
“I just want to remain in the memory of those I meet as a person of honesty,” Mr. Noushad said.
