 "Wheeling into oblivion")
Khub Lal Yadav squints his hollow sunken eyes to negotiate the busy eight-lane traffic cross-section at Ballygunge phari. He holds his mode of livelihood with sturdy hands even as his rib cage juts out menacingly. He manages to sprint barefoot across lanes, dodging the speeding cars behind him to enter Broad Street. This is a safe zone where he can ply his unique mode of transport, undeterred by the traffic cops or zipping traffic.
In Bhowanipur, an emaciated bare-bodied Ram Sagar Sahu, clad in a knee-length pyjama and dusty sneakers stops over at the roadside stall to light a cigarette. He breaks his drudgery by indulging in two cigarettes a day with a packet of gutkha.
Yadav and Sahu are among the 6,000 rickshaw-pullers of Kolkata who are trying to hold their own as successive governments vacillate between banning them, or giving them a definite identity with licences to ply. Largely seen as a symbol of inhumanity or the city's colonial culture, these rickshaw-pullers are fighting a lone battle for survival. Their numbers have reportedly dwindled from 24,000 in 2005-6 to 16,000 in 2011. According to Mukhtar Ali, general secretary of All Bengal Rickshaw Pullers' Union (ABRU), the total number of rickshaws plying in the city now could be less than 6,000.
These hand-pulled rickshaws of Kolkata have been here for more than a century. First introduced by Chinese traders in the late 19th century to carry goods, they were soon turned into a cheap mode of transportation by the British rulers. Even today, it is viewed as the only means of pollution-free transport in the narrow lanes and by-lanes of Kolkata, particularly in areas like north, central Kolkata, Burra Bazar, Park Circus, Ripon Street, Maniktalla, Beck Bagan, Bhawanipur and Ballygunge.
The Communist Party's decision to ban this "inhuman baggage of colonial era" in 2005 has since been opposed by rickshaw-pullers, their unions and civil society. "Human scavengers used by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to clean the drains is more inhumane than pulling people for livelihood," argues Ali. Moreover, the rickshaw- pullers are sceptical about the government's promise of alternative means of livelihood.
"How can I learn to even ride a cycle rickshaw at this age," asks an agitated Yadav. "This is the only option for me and I hope to earn my living like this till the body permits," he says. Sahu, on the other hand, appears more relaxed, "I know the government cannot ban these haath rickshaws. They just create this noise for excitement," his eyes twinkle with humour as he looks around at bystanders at the tea stall for approval. He claims to be a matriculate from Dwarkanath College at Muzaffarpur and says he came into the profession for lack of anything better to do. Yadav, 65, from the Giridih district of Jharkhand has been pulling the rickshaw for 45 years now. He goes home once a year to his wife and children who work as farm tenants.
Interestingly, most of these rickshaw-pullers hail from Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. They leave their family behind in the villages and live either in deras (garages where they park their carts and cook their food together) or on pavements.
According to Calcutta Samaritans, an NGO which works on research and rehabilitation of the rickshaw-pullers, 60 per cent of them suffer from tuberculosis and other lung diseases. Their lifestyle makes them prone to respiratory diseases and heart ailments. "The government is disinclined to do anything for them and is simply waiting for this profession to die its natural death as 80 per cent of the pullers are over the age of 50," says Pratim Raba of Calcutta Samaritans.
As the elderly rickshaw-pullers are likely to park their carts for good in the next few years, the iconic hand rickshaws of Kolkata will soon fade into the annals of history.
In Bhowanipur, an emaciated bare-bodied Ram Sagar Sahu, clad in a knee-length pyjama and dusty sneakers stops over at the roadside stall to light a cigarette. He breaks his drudgery by indulging in two cigarettes a day with a packet of gutkha.
Yadav and Sahu are among the 6,000 rickshaw-pullers of Kolkata who are trying to hold their own as successive governments vacillate between banning them, or giving them a definite identity with licences to ply. Largely seen as a symbol of inhumanity or the city's colonial culture, these rickshaw-pullers are fighting a lone battle for survival. Their numbers have reportedly dwindled from 24,000 in 2005-6 to 16,000 in 2011. According to Mukhtar Ali, general secretary of All Bengal Rickshaw Pullers' Union (ABRU), the total number of rickshaws plying in the city now could be less than 6,000.
More From This Section
The Communist Party's decision to ban this "inhuman baggage of colonial era" in 2005 has since been opposed by rickshaw-pullers, their unions and civil society. "Human scavengers used by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to clean the drains is more inhumane than pulling people for livelihood," argues Ali. Moreover, the rickshaw- pullers are sceptical about the government's promise of alternative means of livelihood.
"How can I learn to even ride a cycle rickshaw at this age," asks an agitated Yadav. "This is the only option for me and I hope to earn my living like this till the body permits," he says. Sahu, on the other hand, appears more relaxed, "I know the government cannot ban these haath rickshaws. They just create this noise for excitement," his eyes twinkle with humour as he looks around at bystanders at the tea stall for approval. He claims to be a matriculate from Dwarkanath College at Muzaffarpur and says he came into the profession for lack of anything better to do. Yadav, 65, from the Giridih district of Jharkhand has been pulling the rickshaw for 45 years now. He goes home once a year to his wife and children who work as farm tenants.
Interestingly, most of these rickshaw-pullers hail from Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. They leave their family behind in the villages and live either in deras (garages where they park their carts and cook their food together) or on pavements.
According to Calcutta Samaritans, an NGO which works on research and rehabilitation of the rickshaw-pullers, 60 per cent of them suffer from tuberculosis and other lung diseases. Their lifestyle makes them prone to respiratory diseases and heart ailments. "The government is disinclined to do anything for them and is simply waiting for this profession to die its natural death as 80 per cent of the pullers are over the age of 50," says Pratim Raba of Calcutta Samaritans.
As the elderly rickshaw-pullers are likely to park their carts for good in the next few years, the iconic hand rickshaws of Kolkata will soon fade into the annals of history.