Title - A friend in need, is a friend indeed

Unlikely heroes crop up during times of adversity. A.K. Haridasan, a 62-year-old autorickshaw driver, is one such person.The senior citizen camped near the exit gate of a deserted Kozhikode railway station with his vehicle on Thursday when the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] called a hartal in protest against the arrest of P. Jayarajan, the party’s Kannur district unit secretary.Mr. Haridasan was on a self-appointed mission to ferry free-of-cost passengers who had come to the city by train in search of urgent medical care.“Since morning I have had two trips to the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital. The first was an aged couple who came by the morning passenger train from Payyoli."The 70-year-old man was a heart patient. There was no one to pick them up, so I took them to the hospital in my auto. "The second was a cancer patient, and he was travelling alone,” said Mr. Haridasan, who has been plying the city’s roads since 1982.Seated on an old low stool brought from home, he described hartals a “thermometer meant to test a common man like me”. “My vigil started at 8 p.m. last night (Wednesday) after the hartal was announced and will continue till 8 p.m. tonight,” Mr. Haridasan, a Mankavu resident, said.He spoke fluent English, claimed to know four languages and said he was an “old BA.”  “First do me a favour. Speak to my wife and daughter, tell them I am safe,” was his first request even as police jeeps prowled the street outside the railway station’s parking lot while a small crowd of passengers haggled with autorickshaw drivers or waited for someone to pick them up.

A group of software engineers from Wipro, on the way to Wayanad from Chennai for a holiday, approached Mr. Haridasan for a lift to the nearest hotel, only to be politely refused.

“I intend to take only those who are sick and old. They need me the most now,” he said.

He has taken pains to alter his auto into a rudimentary ambulance.

“I have dismantled the passenger seat to make room for a bed, a sheet, and a pillow so that a sick person can lie down while travelling,” he said.

Unruffled

 News of sporadic incidents of violence in the city left Mr. Haridasan unruffled.

“I don’t know what I will do when somebody stops me on the road. I am doing this service for the first time. But then, I have reached an age when I don’t have to fear bodily harm. Besides, this is my city too,” he said.

Later on, a phone call to Mr. Haridasan revealed that a group of agitators had indeed confronted him when the area around the railway station grew more tense.  

“The rear tyre of my vehicle has been deflated after I refused to leave the spot.

But I don’t intend to leave till 8 p.m. If 50 more people have to be taken to the hospital, I will take all of them, tyres or no tyres,” he said in a tone of calm defiance.