The Auto Driver Who Carried My Silence
The Auto Driver Who Carried My Silence
A true experience from a rainy night in Trivandrum
Life gives us lessons even after we retire.
Some lessons come from books, some from work, some from people we respect.
But the lesson that shook me the most came from a man I had never met before, an auto driver in Trivandrum.
After almost forty years of dealing with launch campaigns, deadlines, satellites, and missions, I thought I had seen life in most of its shapes.
But on one quiet, rainy night, a stranger’s grief opened a door in my heart that no rocket noise had ever reached.
The Night I Returned Home
I had been to my native place for a brief visit – meeting a few relatives, offering condolences to an old family friend who had passed away, and spending a day with cousins I hadn’t seen in months.
The journey back felt quiet, almost too quiet, as if something in the air was preparing me for what I was about to witness.
By the time I reached Trivandrum Central by train, it was around 10 pm.
The station, as usual, was alive – vendors calling out, people rushing toward autos, families carrying sleeping children, announcements echoing under the roof.
But outside the station, the city felt different.
The monsoon rain had started again – slow, soft, almost like the sky was tired of crying.
Streetlights glowed through thin curtains of drizzle.
The wet road smelled of mud, diesel, and the familiar scent of Trivandrum rain – a scent that always brings a strange ache of nostalgia.
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and walked toward the auto stand.
That’s where I first saw him.
The Tired Old Man Under the Streetlight
He was sitting inside his auto as though someone had turned off a switch inside him.
His white hair was wet and pressed against his forehead.
His shirt clung to his back.
His eyes looked far away – not at the road, not at the people – but somewhere inside a dark corner of his own mind… a place where only grief lives.
Out of habit, I said,
“Medical College… will you go, chetta?”
He lifted his head slowly and nodded,
“Varam, sir…”
There was no energy in his voice – just a tired surrender, the sound of a man walking inside a storm he did not choose.
I got in.
He started the auto, the engine making a weak rattling sound, like a breath struggling to continue.
A Ride Full of City Noise – And a Driver Full of Pain
Night traffic near the railway station was chaotic as usual.
KSRTC buses growled through the junction.
Bikes zig-zagged through puddles.
A car splashed water on our side, and someone shouted from behind:
“Eda mooppaa! Drive properly!”
I saw him shrink a little, as though every word thrown at him was a stone.
It was the shrinking of a man who had no strength left to defend himself.
As we approached Overbridge, I leaned forward and asked quietly:
“Chetta… you seem disturbed. Are you alright?”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer.
The rain hissed on the metal roof of the auto.
Then, in a trembling whisper that carried years of unspoken sorrow, he said:
“Sir… my son… passed away last week.”
The words hit me harder than the rain outside.
I asked softly,
“What happened, chetta?”
He took a breath that broke halfway.
“A small fever, sir… started with a little cold…
We thought it was just viral.
But third day, he fainted in our small house.
We rushed him to the Medical College.
By evening… they said his lungs were collapsing.”
His hands on the handle began shaking.
“He was only twenty-four, sir…
He was my only boy…
Strong fellow… used to help me with this auto…”
His voice cracked, and for a moment he couldn’t continue.
The sound of the rain filled the gap like a quiet witness to his pain.
“He looked at me… just once…
He tried to say something…
but the oxygen mask…
I don’t know what he wanted to tell me.”
He swallowed painfully.
“Before I could call the nurse… he… he was gone, sir.”
No drama.
No loud crying.
Just a quiet, unbearable truth spoken in the darkness of a running auto.
And I – a man who has worked on satellite failures, pressure tests, mission losses –
felt utterly helpless.
Nothing in my long career had prepared me for the depth of that single sentence.
After He Dropped Me
He dropped me near a small hotel at Medical College Junction.
I paid him, but he didn’t even count the notes – his mind was somewhere else, wandering inside a space only grief can build.
Instead of going home, he moved his auto to the side of the road and waited again.
The night stretched before him like a long, empty tunnel.
People hurried past –
Umbrellas open, luggage dragging, tea shops clattering.
But nobody saw him.
Nobody noticed the man carrying a grief so large that it shadowed every part of him.
I waited there watching the auto driver for some time, wondering how fate could be so uneven – giving some people voices, while leaving some drowning in silence.
The College Boys
A group of college boys came laughing loudly, smelling of cheap liquor.
“Auto to Kesavadasapuram! Three people! Thirty rupees is enough, machaa!”
It was an insultingly low rate, but Gopi – yes, that was his name – didn’t protest.
He didn’t have the strength.
They squeezed in, pushed each other, joked, shouted.
And the auto left to Kesavadasapuram.
I entered a nearby hotel to take some food before going home, as my wife was still at my native place.
She would come only after a few more days, after spending time with her sister, who had returned from the US after a long stay with their grandchildren in New York.
As usual, I took two chapathis and some vegetable kuruma and a cup of hot tea.
Then I came out to go to my house at Sreekariyam.
And then, to my surprise, I saw the same auto driver, along with those three boys.
It seems that they didn’t go to Kesavadasapuram.
The boys were talking loudly, but friendly.
They had changed their plan, I think.
They were pleasant to the auto driver for a moment – but sometimes even kindness comes wrapped in carelessness.
And twice… maybe three times… I saw him try to speak.
To say something about his son.
To share a drop from the ocean inside him.
But their laughter drowned his voice.
Their noise crushed his words.
And whatever he tried to release sank back into his chest like a stone falling into deep water.
When they got out of the auto, they didn’t even look at him.
They just disappeared into a nearby bakery, chasing more laughter.
And Gopi… stood under the harsh light of a streetlamp, motionless, drenched, broken.
He looked around – so many people, so many stories, so many hearts.
“So many hearts… not even one to hear mine?” he whispered.
It was the saddest sound I have ever heard – a whisper carrying the weight of a world.
A Father Broken, but Still Working
I was still standing at the front of the hotel, and I could see and hear what he was saying.
He was only a few feet away from the hotel, though he could not see me.
He and his auto were near a shed, just a few metres away from the hotel, where drivers usually slept on benches.
In that shed, some men were already snoring.
Others were scrolling through their phones.
Not one person asked him,
“Chetta, are you okay?”
He spoke to a young driver.
But the boy finished drinking water and fell asleep before Gopi could even finish half a sentence.
That was when I understood:
His real tragedy was not his son’s death.
It was because no one had the time to listen to him.
Talking to the Only Listener He Had Left
Unable to bear the loneliness, he walked to his auto again.
He placed his hand on the handlebars as gently as someone touching a sleeping child.
“My old girl,” he whispered,
“I have no one else to talk to…”
And he told the auto everything – about his son’s last breath,
the empty cot at home,
the medicine bills he still hadn’t paid,
the silence in his house,
the weight in his chest.
Tears rolled down his cheeks and fell on the cold metal.
The auto, old, rusty, dented, became his only listener.
His only friend.
His only witness.
I slowly walked towards the shed.
I called, “Chetta, Sreekariyam… can you come?”
He looked at me with surprise.
“Oh… you! Again. Varam… Sir”
He started his auto again.
I went along with him to my house.
And then something shifted inside him.
As though he got a new life, he talked –
Till we reached Sreekariyam, he spoke about his son, only about him.
Every word carried a weight no machine could measure.
What That Night Taught Me
That night, when I lay in bed trying to sleep, his face kept returning to my mind.
I am a retired engineer from the Space Centre.
I have worked on missions that shook and shaped my life.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for the vulnerability I saw in that man.
That night taught me:
Grief becomes heavier when ignored.
Loneliness can kill faster than any disease.
A small ear can save a drowning heart.
Sometimes the greatest kindness is simply to listen.
The rain washed the streets of Trivandrum that night…
But inside one lonely auto,
a father’s heart remained unwashed, unspoken, unheard.
Except for me.
And that is why this story still lives in me –
and will live in me
for the rest of my life.