If you are an auto rikshaw driver at the age of 50, you are most likely to die as an auto rikshaw driver.
But not if you are M Chandrakumar, our hero of this story, from Coimbatore, a manufacturing township in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Then 53 in the year 2015, ‘Auto Chandran’ as he is popularly known, got a phone call that changed his life.
A big-time Tamil film director, Vetri Maaran, had sought Auto Chandran’s permission to turn a novel he wrote on police brutalities into a feature film. The auto-rickshaw driver, a 10th class pass out, used to pen his thoughts into stories and had over the years written as many as eight novels.
The one that caught Vetri Maaran’s eye was ‘Lock Up’, an autobiographical account of the auto rikshaw driver and his experiences as a prisoner in an Andhra Pradesh jail as un undertrial, way back in 1991. The film, Visaranai, ran to packed houses in Tamil Nadu and received rave reviews from the critics as well.
Awards galore
In fact, the film had Auto Chandran rubbing shoulders with the biggest in the global movie industry at the Venice
International Film Festival. Visaranai won a consolation prize at the Venice festival and followed this up with a rich harvest of National awards the following year.
Visaranai bagged three national awards – for best regional film, best supporting actor, and best editing. Even more importantly, it pipped films like Baajirao Mastani to be nominated as the official entry of India at the 2016 Oscars.
Lock Up is not the only novel the 58-year-old auto rickshaw driver-cum-novelist has penned so far. He has eight titles in his credit, all of them in his mother tongue Tamil. Most of the writing he does is in between the time he got waiting for passengers.
His entry into the film world thus begun, Auto Chandran had become the toast of all auto rickshaw drivers in Tamil Nadu.
He still drives the auto
“I got little money from Vetri Maaran Sir for the film,” Auto Chandran told 24x7Qatar.com on phone from Coimbatore. He still drives the auto rickshaw daily and makes between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 per month.
Yes, Covid-19 has affected the business somewhat, but Coimbatore had been a green zone, he said. “So, things are all right,” he said.
The film Visaranai won critical acclaim as well as box office success in Tamil Nadu.
Having tasted success in the film industry, Auto Chandran began exploring and found out he was acceptable as an actor as well. Now, he is already one film old, as an actor. “Shooting for the film Kuruthi Attam (Blood Sport), that took place for one and a half years, was over in February. Now dubbing is going on. Once it is complete, the director sir will take a decision on the release date,” Auto Chandran said.
Interesting role as an actor
In this film, Auto Chandran is playing the role of a “retired don” mentoring three aspiring dons. “It is an interesting role and I have some 30-minute role in the film, fight sequences and heavy dialogues,” Auto Chandran said.
“I have accepted to do the script and dialogues for another yet-to-be-named film by a big director,” he said refusing to reveal any further.
Auto Chandran cannot forget the moment he got the phone call from director Vetri Maaran. It changed his life completely, in terms of attaining celebrityhood.
But money is yet to come in, he said.
Life itself is the inspiration for Auto Chandran. He said he was always observing life, “which has been my teacher and an inspiration to write”.
What shaped that novel
It was his first-hand experience of police brutality and oppression in his early 20’s in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh that came out in the form of a novel – Lock Up.
Auto Chandran and two of his friends were arrested by the police in Guntur and tortured mercilessly for 13 days and later let off. They were picked up for no reason at all, Auto Chandran said, recalling his harrowing experience.
A trade union worker, affiliated to AITUC, Auto Chandran has definite views on a host of issues and writes on the agony of the poor and the downtrodden and the working class in his novels.
