On a crowded Kochi street, a young autorickshaw driver, her hair cropped short and hands steady on the wheel, pulled over at the wave of a policeman. He peered in and asked, “Endha mone, driving licence okke undo?” (“Hey boy, do you have a driving licence?”) She corrected him without missing a beat: “Mon alla, sir. Mola (Not a boy. A girl).” Then she produced her licence.

This was Alisha Ginson from Manjummel in Kerala’s Ernakulam district. She is just 18 years old and is behind the controls of a modest electric autorickshaw named ‘Manjummel Girl’. She is the youngest woman to drive an auto in Ernakulam, and possibly all of Kerala. A YouTuber’s casual video of her at work would rack up over six million views, bringing her to the attention of Kerala’s education minister, V Sivankutty, who named her brand ambassador for Kerala Savaari, the state’s taxi and auto booking app.

A forced detour
Her road to the driver’s seat was paved with hardship. At 16, Alisha left school when family finances collapsed. In the same year, fate struck twice: her father, Ginson, a former chef in Mumbai and then the owner of a cleaning services company, was injured in a road accident. Months later, her mother, Sheeja, was hospitalised with pneumonia that worsened into tuberculosis. EMIs mounted, income dried up, and the only remaining asset was an autorickshaw meant for ferrying cleaning staff.

“When pappa’s accident left him bedridden, and amma fell ill, I had to make a choice,” she recalled. “That auto became my only trump card.”

Initially, she used it to transport the cleaning crew to work sites, supervising jobs that involved deep cleaning new buildings and furniture. But one afternoon, when a neighbour requested a short trip and her father asked her to step in, Alisha earned ₹700 in fares. It was more than she had expected and it was enough to decide she could do this full-time.

Driving after dark
By evening, she switched roles, logging into Uber. Night driving began out of necessity. Once, she needed ₹13,000 urgently for an EMI. After a full day on the road, she was still short. So she kept going past midnight and past her comfort zone; sometimes until 2 am. She made the payment the next day. Since then, she has driven at all hours without hesitation.

Her cropped hair often leads passengers to mistake her for a teenage boy. Some even refuse to get in, suspecting an underage driver. “Once, a man stopped the auto and scolded my father for letting his ‘child’ drive. He had to show them my licence,” she said, laughing. Ironically, that tomboyish look has worked in her favour, warding off unwanted attention. She altered her brother’s khaki shirt into a uniform and avoids small talk with strangers, especially on late-night trips.

Interrupted education, altered ambitions
Alisha’s schooling was marked by long commutes and absences. She cycled over 25km daily from Manjummel to Paliyam for her Class XI Bio-Maths course. She fell behind, failed her exams, and shifted to Class XII Commerce at a private college, where she passed.

She once imagined herself as a nurse in Germany. She had even started learning German but the family’s financial strain forced her to abandon that path. Instead, she completed a diploma in Fashion Technology, briefly ran a small textile business (later handed to a Kudumbashree unit), and is now pursuing a Bachelor of Social Work through IGNOU, with plans for postgraduate study in the same field.

Recognition and reinvention
Kerala’s government presented her with a memento when she became the Kerala Savaari brand ambassador. Promotional work for the app provided some income, as did her YouTube channel named ‘Manjummel Girl’, after her viral moniker. She even christened her autorickshaw with the same name, at her subscribers’ suggestion.

Her brother Joshua left his studies in Bengaluru to manage the cleaning company after their father’s accident. Now, with both parents slowly recovering, the family plans a new venture: selling homemade mandhi through delivery apps and direct orders, often using Alisha’s auto for transport.

As for Alisha, she dreams of obtaining a heavy vehicle licence and learning to operate a JCB, though training costs are steep. For now, she is content to keep driving, to keep steering her family forward.

The small laminated card she received at 18 was not just a licence—it was, and remains, the means to keep her parents cared for, her debts managed, and her own life in motion. She once dreamed of building a future abroad; today, she is building one on the roads of Kochi.