Re-designed rickshaws
While commiserating with Angela Robinson for her bloodied knee, I can only join her in the wilderness in her plea for a re-designed rickshaw. I had given some ideas in a letter some months ago, while those of Angela are even more practical. How can we dig out her disgusted Bangladeshi engineer who came up with a prototype in vain?
Here are some more ideas: 1) Offer handsome prizes (BUET, Workshops etc) for a practical and safer prototype which can use existing rickshaws with the least modifications, 2) This will involve lowering the centre of gravity, 2 or 3 gears to ease the pullers' job, explore solar/battery power, 3) Use Angela's 'carrot and stick” policy to implement, 4) Finance the Dhaka rickshaws first with about Tk. 5 crores out of the 50,000 crore “white elephant” new airport, 5) Let them roam freely, so more people can use them, 6) We can even name them “Bangabandhu Rickshaws”.
In the midst of all the grandiose projects flying about, one thing is clear. Rickshaws will be even more indispensable in the next decades because the number of Gas Guzzling Monstrosities plying, parking, running empty, etc will multiply so that they will stand still on the roads, if they dare venture out. I too confess to having a love-love affair with rickshaws for the last 61 years, with just one mishap recently when my rickshawala was first blinded and then blasted from the wrong side by a GGM. The cost a week in hospital and 4 in plaster!
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