Rough trade on the streets of Bogota, much like here

Loved by the people for their extreme utility, abhorred by the state as a symbol of backwardness, cycle rickshaws – or pedicabs – are not a new phenomenon in India.  Originally from Japan, the hand-drawn rickshaw was introduced in Simla in India around 1880. It was, then, a vehicle to carry the social elite. By 1950, cycle rickshaws evolved into a popular mode of urban transport. Today, cycle rickshaws provide door-to-door transport at an affordable price to people in urban areas across India. Cycle rickshaws also provide easy employment to those wanting employment. At a time when economic opportunity in the hinterland is dwindling, many village folk come to the city and earn a living by pulling cycle rickshaws.

Happy Diwali. (Thank you Pallavi.)

Today at the end of the very first week of publication of our brave new India Streets, we like to take a page out of the book of our associate editor Pallavi Pant who wished us all today “Happy Diwali”. And since I for one (“I” in this case being Eric Britton, an editor of India Streets) really did not understand what it was about beyond a kind of “Hindu New Year + Thanksgiving” (sorry!), I had to look it up. And for those of you who share my ignorance and want to know more, well here is what Wikipedia tells us about Diwali: