If you want to travel from South City College in Gol Park to Ekdalia Road in Ballygunge, you may walk the distance, or ride on something. 2-wheeler or car may be a preference, but negotiating traffic in small lanes and by-lanes may not be everybody’s cup of tea. For Panchali to take her daughter to South Point junior school and back, hand-pulled rickshaw is the ideal solution. Why, Panchali even enjoys the short ride as the carrier sways with the rythmic steps of the rickshaw-puller.
Now, hand-pulled rickshaws face the prospect of obliteration from the roads of Kolkata. The CM says it is inhuman to have had this for such a long time. His point is well taken, but I’m not going to sound magnanimous to spare a thought about those who stand to loose their bread by pulling rickshaws. In a city as big as Kolkata, there are other decent ways to earn living, specially since the city is on the verge of ‘taking off’.
A typical Kolkata rickshaw-puller.
Picture from: http://pages.cthome.net/india2/page36.html
The point is that the labyrinthine lanes in the city do not offer much choice. Walking is not a pleasure, nor for that matter is driving. If the absence of hand-pulled rickshaws yields the space to the other menace, that is 3-wheeler autos, it will be more of a headache than relief.
Leave a Reply