As one of the most iconic socio-cultural symbols of Dhaka, cycle rickshaw art—revelling in all its kitschy, hand-painted glory—is clinging on to dear life with all its might in today’s changing Bangladesh.
By Raul Dias
As a young boy growing up in a tiny village close to the city of Sylhet in eastern Bangladesh, Bulbul hated his name so much, that he soon started to refer to himself simply as “BB” once he hit puberty. Named after one of South Asia’s favourite singing birds of the passerine family that are closely related to nightingales, Bulbul says he was teased mercilessly by his posse of pals for possessing what is generally considered a feminine name.
Today, the 54-year-old’s name is his number one USP. And he proudly brandishes it—not just in sparkly silver Roman letters, but also pictorially in the form of a flock of neon green painted bulbuls—on the back side of his cycle rickshaw. All this, as he negotiates his way down Dhaka’s traffic-infested roads every day, ferrying locals and travellers like me to and fro.
Art Attack
I’m in Dhaka on a short, three-day post-Kolkata-work-trip holiday to visit friends, where a few minutes earlier I had chanced upon Bulbul at a busy intersection in the northern Dhaka neighbourhood of Gulshan. Despite my non-existent Bengali language skills, the broken English speaking Bulbul is more than happy to introduce me to his colourful world of cycle rickshaw art as we ride downtown towards Old Dhaka.
With over a million such three-wheeled pedicabs plying the streets all over Bangladesh, the country is often referred to as the ‘cycle rickshaw capital of the word’. Interestingly, more than half of these million cycle rickshaws can be found in its capital Dhaka alone. And each one of them, like Bulbul’s ‘kitschy aviary’, is dressed up to the nines with their flexible, accordion-like hoods festooned with buntings, tinsel strips bedecking handlebars and passenger backrests covered in vinyl panels decorated with intricate appliqué work.
But the one place that such artistry is on full is at the backside of the rickshaws’ chassis on the 2X4 feet metallic rectangles sitting below the hood. Here is where you will see everything from gaudy coloured depictions of flora—particularly that of Bangladesh’s national flower the shapla (water lily)—to hand-painted 2D portraits of rosy-cheeked local film stars.
I spot other specimens decorated with paintings of rural scenery and even edifices like the Louis Kahn-designed national parliament house called Jatiya Sangsad Bhabhan and the Tara Mosjid. The latter being a star-spangled mosque housed in the ‘Armanitola’ Armenian quarter of old Dhaka that incidentally also finds its likeness printed on one side of a 10-Taka bank note.
Root Level
I soon find myself standing in front of a dilapidated storefront in Old Dhaka where the mood inside is nothing short of frantic. Insisting that I see how the rickshaw art takes shape, Bulbul has brought me to perhaps the only street in the world that’s dedicated to this craft. Bangsal Street aka. Rickshaw Street is where one can find around a dozen or so workshops that specialise in everything from painting and decorating to upholstering cycle rickshaws.
Breathing in air thick with strong odours of paint, vinyl and adhesive, all intermingling with each other, I step into Mesbahuddin Hafiz’s shop where I can see finishing touches being applied to a cycle rickshaw that I’m told is to be signed off in the next hour or so. The sexagenarian Hafiz tells me that the shop was started by his late father in the mid-1950s when the whole cycle rickshaw art scene started to take form.
“Though my father, who was one of the pioneers of this artform, started off painting more simplistic scenes like sunsets and beaches, it was only a decade later that his work started to take on a more political tone,” says Hafiz, obviously referring to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence from Pakistan in the early 70s. This was a time when more propogandist motifs depicting scenes of uprising and civil unrest started to creep into cycle rickshaw art, thus making it a great socio-political reflator of the zeitgeist.
Problems and Solutions
But sadly, these days it’s no less of a struggle for independence and livelihood for artisans such as Hafiz. Facing stiff competition from cheaper and faster to produce digital art and screen printing, work for him has almost dried up he tells me. “Twenty years ago, I used to work on at least five to six rickshaws a month. Whereas today, I’m lucky if I even get a single rickshaw,” laments Hafiz, who also puts the blame for his and his fellow artisans’ workload decline on something lethal to his trade. In a bid to help decongest the streets of Dhaka, the local government authorities have stopped issuing new rickshaw permits, which obviously means almost no new rickshaws to paint.
But all hope may not be lost, after all. Recognizing this imminent death of an art form and taking some proactive steps to prevent it is a local Dhaka startup called Biskut Factory. Helmed by Bangladeshi artist Biskut Abir, this art firm seeks to promote and sell rickshaw art by having it painted on everything from apparel and accessories to household items like kettles and mugs to even bringing it into the mainstream via platforms like the popular, annual Dhaka Art Summit.
All this, showing people like Bulbul and Hafiz that there may very well be some hope for them at the end of their rather psychedelic rickshaw art rainbow!
Travel log
Getting There
There are several daily direct flights linking Dhaka with New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. To travel within Dhaka, one can either hop into a taxi, auto rickshaw (locally called “baby taxi”), cycle rickshaw or public bus, though the last two options are only for the adventurous lot. While Indian citizens do need to have a Bangladeshi visa in advance before travel, the tourist visa is easily available at the Bangladeshi Embassy in New Delhi and is issued free of charge.
Stay
Dhaka offers an excellent choice of accommodation options that will suit most budgets. Located in the heart of downtown Dhaka, the luxurious InterContinental Dhaka (Rs 11,053 for two with breakfast, ihg.com) is one such option as is the well-priced, three-star Asia Hotel (Rs 4,177 for two with breakfast, asiahotel.com.bd), which can be found next to the Ramna Park and the historic Curzon Hall.
Tip
* One of the best ways to truly immerse oneself into the ethos of Dhaka is to cruise down the city’s main, arterial Buriganga River in a small wooden boat, often captained by singing boatmen! These boats known as koshas can be hired for as little as 150 Taka (Rs 127) per hour off the many piers next to the chaotic Sadarghat Boat Terminal in South Dhaka.
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 7th December 2019 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 19 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/takeaway/disappearing-hand-painted-cycle-rickshaw-art-from-dhakas-bylanes/article30164711.ece)
By Raul Dias
As a young boy growing up in a tiny village close to the city of Sylhet in eastern Bangladesh, Bulbul hated his name so much, that he soon started to refer to himself simply as “BB” once he hit puberty. Named after one of South Asia’s favourite singing birds of the passerine family that are closely related to nightingales, Bulbul says he was teased mercilessly by his posse of pals for possessing what is generally considered a feminine name.
Today, the 54-year-old’s name is his number one USP. And he proudly brandishes it—not just in sparkly silver Roman letters, but also pictorially in the form of a flock of neon green painted bulbuls—on the back side of his cycle rickshaw. All this, as he negotiates his way down Dhaka’s traffic-infested roads every day, ferrying locals and travellers like me to and fro.
Art Attack
I’m in Dhaka on a short, three-day post-Kolkata-work-trip holiday to visit friends, where a few minutes earlier I had chanced upon Bulbul at a busy intersection in the northern Dhaka neighbourhood of Gulshan. Despite my non-existent Bengali language skills, the broken English speaking Bulbul is more than happy to introduce me to his colourful world of cycle rickshaw art as we ride downtown towards Old Dhaka.
With over a million such three-wheeled pedicabs plying the streets all over Bangladesh, the country is often referred to as the ‘cycle rickshaw capital of the word’. Interestingly, more than half of these million cycle rickshaws can be found in its capital Dhaka alone. And each one of them, like Bulbul’s ‘kitschy aviary’, is dressed up to the nines with their flexible, accordion-like hoods festooned with buntings, tinsel strips bedecking handlebars and passenger backrests covered in vinyl panels decorated with intricate appliqué work.
But the one place that such artistry is on full is at the backside of the rickshaws’ chassis on the 2X4 feet metallic rectangles sitting below the hood. Here is where you will see everything from gaudy coloured depictions of flora—particularly that of Bangladesh’s national flower the shapla (water lily)—to hand-painted 2D portraits of rosy-cheeked local film stars.
I spot other specimens decorated with paintings of rural scenery and even edifices like the Louis Kahn-designed national parliament house called Jatiya Sangsad Bhabhan and the Tara Mosjid. The latter being a star-spangled mosque housed in the ‘Armanitola’ Armenian quarter of old Dhaka that incidentally also finds its likeness printed on one side of a 10-Taka bank note.
Root Level
I soon find myself standing in front of a dilapidated storefront in Old Dhaka where the mood inside is nothing short of frantic. Insisting that I see how the rickshaw art takes shape, Bulbul has brought me to perhaps the only street in the world that’s dedicated to this craft. Bangsal Street aka. Rickshaw Street is where one can find around a dozen or so workshops that specialise in everything from painting and decorating to upholstering cycle rickshaws.
Breathing in air thick with strong odours of paint, vinyl and adhesive, all intermingling with each other, I step into Mesbahuddin Hafiz’s shop where I can see finishing touches being applied to a cycle rickshaw that I’m told is to be signed off in the next hour or so. The sexagenarian Hafiz tells me that the shop was started by his late father in the mid-1950s when the whole cycle rickshaw art scene started to take form.
“Though my father, who was one of the pioneers of this artform, started off painting more simplistic scenes like sunsets and beaches, it was only a decade later that his work started to take on a more political tone,” says Hafiz, obviously referring to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence from Pakistan in the early 70s. This was a time when more propogandist motifs depicting scenes of uprising and civil unrest started to creep into cycle rickshaw art, thus making it a great socio-political reflator of the zeitgeist.
Problems and Solutions
But sadly, these days it’s no less of a struggle for independence and livelihood for artisans such as Hafiz. Facing stiff competition from cheaper and faster to produce digital art and screen printing, work for him has almost dried up he tells me. “Twenty years ago, I used to work on at least five to six rickshaws a month. Whereas today, I’m lucky if I even get a single rickshaw,” laments Hafiz, who also puts the blame for his and his fellow artisans’ workload decline on something lethal to his trade. In a bid to help decongest the streets of Dhaka, the local government authorities have stopped issuing new rickshaw permits, which obviously means almost no new rickshaws to paint.
But all hope may not be lost, after all. Recognizing this imminent death of an art form and taking some proactive steps to prevent it is a local Dhaka startup called Biskut Factory. Helmed by Bangladeshi artist Biskut Abir, this art firm seeks to promote and sell rickshaw art by having it painted on everything from apparel and accessories to household items like kettles and mugs to even bringing it into the mainstream via platforms like the popular, annual Dhaka Art Summit.
All this, showing people like Bulbul and Hafiz that there may very well be some hope for them at the end of their rather psychedelic rickshaw art rainbow!
Travel log
Getting There
There are several daily direct flights linking Dhaka with New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. To travel within Dhaka, one can either hop into a taxi, auto rickshaw (locally called “baby taxi”), cycle rickshaw or public bus, though the last two options are only for the adventurous lot. While Indian citizens do need to have a Bangladeshi visa in advance before travel, the tourist visa is easily available at the Bangladeshi Embassy in New Delhi and is issued free of charge.
Stay
Dhaka offers an excellent choice of accommodation options that will suit most budgets. Located in the heart of downtown Dhaka, the luxurious InterContinental Dhaka (Rs 11,053 for two with breakfast, ihg.com) is one such option as is the well-priced, three-star Asia Hotel (Rs 4,177 for two with breakfast, asiahotel.com.bd), which can be found next to the Ramna Park and the historic Curzon Hall.
Tip
* One of the best ways to truly immerse oneself into the ethos of Dhaka is to cruise down the city’s main, arterial Buriganga River in a small wooden boat, often captained by singing boatmen! These boats known as koshas can be hired for as little as 150 Taka (Rs 127) per hour off the many piers next to the chaotic Sadarghat Boat Terminal in South Dhaka.
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 7th December 2019 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 19 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/takeaway/disappearing-hand-painted-cycle-rickshaw-art-from-dhakas-bylanes/article30164711.ece)
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