Children enjoy a ride on a hand-pulled rickshaw from Calcutta at Utsav, the pre-Puja festival, on Tuesday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Sept. 5: A hand-pulled rickshaw, brought all the way from Calcutta along with its rickshaw-puller, has turned out to be the surprise attraction for children visiting a fair at the Sonaram School ground at Bharalumukh.

Fifty-year-old Santosh Kumar Sardar, who plies the rickshaw in Calcutta’s Shyambazar locality, is also enjoying a well-deserved rest. He has been working for the past 30-odd years, but now for him it’s a virtual paid holiday.

Sardar’s visit to Guwahati is his first anywhere outside Calcutta and his original home in Bhangur in 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.

“I am loving every moment of it,” he said as he carted seven-year-old Vikram around, clanging the hand-held bell to the delight of his young passenger.

The rickshaw is owned by Bapi Mondol of Kumartuli near Calcutta. It was transported to Assam in a truck.

Vikram’s father Parimal Goswami said his son was no stranger to the hand-pulled rickshaw. “We visit Calcutta frequently and he has often asked me to take him for rides on such rickshaws. But I have always felt scared about getting on one of these on the busy streets of Calcutta,” he said with a sheepish smile.

“But it is good that children can now enjoy rides on this rickshaw right here in Guwahati,” he added.

The reason why the hand-pulled rickshaw is so popular with the children is its novelty. The city has rickshaws, too, but they are all cycle-rickshaws. “A ride on a hand-pulled rickshaw feels rather different,” said an excited Vikram, who travels to school by cycle-rickshaw everyday.

According to Sardar, pulling his rickshaw all around the playground made him feel as if he was learning his craft all over again. “I used to go to a small field near Shyambazar to learn how to handle the rickshaw,” he said, recalling the early days.

He said he made a “decent” living. “After 15 days, when I go back, I will have earned more than what I would have done in Calcutta — and without having to haggle and run through heavy traffic from morning till night,” he smiled.

At least two of the parents of the kids, including Parimal Goswami, tipped him for their children’s rides. “On a good day, I make between Rs 70 and Rs 80 in Calcutta,” he said.

The father of three small children, Sardar is worried about his future. Yet, he said the hand-pulled rickshaw would never be completely banned in Calcutta. “There is talk that the government is planning to ban it... but why should they? The hand-pulled rickshaw is, after all, part of the city’s heritage.”