The Fading Rattle of Cycle-Rickshaws

This morning, a familiar sound stirred something in me. It wasn’t loud or distinct, yet it reached straight into a place I hadn’t visited in years. It reminded me of the small tin box filled with sand that hung from the back of the cycle-rickshaw I once rode to school- a makeshift soundbox whose grainy, rhythmic rattle accompanied my mornings for nearly six years. The rickshaw was always the same, and so was the man who pedalled it. I never knew his real name. Like every other rickshaw puller from our school, we called him “Mama.” Since he couldn’t hear, he was “Behra Mama” to all of us. 

That sound this morning made me pause. It wasn’t just nostalgia. It led me to a more sobering question: Where have all the rickshaws gone? And with them, that familiar rattle? More broadly, where has manual labour gone in a world that increasingly prizes efficiency over effort? Technology has swept across our lives, replacing physical toil with mechanised ease. I don’t mean to idealise the hardship it entailed, but there's something deeply unsettling about the quiet disappearance of livelihoods once grounded in honest, physical work.

Entire communities once depended on work that required strength, stamina, and street knowledge- qualities no algorithm can replicate. The very labour that once sustained lives, like that of Behra Mama’s, has now been replaced by autorickshaws, by machines and apps and algorithms. We now summon rides with a tap, order food with a swipe, and avoid human interaction more often than we realise. We've traded friction for convenience, but at what cost? What an irony that we pay for the same physical exertion in gyms that once paid people like Behra Mama, a living wage! 

Behra Mama wasn’t just a rickshaw puller. He was a fixture of our childhood, a constant in the blur of shifting classrooms, growing bodies and heavier school bags. He was a silent presence who became part of our routines, our rituals, our sense of safety. I still see him once a year. Like clockwork, he visits on the morning after Laxmi Pujan during Diwali, going door to door seeking the customary Diwali charity. He shows up with the same dignity, accepting gifts with a smile that says little yet holds a thousand memories. That brief and quietly emotional annual meeting holds the weight of years. Last Diwali, I asked him what he did now. “Part of a small band party,” he said. I smiled politely but couldn’t help wondering: Who still calls for a traditional band in an age of DJs and Bluetooth speakers?

He’s old now, in a world that no longer has space for him. A man skilled in hard work, pushed to the margins of a society that no longer sees value in what he can offer, a world that now values automation more than effort. But the point is, while we marvel at how much easier life has become with tech, we rarely ask for whom it has become easier. The world has moved ahead, but the reality is that not everyone has moved forward with the same momentum. As machines replaced muscle, minds are now being replaced by artificial intelligence. Tasks once considered innately human- writing, painting, composing music- are now being handled by code.

Machines can replicate form, but not feeling. They can mimic patterns, but not memory. They might write a song, but they cannot ache. They can narrate, but they cannot long. They cannot remember the texture of a rickshaw seat in the rain, they cannot know the joy of a bumpy rickshaw ride to school,  the comforting regularity of a rattle that once meant you wouldn’t be late for school... or the way a sound can summon an entire childhood.

Yes, the world is moving faster than ever. But as we race ahead, it’s worth asking- what are we leaving behind? Not just people like Behra Mama, but the very soul of human expression. Progress without memory is amnesia. Technology without humanity is just noise.

The fading rattle of the cycle-rickshaw isn’t just about a lost vehicle; it’s about the quiet disappearance of a more grounded, human world. One where people mattered because of what they did with their hands, their backs, their presence. One where even a deaf man on a cycle-rickshaw became a part of your childhood soundtrack.

Behra Mama isn’t just a relic of a bygone era; he is a quiet reminder that progress often has a human cost. His story is not just about obsolescence, it’s about dignity. And sometimes, it takes just a fleeting sound to stir a memory, and remind us of all that no machine can ever truly replace. In forgetting those, we risk forgetting ourselves.