Yellow-Green Rickshaw with Green India Sticker

This yellow-green vehicle is a miniature, plastic version of the Indian auto rickshaw, ‘the Sacred Trinity on Wheels,’ as its former owner, Sanjay Kumar, called it. Hinduism is a religion that imbues every aspect of life with symbolic meaning. The rickshaw’s three wheels, for example, embody the sacred trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer. A ubiquitous feature of Indian life, the auto rickshaw constitutes a motorised counterpart to the traditional rickshaw, the once favoured mode of transportation of the ‘Indian Middle Class’.

According to Sanjay Kumar:

‘The auto rickshaw interior is a stage on which all manner of human drama plays out. In Bombay, young couples find a refuge there—an opportunity for a little private life. They and other auto rickshaw passengers will leave behind them the widest variety of objects. Technically speaking, the vehicle was designed for executing complicated manoeuvres on Indian streets; there is no course it cannot navigate, no alley it cannot enter, no vehicle that can best it at its job. It is agile in every sense of the word, keeping its occupants well-entertained as it bucks, shakes, and wobbles along its way. Though its colour varies from territory to territory, its soul is everywhere constant, ready to provide fast, reliable service to the masses on the streets. While it is often seen as the primary cause of traffic jams, there is no doubt that the rickshaw lends colour to that congestion as it vies for space, carrying its occupants—cuddling couples, populous families, exhausted office workers—to their desired destinations.’

Of course, our own little souvenir rickshaw never carried anyone anywhere. What it represents is rather a functional shift, a scale reduction, a model residing alongside other, similar objects in the museum’s Customs and Toys collection: a symbol and gamification of an easily recognisable feature of Indian culture. Sanjay Kumar, whose personal story can be read in the publication Plasztik művek (‘Works of Plastic’, Museum of Ethnography, Budapest, 2006), brought it in in 2005 in response to the institution’s very first advertised collection drive. Such targeted drives constitute a special research method, one founded on the principles of public participation and co-operation, whose aim is to spur museum users—individuals and communities from the institution’s visitorship—to take active part in museum work: to create exhibitions or enrich collections by gathering objects and telling their stories. It is a method adapted to the institutional model of the open museum, producing material steeped in personal history and experience that is an exciting addition to the museum’s inventory.

An important visual component of our little auto rickshaw is its Green India sticker. In Kumar’s own words: ‘India, formerly known for its green jungles, is now gasping for breathable air’. Today, the entire country—and especially Delhi—has become a poster child for air pollution and climate crisis.  Although the two-stroke rickshaw cannot assume sole blame for the global crisis and its catastrophes, certainly, its proliferation has not helped. Thus, the ‘Green India’ logo is at once a mark of irony and the embodiment of a critical attitude—one our little souvenir auto rickshaw itself heralds.

Written by Zsófia Frazon
Photoes by Krisztina Sarnyai

NM 2020.23.14
Place and date of manufacture: India, early 2000s
Injection moulded polypropylene

Have an adventure to share or an auto-related story to tell? Make your contribution to the Museum of Ethnography’s JELENARCHÍVUM (CONTEMPORARY ARCHIVE) Project. For details, click here: jelenarchivum.hu