Rickshaw Politics
Well, I’m leaving tomorrow night, but this is another post I’ve been wanting to make for a while, so I’d better do it while I have the time and internet connection!
While staying in Lucknow, cycle rickshaws have been a pretty regular form of transportation for me. The fact that they are completely powered by the driver makes it impossible for one to forget the human element. Even when you aren’t actually on a rickshaw, they are visible everywhere. Young and old men, some with shirts, some with only a lungi wrapped around themselves against the elements. At night, sleeping either next to or on top of their one hope of an income, the rickshaw.
I’ve had the opportunity to listen to and partake in just a few conversations with these rickshaw-wale. Most of the words exchanged consist of a series of numbers. I’m usually hoping to get a good deal, while they are generally hoping that I might be one of the foreigners who will unknowingly give them much more than the usual price.
What most people don’t realize immediately is the reality of their situation. Most of these men aren’t from Lucknow. One is from Bara Banki, one from Kanpur, and others from all sorts of smaller villages in the area. One of my classmates interviewed a driver who began to cry when he spoke of staying apart from his wife and children. They usually remain back in the village, because an entire family can’t sleep in a single rickshaw. One thing I had not know is that no one even owns their own rickshaw, they are actually rented from the government. In addition to this daily fee of around 50 rupees, there is an additional fee if they want to be able to carry passengers around the main central part of the city during the day. After 5, I think they can go just about anywhere, but before that they need to pay 80 rupees for the right.
At least the situation is better than in Kolkata, where they still have the traditional rickshaws where they’re pulled on foot. Even though it’s illegal, how on earth can they afford to upgrade? If India really wants to pull people out of poverty, they’re going to need to come up with some scheme where these guys can buy their own rickshaws or maybe the rich people could take some of their huge masses of wealth and donate it to the cause. Somehow I bet all the money Mayawati is spending on really cheap looking stone elephants could buy rickshaws for at least all of Lucknow’s rickshaw-wallahs, but this woman who is supposedly the advocate for the downtrodden can’t seem to find anything better to do than build pre-humous statues of herself.
Anyway, the fact of the matter is that I definitely would not have been able to throw a hundred rupees away every time I’ve taken a rickshaw ride, but the other day when it was raining and the traffic was horrible, I was really feeling for these guys, so I did give a little extra…hoping that maybe it would help at least take care of their rental fee for the day or maybe let them buy an extra cup of chai.
What this all comes down to is my answer to one of the discussion questions we had in speaking class. “Hum kaise ghariban khatm kar sakte hain?” How can we end poverty? My answer to this question was that we can’t. We will never completely be able to end poverty. This may sound like a pessimistic response, and perhaps it is, but there’s a reason for it. Look at the case of the rickshaw drivers. They have their own specific surat-e-hal (situation), and they certainly have their own reasons for perhaps being trapped in a cycle of poverty. Farmers have their own problems, manual laborers have their own issues that need to be dealt with, and this is just India. Certainly their are bigger problems that can apply to all of them, but I think the smaller problems should be studied before the bigger ones can be fixed. A Long and difficult process which requires the cooperation of an entire society, an entire country, the entire world.
So this is just my attempt show a little more about what lays behind the photos and sentiments of “oh those poor people.” They’re very real with very real lives. Everyone has a story, without exception.
