Gaurav has written an excellent post on chasing rickshaws in cyberia, and all the interesting stops he had made in that process. So first take a look at that post before you read this.

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I simply want to add another "rambling memoirist" data point to that rickshaw trail. The rickshaw, in its various cycle and auto isotopes, as is has been said ad nasuem, has played an important role in meeting the transportation needs of travelers in the Indian sub-continent. Before my parents joined the great middle class migration, and moved upwards by acquiring a Maruti 800 car towards the end of the millennium, we used auto rickshaws quite a bit to go any where as a family (this after I and my sister got fairly large to upset the center of gravity if our whole family attempted to get on my father's Bajaj Chetak scooter, as we did earlier in our childhood), especially to the two railway stations, Nampally and Secundrabad.

Also when we used to visit our grandparents in their Costal Andhra villages, cycle rickshaws often played an important role in getting us from the nearest town to the village. This because while APSRTC (possibly the best state transportation service in India; it goes everywhere even if it can make you feel like one of those Beckett's tramps in Godot sometime) had buses going to those villages, it was far from what can be called frequent. My mother always used to brag about the bus connectivity to her village as it lay on a route that connects two district towns, vis-à-vis, my father's more remote, and thus less serviced - only three buses a day I think - village.

Now the cycle rickshaws of Costal Andhra had an entirely different architecture from cycle rickshaws I have encountered elsewhere, in Hyderabad, in West Bengal etc. I tried finding some photos of these cycle rickshaw sub species over at Flickr, but since it pulled up 6000+ photos (!!) tagged rickshaw, I am postponing wading through all of those images for a later date. I suppose when taking photos people become luddites, and instantly fall for quaint oddities like rickshaws?

Anyway those rickshaws I am talking about looked like tongas (think Basanti's tonga in "Sholay"), and instead of the horse in front, they were fitted with the peddling apparatus for a rickshaw wallah to propel the human cargo onwards. The obvious positions in the rickshaw kids jockeyed for were either at the front on the either side of the peddler, or at the back, looking out*. On some killer uphills, at the rickshaw peddler's command, folks at the back also had to jump out, and trot along the fields. These rickshaws were works of art too, painstakingly decorated with religious symbols, snippets of holy verses, and the rickshaw wallah's favorite celluloid stars. The closest artistic equivalents to these rickshaws that I have seen since are Pakistan's fabulous painted trucks.

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With such a pervasive presence in the Indian landscape, could the rickshaw stay out of the Indian films? Certainly not. While I don't think there is, as yet, a desi version of "you talkin to me? - Taxi Driver" (there may be a knockoff with Mithun Da as Al Pachino; I certainly don't watch enough desi movies to know any better), the rickshaw wallah has been the central protagonist in many a desi movie. I will just pick a few instances from Tollywood. From the Black & White era, we have “Mattilo Manikyam” (A Pearl In The Dirt), in which the hero, until then a pampered chap, hits the big city, and learns all about the realities of life by becoming a rickshawvodu. In other words, the plot is basically the desi version of Dickens' “Great Expectations”. The best rickshaw anthem, “Rimjim Rimjim Hyderabad” from this movie was played quite a bit, and perhaps is still played, on the All India Radio Hyderabad. So here is my rough translation – I am keeping the Telugu pronunciation of the Hindi words as it is not hard to figure out what they refer to:

Rimjim rimjim Hyderabad, Rickshaw waalaa jindaabaad Rimjim rimjim Hyderabad, Rickshaw waalaa jindaabaad,

Rimjim rimjim Hyderabad, Rickshaw waalaa jindaabaad, When my three wheels spin Don’t I leave all cars in dust!

Since "Megastar" Chiranjeevi's "Rikshavodu" is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for the cycle rickshaw, let's now survey that more recent movie. Rewriting a snyposis from a Megafans page, we have(with my comments):

Chiru is shown as a rikshavodu, living with his granny(Manorama), having fun with neighbour(Soundarya) (i.e., a couple of gratuitous mirchi songs for the front benchers). One fine day his rickshaw is hit by a car, and on tracing the car's license number, Chiru runs into Nagma, the spoilt brat of a millionaire (Paresh Rawal - he played a funny villain in quite a few Telugu movies, most notably in Ram Gopal Verma's enjoyable hit "Kshana Kshanam", another case of a reverse cultural importation of Hindi accented villains from Bollywood to Tollywood).

So Chiru kidnaps Nagma to teach her a lesson. After returning home, she decides to take revenge on Chiru by marrying him and keeping him away from marital-life. (i.e., no sex. This won't work now with all the no holds barred humping we have!) Paresh Rawal warns Chiru and his granny, and at that time the granny recognizes Rawal, and unfolds the flashback of Chiru. Chiru, realizing that he's the son of a legendary father, and his mother (Jayasudha) is in jail, implicated for his father's murder (WTF!), sets off to meet her.

Through his mother, he realizes how his father, Dharmaraju (played by Chiru too! "Sita aur Gita" variation this one), a noble yet daring man, was trapped into a rape case, and was sent to jail. When in jail, Dharmaraju's sister is raped (rape scenes must be a dying species in desi fillums; why add a rape to show in quasi-sex when the current batch of hotties are more than willing to show off their visual Viagara) and killed. And so on his return from jail, Dharmaraju sets off to kill the goons. He succeeds in killing the elder brother of Paresh Rawal, but Paresh escapes and kills Dharmaraju by treachery. Rawal also traps Jayasudha in this murder. And Chiru takes revenge for all this, and how he kills Paresh, and finally how Nagma realizes the truth forms the climax." (yawn. yawn.)

Aside: I am half tempted to do for Chiranjeevi what The Great Bong has done for Mithun Da. However this would require subjecting my brain to Chiru's filmic gems with priceless titles such as "Artifical Man", "Foundation Stones", "Moonlight Cobra Man", "The Man of the Village", "Manly Man", "Mountain Lion", "Husband Wanted", "Arrogant Husband", "Yama's Husband", "Mechanic Son-in-law", "Mother-in-law's Yama, Daughter's Husband", "Rowdy Son-in-law", "This son-in-law isn't a joke", "Prisoner", "Prisoner No. 786", "Thief", "Mountain Thief", "Goonda", "Goons For Hire", "Gangleader", "State Rowdy", "Pickpocket" etc etc. You know how much my potential brain damage I can incur because of this?!

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Other Links:

An article from the Hindu that profiles a rickshaw puller in Vishakapatanam

Another excellent post on auto rickshaws. Tip to suitably crazy folks, who might be planning to get married in the UK; consider renting a tuk-tuk as your getaway vehicle, will ya?

Riding a rickshaw though Taklamakan Desert, anyone?

Rickshaw Art of Bangladesh, the country with the largest number of cycle rickshaws.

*Can anyone forget those childhood window seat wars?