The rickshaw-puller is ubiquitous in Calcutta. I used to wonder why the hand-pulled rickshaws were not replaced with cycle-rickshaws; eventually, they were introduced, but the hand-pulled rickshaws still remain.
As a child and a teenager, I tried hard to examine my mixed feelings about them: I refused to ride in rickshaws; but when they followed me, clapping their bells against one of the long poles, hoping that I would jump in and let them carry me, I really did not know whether by walking I did them a favor, or made it more difficult for them to earn a living.
Sometimes I would stop by a footpath vendor of sattu, the powdered, roasted grains which seemed to be the pullers' main diet, and watch a group of them eating. Three or four of them would squat by the road near the vendor. He or she would give each one a shiny brass plate, one onion, one green chillie, a small pile of powdered grains and dals, and a brass vessel of murky water. The pullers would use their hands to mix the powder with water until it cohered into lumps, then eat it with carefully-paced bites of onion and chillie, so that they would last for the whole meal. At the end of the meal they would use the remaining water in the vessel to wash their hands and the plate. The sattu was the cheapest food available, yet I never saw them ask for seconds. After eating they would rest for awhile before taking up their rickshaws, and pulling them slowly once again down the streets looking for business.
Today, when my income is so much higher than theirs, I know that their sleep is more peaceful than mine. I have rarely seen the tranquility which I saw in the rickshaw-wallah whom I photographed, while I felt guilty, apologetic, and helpless.
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