Students take on rickshaws to show appreciation on Valentine's Day

To mark Valentine's Day 42 students of various colleges of the city pulled rickshaws on its thoroughfares with those who ply them as passengers. Some of the students who took part in this programme were girls.

The students pulled the hand-pulled rickshaws along a three km busy stretch between Bank of India Crossing on Amherst Street to M G Road via B B Ganguly Street and College Street in central Kolkata, one of the organisers Saptak Biswas, himself a journalism student, said. Cycle rickshaws are not allowed to ply on the main streets of the city proper.

While 42 students pulled as many rickshaws, around 65 others from over 20 colleges in the city walked with them along the route. "We took it as our turn to show our love and appreciation to those who work tirelessly 365 days but seldom get any recognition," a girl student Puja Gupta, who pulled a rickshaw said.

"My hands were aching. I realised the pain, stress and hardship the rickshaw pullers experience daily for a few rupees," she said. Biswas, who had networked with friends in different institutes for the move, said the rickshaw pullers live in the nearby Sealdah-Jorasanko-Rabindra Sarani pockets of the city and hail from different districts of Bihar.

The participants had approached the rickshaw pullers in person for the programme as most of them do not possess any mobile phones and many of them do not understand Bengali, he said. "But once we explained our initiative, they were too happy to turn up with their vehicles," he said.

Satyen, an elderly rickshaw-puller hailing from Gaya, said "It was an altogether different experience. For a change, I was sitting in my own rickshaw. I felt embarrassed as it was being pulled by a girl who is as old as my daughter but she asked me to sit back and relax." The rickshaw pullers were also treated with lunch and a memento each after the end of the trip, the organizers said.