The Weight of a Ride

Shanthipuram is an imaginary small town where familiar faces, simple lives, and unexpected stories are part of everyday life.

The Shanthipuram of the late 1980s was a place where everyone seemed to know everyone else. Familiar faces were part of everyday life, and few were more familiar than Govindan Uncle—a man in his early sixties who could be seen most days pulling his two-wheeled wooden cart through the roads and narrow lanes of the town.

His cart carried cement sacks, steel rods, bricks, and whatever else a construction site needed. Looking back, I often wonder how he managed it day after day. As children, we never did.

Whenever Govindan Uncle returned from a delivery with an empty cart, I would run behind him asking for a ride. Sometimes my equally mischievous friends joined me. We treated that old cart like a luxury vehicle.

We rarely waited for permission. We’d jump onto the cart from behind, cling to its sides, and sometimes even dance on it as it creaked along the road.

“Get down! This isn’t a playground!” he would shout.

We would laugh and hold on even tighter.

“It’s on wheels, Uncle!” I would argue. “How can it be heavy?”

He would shake his head, mutter something under his breath, and keep pulling the cart down the road.

To us, it seemed easy.

After all, if he could haul cement sacks and steel rods all day, surely a few skinny boys couldn’t make much difference.

At least, that’s what we thought.

Near our house, a small irrigation channel crossed the road, connecting two paddy fields on either side. During the monsoon, rainwater flowed through it from one field to the other. If the flow was blocked, the nearby houses could flood. Though the road was tarred, the area around the channel often turned muddy and slippery after heavy rain.

One drizzling afternoon, I saw Govindan Uncle struggling near that spot.

His cart was loaded with cement sacks.

One wheel had sunk deep into a muddy patch beside the road. The front of the cart had lifted awkwardly, and the entire load looked ready to topple.

There was nobody around.

It was a quiet monsoon afternoon, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

I ran toward him.

Though I was barely twelve years old, I pushed down on the back of the cart with all the strength I had. It gave him a little relief, but it wasn’t enough.

The cart was simply too heavy.

Rain continued to fall. Govindan Uncle was sweating despite the cool weather. His breathing grew heavier with every passing minute.

If he let go to get help, the cart would topple. The cement sacks would fall into the mud and rain. They would be ruined, and he would suffer the loss.

For nearly ten minutes, we struggled.

Nothing worked.

But at least the cart wasn’t falling.

Then I picked up a few stones from the roadside and wedged them around the trapped wheel. The cart became a little more stable.

“Stay here!” I shouted.

Without waiting for a reply, I sprinted to a small shop about a hundred yards away.

A few men immediately followed me back.

Together, they pushed, pulled, lifted, and finally freed the wheel from the mud.

The cart rolled forward.

Govindan Uncle wiped the rain and sweat from his face. He thanked everyone, adjusted the load, and slowly continued his journey through the drizzle.

I thought that was the end of it.

But later that evening, I heard the familiar creaking of wooden wheels outside our house.

Govindan Uncle had returned.

He stopped his cart near our gate and looked at me.

“Come,” he said with a smile. “Get on.”

For years, I had wanted to hear those words.

This was the ride I had chased, begged for, and occasionally stolen.

But something had changed that day.

A few hours earlier, I had felt the weight of that cart pressing against my arms.

I had seen the sweat on his face.

I had seen the worry in his eyes when the wheel got stuck.

And for the first time, I understood that the cart moved not because it had wheels, but because someone had to pull it.

The cart no longer looked like fun.

For the first time, it looked like what it really was—a livelihood.

I smiled and shook my head.

“No, Uncle.”

He looked surprised.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need a ride anymore.”

For a moment, he simply looked at me.

Then he smiled.

Not the smile he gave us when we played around him.

This one was different.

Maybe he realized I had finally understood.

He nodded gently, turned his cart around, and continued down the road.

I stood there watching until he disappeared from sight.

I never asked him for a ride again.

Years have passed since that rainy afternoon.

But every now and then, when I see someone doing a difficult job that most of us barely notice, I think of Govindan Uncle and his cart.

I remember the rain. I remember the stuck wheel. And I remember how light that cart had seemed to me until the day I tried helping him move it.

Some lessons are not taught by parents or teachers. They arrive quietly, disguised as ordinary moments, and stay with you for the rest of your life.

Long after the rain has stopped...