Vinod Kumar KV lets a couple of calls go unanswered, and there are many coming in every few minutes. Parked on the Manaveeyam Veedi in Thiruvananthapuram, Vinod’s auto rickshaw – if you know his story – can be spotted from a distance. It’s the one with the words ‘Cancer Care for Life’ written on top, in red bold letters.
He has just come to the city from the Regional Cancer Centre, where every day his rickshaw plies between 9 am and 1 pm, taking the patients and bystanders coming out of the hospital or towards it, for free. He has been doing that for seven years. “I don’t ask them anything at first but when I drop them at the RCC, I ask if there is a patient, and if they say yes, I don’t take any money,” Vinod says.
He was in an ICU after his second heart attack when he made the decision. “I used to work as a technician of electronic gadgets and visit the RCC for work. There, I would see patients dragging their tubes and walking to the road. I would ask them why not call a vehicle and they’d say they can’t afford it. One day, I met a man called Prahladan who would give free rides in his auto rickshaw for patients, up to 25 km from the RCC. That was an inspiration for me. When I was in the ICU after the second attack, I decided I’d buy an auto rickshaw and do the same.”
He began the service on January 1, 2012. At first, it was only about free rides. But after spending more time there, with the patients, Vinod came to know of the many issues they face and became a sort of go-to person. “The RCC is like a sea and the people who come there are clueless. I just direct them to the right places,” Vinod says. These include carers who can’t afford separate accommodation and sleep on the ground outside the hospital. Vinod takes them to the many free or cheap shelters in the Medical College area. Then there is the problem of blood donation. Vinod, in his years as a voluntary service provider, managed to build a network of sources, people he could get help from. He would post in one of the many groups he is part of when there is a need for blood, and donors, encouraged by his presence there, would flock in on time.
“That’s why I stay there till 1. But it is nearly all the time now and my family – wife Shylaja and fifth grader daughter Akshaya Krishna -- had at first complained they don’t get even an hour with me. But now they have joined my cause,” Vinod says and even as he does, his little girl opens his phone gallery to show pictures of her dad getting several awards in recent years. The last one was from Stop Cancer, an NGO in Kollam that Vinod is really fond of. “They don’t do it for publicity. They just give, without even a photo being clicked, unlike so many others today.”
Vinod gets an award from the NGO, Stop Cancer
Vinod, too, belongs to that category. He is not interested in keeping an account of the people he has helped or the awards he has received. He only remembers the latest case he is on. As if on cue, a call comes and Vinod says he has to answer this one, it is Nandhu. Nandhu’s father had been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma when Vinod met them through a common friend. “The day I met them, father and son had been in the RCC from morning to 3 in the afternoon and had not had any food. They are too poor to afford it. Nandhu’s mother has a kidney disease and the boy had to drop out of Class XII to look after his father. He has a younger sister too. I put this in a WhatsApp group I created – called Cancer Care for Life – with an idea of collecting funds to buy an auto rickshaw for Nandhu. If the family has some sort of income, it’d really help them. If they don’t get an auto, I will give them mine,” Vinod says.
Vinod is not worried about his own income. He gets many calls, especially from nonresident Malayalis, offering large sums of money for the kind of service he does. But he doesn’t want it, he says. “I get what I need by riding the rick in the night (for the day is for RCC rides), and doing the occasional technician jobs," he says.
He got busier when he became part of the group Charity on Wheels, started by tour package drivers in Muvattupuzha. Vinod is now general secretary of the group. “We’d organise rides to take patients and carers from the RCC who have to travel a long distance, in these vans which go empty after finishing a tour package. Last month alone, we had run 6000 km across Kerala. If none of their vans are available, I take out my Maruti Eeco van that was sponsored by the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology.”
Vinod gets felicitated by Kerala Police Chief Lokanath Behera and the IMA, on World Cancer Day
He is also associated with the Indian Medical Association, the Kerala Police and has contacts in most of the hospitals across the city, so that he can directly make calls to the authorities and ask for immediate intervention. He shows messages that come on his phone asking for help, and answers yet another call to talk about a certain blood donation. “He also directs people who want to do anna danam (free offering of food),” says Akshaya, after whom Vinod has named the rickshaw.
Things are changing now at the RCC for the better, Vinod says. “There is a food court now that offers free food to 200 carers. The new building that was recently inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has space for a bigger blood bank which was much needed, and a casualty with more number of beds. The new pharmacy too is better equipped,” Vinod says, speaking about the disease he has been helping people fight. “It is mostly stress that brings it, the doctors at the IMA tell me. My dream is to see a world that is free of cancer," he adds.
Those who want any kind of help while visiting the RCC may contact Vinod on 9744747544.