A rickshaw ride and colourful brush with street life

Introduced in Delhi in the 1940’s, the cycle rickshaws were seen as a major technological advancement over the hand-pulled rickshaws. While the effort in the hand-pulled rickshaws was much more than that of its successor, many expected them to disappear with the fast growth of modern, motorised transport. While hand-drawn rickshaws have practically disappeared from large parts of India, (with an exception of West Bengal), the number of cycle rickshaws has grown phenomenally in the last couple of decades, testifying to a vibrant and increasing demand for this service. While these rickshaws are a common sight in the Capital, the conversations between the rickshaw pullers and the people who travel with them is often limited to the fare being charged.

It is in the backdrop of this ‘phenomenon’, artist Sangeeta Singh will be showcasing an ensemble of her paintings which is inspired by real life encounters of the artist while her travel on the rickshaws. The exhibition titled ‘Shadow Journal’ showcases 20 paintings of Singh, in which mostly oil and acrylic has been used to introduce its viewers to the lives of Delhi’s rickshaw pullers.

“Sangeeta Singh repeatedly celebrates their efforts in ‘running’ the city by highlighting the rickshaw and the pullers in a cinematic way. They are presented as slices of suspense before revealing their existence as a whole. Every frame is given a witness and the witness is the artist herself. It is another way of telling them that they are not alone in their plight of existence,” the organisers told Metrolife.

“Her leitmotif, the rickshaw-puller dialoguing ‘Chal Chala Chal’ with his own shadow, as he sweeps across the dust-laden roads is another repetitive motif that lends her expressions a contemplative aura. The cycle rickshaw puller who is forced to make the journey away from his family and home in a remote Indian village; shifts his base to these new areas only to eke out a living. Thus both the groups represent the notion of migration, though each from a different perspective and vantage point,” the organisers added.

Born in 1968, Singh passed her postgraduate degrees in Chemistry and Education from the University of Lucknow, but then turned her attention to pursuing art and soon realised it was her only passion. The paintings themselves seem to emerge partly from colourful encounters she had during her six-year training that she undertook in Delhi. There are undercurrents of urban angst, street life and familiar objects in the gender sensitive ethos of her work.