GUWAHATI: Laibi Oinam, Manipur’s only lady autorickshaw driver, who volunteered to drop off a recovered Covid-19 nurse from Imphal to her home in Kamjong district bordering Myanmar has won laurels for the yeoman service.
Laibi said it was not entirely money but a sense of compassion that made her drive a long distance in the hills at night to take a young nurse to her home.
“Laibi Oinam wanted to help the nurse as no cab driver was willing to extend the service,” Th. Chandrakumar Singh, a local, said quoting Laibi Oinam.
This newspaper had reached out to her on the phone but the barrier of language stood in the way.
The nurse, Somichon, had tested positive soon after her return from Kolkata where she was employed. She was treated at a hospital in Imphal and discharged on May 31. She wanted to go home but the taxi drivers were found unwilling.
Singh said the nurse was at her wit’s end when an ambulance dropped her near Nagaram locality of Imphal.
“Laibi Oinam called her husband Oinam Rajendro Singh, who is a patient of diabetes, and discussed the nurse’s plight. A decision was made that the two of them would drop her at her house,” Singh said.
Somichon told this newspaper on Friday that she was not discriminated against by the couple.
“My father and my uncle had approached several cab drivers but they were unwilling to drive such a long distance in the hills and that too at night. Some were afraid as I had just recovered from the disease. Eventually, this lady came forward. We set out at 6 pm and reached Kamjong town, 170 km away, at around 2:30, am on June 1. I was picked up by an uncle and I reached my village in his car,” Somichon, who is now lodged at a quarantine centre in her village, said.
She said all throughout, she had to guide Laibi Oinam as the latter was not familiar with the roads.
“It was difficult driving an autorickshaw in the hills but she managed it well. She was not afraid of driving in a region she had never been to before,” the nurse said, adding “I was told an NGO from the hills had gifted her Rs 5,000 as a token of love”.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Thursday handed over a cash reward of Rs 1.1 lakh to her. “Glad to honour and hand over a cash reward of Rs.1,10,000 to Smt Laibi Oinam, an auto driver from Pangei who took the trouble to take the discharged girl from JNIMS covering 8 hours journey to Kamjong on midnight of May 31. She truly exemplifies hard work and service above self,” the CM tweeted.
The money was gifted by a few entrepreneurs from Manipur besides Manipuri diaspora in the US, the UK, Canada and Singapore. Ningombam Bupenda Meitei, an academic, also hailed her.
“I telephoned to salute our auto lady driver Smt. Oinam Laibi who took the COVID-19 recovered patient when no other driver was ready to do so. What moved me more is the story of this lady penned by my school teacher, the late Bejoy K. Choudhury,” Meitei tweeted.
Laibi Oinam has two sons, both are college students, and she supports the family. In 2015, a documentary “Auto Driver”, based on her life, had won several awards. Directed by Meena Longjam, it tells her life in a non-traditional profession for women.