Vidya lives in Mulund with her husband Anil, and two children. A 27-year-old Vidya Shelke was working as a cab driver in Mumbai, for prominent cab-aggregators. Her work was a source of constant joy to her. But, things went south when the COVID-19 lockdown was announced. Like many others in the country, Vidya too lost her job.
Vidya then decided to turn this adversity into an opportunity by helping people, who were stranded due to the lockdown, reach their homes safely. She started this service on March 28 and has helped almost 200 people so far.
Having ferried so many people in the last few months, she has probably had her share of memorable journeys. Recounting one, she says, “There was a pregnant lady who approached me for a 160-km-long ride back home to Junnar. She was alone and did not have enough money to afford the travel, but was in a critical state, awaiting delivery any day. The municipal hospital had turned her away due to lack of vacancy, and she couldn’t afford any other hospital. So I managed to quickly make her e-pass and started the journey. We were only some 10 kilometers away from her house, when the authorities at the check post denied entry to her, despite having all the documents right. Thanks to the help of another Samaritan, a truck driver transporting agricultural goods, I managed to board and send her home after taking extraordinary measures. That is one incident I can never forget.”
This sense of responsibility and the courage to help the needy even in dire situations makes Vidya, and people like her, the true heroes of humanity, who go the extra mile to make the lives of others better.
When asked about how she managed to do this in a scenario where several cities and districts had sealed their borders, she mentions that most of her customers were emergency cases and she tried her best to find proper permissions before transporting them. And in cases, where she couldn’t, she would politely refuse.
(Article excerpts from TheBetterIndia click here to read more about Vidya’s dedicated work)
