CHENNAI: Donning a low-cost personal protective suit, Dileep sat in his autorickshaw eagerly waiting for people to venture out of their houses. The 39-year-old Chennai man hadn’t planned his life this way. It was through the viewfinder of his camera, Dileep had first observed rickshaw drivers. Working as a professional photographer, he was then shooting a documentary on their life.
Fate had something else in store for Dileep when he bought a Pentax K1000 manual camera around two decades back. “I grew up fascinated with photography after watching film shootings in our neighbourhood. That’s how I became a photographer,” says Dileep. Initially, he started photographing weddings and then joined a Tamil daily as a news photographer.
In 2011, while working in a Tamil magazine, he got an offer to work abroad. “Working in Saudi Arabia was a new experience. I worked there for five years. Life was going all well till the economic crisis hit the Arab nation.” In 2016, he returned to India and started looking for chances, which had become fewer by then.“Occasional wedding shoots were the only source of income,” says Dileep adding that the filming of documentary was a life-changer.
“During the shoot, I drove a rickshaw for a brief period to closely understand the lives of my subjects. I realized that it paid decently. From then onwards, a thought started recurring in my mind; why don’t I take it up as a fulltime profession?” says the father of two children. By March 2020, Dileep had made up his mind to become an auto driver. He even took a vehicle on rent after paying Rs 3,000 as advance. Besides, he had to pay Rs 250 every day to the vehicle owner. He hardly started the career when the lockdown struck upon his dreams.
With most of the residents locked up indoors, there were no takers for rickshaw rides. The only relief was the vehicle owner waiving the daily dole. After a deadlock of over two months, Dileep has once again hit the road after the government relaxed restrictions. He even purchased a PPE kit and set up a transparent screen to separate him from the passengers.
A sanitiser bottle and a few spare face masks are also stored in his rickshaw. “Income has not picked up as people are reluctant to get out of their houses. I spent Rs 100 for fuel every day but earn less than Rs 200,” Dileep says hoping that things will improve gradually. His passion, however, seems to stick on with him as Dileep showed a bag that he has safely kept in his vehicle. “I carry my camera all the time. I don’t want to miss any interesting moment,” he says adding that he was planning to ride rickshaw as long as he earned sufficiently. The man has also fitted a GoPro camera on the rickshaw to shoot videos during the rides.