His body glistening with sweat, a gaunt man in a loincloth pulls a rickshaw amidst huge brickred dwellings with baroque cornices overlooking serpentine lanes.
Plying across areas of North Kolkata ferrying people or piles of packages, such had been and still is the handpulled rickshaw in the ‘city of joy’.
Even after 37 years since Kolkata earned its platitudinous nickname from Dominique Lapierre’s novel, the destitution of rickshaw pullers witnesses meagre change; quite a paradox, for the first Indian city to run the Metro Railway.
The coalescence of vintage and modern eras is well upheld. Mukhtar Ali, general secretary of All Bengal Rickshaw Union, told The Statesman: “Kolkata has around 1,500 hand-pulled rickshaws today as compared to 6,000 back in 1919.”
Hand-pulled rickshaws were first devised in Japan in 1869 as jin-riki-sha, meaning human-powered vehicle.
The British introduced these rickshaws in Kolkata when the erstwhile aristocrats including landlords and businessmen commuted using ornate palanquins, reinforcing the master-slave power hierarchy.
Many unemployed and unskilled labourers come to Kolkata in search of work and pick up the iron rods without undergoing any form of training. The owners are not the pullers, but sardars who rent them out from khatals (rickshaw garages).
In an attempt to phase out hand-pulled rickshaws, the government has ceased issuing and renewing licences. Moin Sheikh, a hand-drawn rickshaw puller, said, “It’s difficult sustaining with a monthly earning of not more than Rs 4,000. If the government bans the rickshaw, I shall not survive. I’m illiterate. I have two sons and three daughters. My sons shall take up my profession but I do not want them to. My daughters are yet to get married.”
According to a report by The Calcutta Samaritans and Action Aid, Kolkata, 76 per cent of the rickshaw-pullers toil more than 12 hours a day with “almost no recourse to health care.”
Prolonged periods of isolation from family members contribute to frequent visits to sex workers, causing them to contact Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) like HIV/AIDS. Diseases like malaria, hydrocele and spinal ailments are prevalent.
The only positive side to these hand-pulled rickshaws is their non-reliance on fuel, making them an eco-friendly commute.
Also, these rickshaws can manoeuvre the narrow lanes of Kolkata, especially during monsoon when the streets are flooded.