Kolkata's age-old hand-pulled rickshaws show-stoppers this Puja!

Keeping in mind Kolkata's traditional hand-pulled rickshaws, Kashi Bose Lane Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee is initiating a new concept to connect the present with the past making the age-old rickshaws their theme this year.

Twenty hand-pulled rickshaws will take centre stage and go round the city reminding the dwellers of this legacy.

The state minister for Women and Child Development and Social Welfare Sashi Panja along with Atin Ghosh, Member, Mayor-in-Council (health), Kolkata Municipal Corporation, inaugurated the drive at a function.

Foreign tourists visiting the city and intending to travel in a rickshaw will be given free rides in a bid to make Bengal's hand-pulled rickshaws a global platform.

Introduced by the British,

hand-pulled rickshaws were the only of its kind that was available in the capital of the country. When the capital was shifted from Kolkata to Delhi in 1911, the rickshaws continued to be an important means of transport. In the lanes and by-lanes of old Calcutta (now Kolkata) which got waterlogged during monsoons, hand-pulled rickshaws were the only means of transport. These rickshaws, though few in number, are still seen in some areas in north and south Kolkata. Children of this generation have no idea about the rickshaws and so it is an attempt on the club's part to make them aware of the city's one of the oldest medium of transport, Atin Ghosh said.

The rickshaws have been painted in bright colours and are moving round the city to woo people and make them aware of the city's history, Ghosh added. This will continue till the Durga Puja. Rickshaws have played an important role in old Kolkata's history and has featured in many Bengali and Hindi films that were shot in the City of Joy. Many interesting stories and anecdotes are associated to them. Khoka gunda, a well-known anti social of the 19th century, the prime accused in the "Pagla murder case" had deceived the investigating officer of the case, a well-known detective Panchanan Ghoshal posing as a rickshaw-puller when the cop was on his way to Jorasanko police station on a rickshaw on a rainy night when most of the city streets had been waterlogged.