Rickshaw Art in Bangladesh
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76 MIMAR 39 RICKSHAW ART IN BANGLADESH New buildings in Dhaka sometimes find their way onto the back of a rickshaw before the front of a postcard. Tom Learmonth describes the plethora of images that constitute Dhaka's traffic art. he cycle rickshaw is the pre dominant means of transport T in Bangladesh. It provides personal transport at a price determined not by the enormous cost of imported oil but by the barely subsistence level of wages of the landless poor. It thus makes use of Bangladesh's most abundant resource, her people. Two thirds of Dhaka's traffic is made up of an estimated 150,000 rickshaws. There are thought to be around a million in the country despite periodic attempts to limit them by governments embarrassed by what they see as a sign of backwardness. The quality of life for the drivers - still known as rickshaw pullers although the hand pulled version has now disappeared - is poor. Few live beyond 40, yet their earnings are far higher than the agricultural wages they left behind in the villages. Often they are supporting families left behind. In Dhaka they are relatively well-off in the hierarchy of the urban poor. The machines they struggle to pedal, with two passengers or a heavy goods load aboard, evolved from the hand pulled rickshaw design coupled to the 1900s English policeman's bicycle, which is still manufactured by the million in India and China. The rickshaws are A main thoroughfare in Old Dhaka the rickshaw. They are paid by the assembled piece by piece in specialized showing a typical ratio oj rickshaws to rickshaw owners, almost entirely middle workshops in the cities. motor vehicles. class investors who rent out the machines The design is far from ergonomic. The to the pullers. Individual artists have their unnecessary weight, oversized frame and the Asian art tradition. own styles and favourite subjects, but high centre of gravity put a needless strain Each machine is gorgeously attired themes tend to move with the times. on the puller. A new design has been from front to back in tassels, plastic At times the paintings have functioned developed with help from the Canadian flowers in brass vases, mock carriage as political art. After the Liberation War agency Inter Pares and is intended to be lamps and mirrors .. even model of 1971, depictions of the independence made by co-operative workshops and aeroplanes and colour television sets. The struggle and of the atrocities of the enemy sold to co-operatives of rickshaw pullers. hood which covers the passengers has along with portraits of Sheik Mujib, the Although this development holds out elaborate applique rexine designs all over. first President, were common. After the hope of a more humane future for this The seat itself carries a representational banning of war images in 1972 and the otherwise highly appropriate technology, painting protected by clear plastic. succession of military coups in the 1970s as yet few are to be seen on the streets. Between the rear wheels is a sheet of tin and 1980s direct political comment has Each of the men and boys pedalling the plate, often recycled scrap from Britain. been rare, but its place has been taken by rickshaws of Bangladesh is also touring On these back plates is the work of the paintings using animal imagery to make a mobile exhibition. There is an everyday small band of the most skilled artists, subtler political points. interaction of art and life in the streets that executed in enamel paint in bright, some Comic animals mock the social order: would be the envy of many a Western would say gaudy, colours. rats, monkeys, jackals and tigers are artist frustrated with catering for a tiny The artists who paint the seats and shown dressed up in court scenes, at the proportion of the population. For the backplates are the elite of the many whose office, in a limousine, hunting or learning rickshaw represents possibly the apex of livelihood depends on the decoration of their letters. Splendid but sadistic jungle MIMAR 39 77 Backplatc in situ with ~{liluristic city' thcl11e. Left: Seats are not very col11fortable, but heautifully el11hellished, in this case with all Islal11ic thel11c. Ahove a/ld Behllu: Idealizcd villagc SCCIIC. (Photo MilSi'll III <>( Mallkilld.) Paillfill,fZ cOl11l1lissiollcd hy the author frol11 Ahmcd Art, OIIC of Dhaka's leadillg rickshaw artists, Oil thc thclIlc of 'Dhaka LlIIdoll Friclldship'. Above: An example of the jungle baffle idiom which replaced graphic war images. (Photo: Mllseum of Mankil1d.) FlItllristic cityscape hy Hakim still defial/tly [eatllrc., a nckshaw Ahmcd Art pail/ting showing the airport cO/llplctc with Concorde. Metaphorical animal image showinJ; the upper crust leaming their (EnJ;lish) letters. MIMAR 39 79 battles replace the earlier war imagery. Left: Rear view of a rickshaw showing The symbols of development are Lavish images from the Indian and rexine work on the hood. incorporated and embellished. For Bangladeshi cinema are a perennial example the Kurmitola International favourite. Rickshaws featuring scenes Right: A Chittagong rickshaw featuring an Airport is portrayed complete with from the latest movies can be on the elaborate hood, painted directly on the back Concorde taking off. streets within days of a film being of the seat rather than on a backplate, and Some development consultants have released. Many feature dominant, gun decorated 'springs' which have no function criticized the amount of money spent on toting heroines in Western clothes, or other than decoration . the decoration of the rickshaw relative to sultry temptresses and their rival lovers. the lives of the pullers. Fundamentalists Both outrage the dominant social code of peace and plenty with plump and criticize the art as un-Islamic. Despite that women should be subservient, veiled healthy animals, crops and people. The these pressures, this vibrant and and hidden. Ironically, one reason for the lush fecundity of the Bangladesh expressive art form surely must survive popularity of the rickshaw is that it is a countryside does belie its poverty and to enrich the culture of the people of private, and therefore segregated, form of social stresses. The paintings represent a Bangladesh. transport. dream of how it should be and a longing The contrast between the rural and to leave the squalor of the city. ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF TOM LEARMONTH UNLESS OTHERWISE CREDITED. urban environment, in this still The dream of the rural idyll is predominantly agricultural society, counterpointed by the dream of the future provides a rich source of themes for the city. Cityscapes of skyscrapers, flyovers, TOM LEARMONTH IS APHOTO-jOURNALIST. artists. Among these first generation city monorails, helicopters and rockets are an HE CO-ORDINATED A TOURING EXHIBI TION ON THE ART AND INDUSTRY OF THE dwellers there is a well of nostalgia for the alternative fantasy to the crowded streets RICKSHAW AND ACTED AS A CONSULTANT village. Bucolic village scenes are of Dhaka, although the rickshaw is often FOR THE MUSEUM OF MANKIND'S TRAFFIC common - the myth of a Golden Bengal defiantly present in these images. 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