WHITE KNIGHT ON THREE WHEELS
THE SELFLESS SERVICE OF AN AUTORICKSHAW DRIVER HAS HELPED HUNDREDS IN KOLHAPUR
EVERY MORNING, JITENDRA SHINDE, an autorickshaw driver in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, dons a full-body PPE suit, double mask, rubber gloves and a face shield before heading out for the day. It is not just because the city and the district named after it are literally the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, but because at 3.4 per cent, Kolhapur’s Covid fatality rate (CFR) is more than double that of Maharashtra’s 1.3 per cent CFR. The city, a district capital with a census population of 789,000, is 374 kilometres south-east of Mumbai, close to Maharashtra’s border with Karnataka.
Shinde transports as many as 15 Covid-19 patients each day to the city’s rapidly filling hospitals and has, till now, ferried over 1,000 patients. The 59-year-old, who offers this service free of cost, has been working 12-hour days and clocking over 100 kilometres daily.
Shinde’s altruistic tendencies stem from a childhood tragedy: he lost both his parents in quick succession at the age of five. His father, he vaguely remembers, worked in a government-run malaria research institute, while his mother was a homemaker. “No one should have to go through what I did,” he says.
During the first wave of Covid-19, he ran a free medicines, vegetables and grocery delivery service for the handicapped. In the second wave, watching the health system rapidly getting overwhelmed by just the sheer number of cases, Shinde
IF EVERY INDIAN HELPED THREE PEOPLE, AND THEY IN TURN HELPED THREE MORE, INDIA WOULD BE ABLE TO SURVIVE ANY CALAMITY —JITENDRA SHINDE
switched over to offering free transport to those in need. He is never more than a phone call away. He changes his PPE kit twice a day, bathes three times a day and scours his vehicle with a litre of sanitiser daily.
Shinde doesn’t really watch movies much, but distinctly remembers the message from a 2014 Salman Khan film, Jai Ho—“If everybody helped three people, and they in turn helped three more, India could survive any calamity.”
His selfless service is subsidised by his family. The autorickshaw is rented for Rs 100 a day and he spends Rs 600 per month on petrol. The household expenses are met by his wife Rekha, who works as a cook in neighbouring homes, and his son’s wife Rubia, employed as a compounder in a nearby clinic.” His wife recently took a loan of Rs 1 lakh to finance Shinde’s cause. “What use is money if it doesn’t help anyone?” she asks.