Bengaluru: Techie Driving Auto On Weekends To Avert Loneliness Is More Than Just News

While the challenge to combat loneliness presses on broader social-economic factors across nations, with the WHO declaring loneliness as a global public health threat, the narrative is now more open to discussion. Loneliness is a silent epidemeic in more ways than one, which is why it becomes even more important to talk about it, especially in world that is immensely dominated by digital mediums. As people go about tackling loneliness in their own ways, a photo of a Bengaluru techie has got the internet buzzing. 

Techie Driving Auto On Weekends To Avert Loneliness Is More Than Just News

A photo of a Microsoft techie who drives an auto rickshaw on the weekends to deal with loneliness started doing the rounds of social media when an X user shared the news. The video of the techie driving an auto rickshaw in Bengaluru wearing a hoodie with Microsoft written on it has gone viral. Some people are Expressing shock while others are trying to sympathise and empathise with the techie. 

Met a 35 year old staff software engineer at Microsoft in Kormangala driving Namma Yatri to combat loneliness on weekends pic.twitter.com/yesKDM9v2j

— Venkatesh Gupta (@venkyHQ) July 21, 2024

The viral video 

The video was shared by an X user and a techie. He captioned the video by writing, “Met a 35-year-old staff software engineer at Microsoft in Koramangala driving Namma Yatri to combat loneliness on weekends.”

Netizens were quick to respond with 18.2k likes and 448 comments. 

One of the users, techie Ankit Shrivastava wrote, “That’s just plain sad. (if true)”

Another wrote, “They’ll complain about moonlighting.”

Why is loneliness so common?

Well, most of us can relate to the techie's situation. When weekends hit, we feel happy on one side because, of course, we do not work. But on the other side, we feel gloomy due to the impending loneliness. Some of us are too reluctant to go out and yet too lonely to have no one to talk to. This is the paradox of loneliness. You have people who can comfort you but then you don't feel the energy to call them up and seek help. It is not casual that loneliness has been termed as an epidemic. 

It affects many people irrespective of which section of the society they belong to. A techie can be as lonely as any other daily wage worker. It is just that some people have no time to process that they are lonely which is even more dangerous. 

Views expressed are the author's own.