A mirror, a joke, a lipstick: Kerala's wholesome viral moment

When "mocked" and "students" are in the same sentence, there is a particular kind of internet drama everyone braces for at the moment. You expect outrage. You expect a comment war. You expect somebody's face to get "exposed" by evening.

What you don't expect is a mirror, a bit of lipstick, and both sides ending up looking like the nicest people on the internet.

That's exactly what happened at the autorickshaw stand in Thamarassery, Kozhikode and the story is now doing the rounds on social media for all the right reasons.

The complaint that started it all

The autorickshaw drivers stationed in front of Korangad College had a grievance. Young women walking past the stand kept using the side mirrors of their parked vehicles to check their reflections and according to the drivers, breaking them in the process.

It's not a small cost either. A single side mirror costs anywhere between Rs 300 and Rs 1,000. The drivers complain that their mirrors keep getting broken again and again by the passing students. They were using them for quick beauty checks on the go, which is exactly what they weren’t meant for. 

The petty but genius comeback

Instead of yelling, arguing, or putting up an angry notice, the drivers decided to play the reverse game. They got a large mirror, set it up right at the stand, and made a video about it. The video claimed, in a roundabout, sarcastic way: here, use this one instead. Leave our vehicles alone.

The intent was clearly a little cheeky. It was less "kind gesture" and more "here's your own mirror, now stop touching ours." And the drivers didn't hide it, rather their own explanation was blunt. They'd set it up so students could fix their lipstick and comb their hair without wrecking anyone's ride in the process.

The video went up. It went viral. And that's when the story took a turn nobody was expecting.

The response nobody saw coming

Rather than getting defensive or firing back with an equally sarcastic video, the girls did something disarming. Well, they said thank you.

In their response video, one of them says that they're genuinely grateful the mirror was set up for them, and that they hope more such good gestures happen, not just here, but everywhere. 

And then, the punchline

As the girls were walking away from the stand, one of them tossed out an offhand comment, half joking, and half not. That it would've been even better if the drivers had left lipstick next to the mirror too.

It could have ended there, as a throwaway joke lost in the reel's comment section. Instead, the auto drivers actually did it. They picked up lipstick and placed it right next to the mirror for the students to use. What started as a mildly petty jab had, by the end, turned into an actual, functioning beauty station. 

The drivers' original video and the students' response both have been watched by large numbers of viewers on Instagram, and the story has spread well beyond Thamarassery.