First Ride in a Rickshaw - from Sept. 2013

Ride in a Rickshaw

        With the reassurance of my teammate, Tom – today, my tour guide – I clamber up into the seat of a colorful rickshaw. Our driver, a young man of 20-odd, is wearing a “lungi” (a large loop of cloth which is gathered and tucked in the front, looking like a skirt) and a button-down shirt. I notice that most of the rickshaw “wallas” are young. And then I learn why! As the seemingly-fragile metal carriage/bicycle combo gains speed, Tom shares with me that the average rickshaw is about 400 lbs, without passengers. The calves of our driver bulge as he pedals, often having to put his entire weight on one pedal to get us moving again. If he can get some speed up, the ride is bumpy, but our driver can relax a bit. But in the “bumper-to-bumper” traffic of Chittagong, he spends most of his time braking and waiting for traffic to start moving again, braking to avoid the larger vehicle that just pulled in front of us, braking to avoid the pedestrian who holds his hand out to stop the tide of traffic, or turning this way and that to maneuver between the hundreds of other rickshaws, etc. that clog the roadway.

        I am reminded of a waterway in a storm. The water swirls around and over and between whatever obstacle it finds, somehow always moving, despite everything. The traffic here is like that. One is thankful for the rare police officer who directs the traffic of a major intersection. But sometimes, when no officer is there, some man will abandon his vehicle (whatever type it happens to be), and direct traffic himself until the snag is fixed and flowing again. The trick here is to, quite literally, “hold on for the ride”!!