How food delivery man’s tragic road death struck heart of the India middle class dream
- Salil Tripathi, a 36-year-old delivery rider for Zomato in Delhi, was killed instantly when a car driven by a drunk policeman hit him
- Young father’s death touches many in India, where millions who dream of joining the middle class face considerable obstacles
Once in a while, a person dies whose life happens to mirror in almost every detail the lives of millions around him. Salil Tripathi’s fate was to be that person, to be that death.
Last Saturday, as heavy rain lashed the Indian capital in one of the heaviest downpours in 25 years, most people remained indoors. But Tripathi zipped up his jacket and grabbed his helmet to go out and drop off food as a delivery “executive” for Zomato, a food delivery platform.
“I told him not to go out in such bad weather but he said he would just do a couple of deliveries and come back soon,” said his wife Sucheta.
Since his untimely death, all the details that have tumbled out about his quintessentially ordinary life track the arc of Indians who have risen in the past 15-20 years from the hardship, scarcity and meagreness that characterised their lives to enter the ranks of the middle class.
Tripathi left his village near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, where his family had land but little else, to pursue a hotel management course in Delhi 665km (413 miles) away. He was the first in his family to pursue higher studies.
He went on to work as a restaurant manager, sometimes in hotel restaurants. In 2010 he married Sucheta and they had a son, Divyansh, now 10, who used to attend a private school. Home was a flat in a nondescript block of flats in a nondescript suburb. His parents lived with him too.
