City of Nostalgia
A picture essay about those forgotten lanes
The first time I rode a taxi was in 2002. I was a 5-year-old kid who was visiting her aunt in Kolkata. It was a sweltering summer day and the buses being crowded my parents took a taxi. That’s how the first memories of the yellow car were made.
It was around 2011 when I first rode a tram. I have heard several stories of it and have even seen it before, but riding it was yet to happen. It was the evening before my eldest cousin’s wedding and to commemorate her last minutes of freedom or so; we took an evening ride through the busy, beautiful city of joy.
The first and the last time I sat on a hand-pulled rickshaw was in 2014. My father and I were on our way to get admission to the college. Being a rainy day the roads were empty, and we found no other commute but the rickshaws. At first, it was daunting to climb up, but later it was appalling to see a gaunt man pull us. The incident disconcerted me, and I knew at that very moment that it would be my first and the last time encounter with the classic.
