Calcutta is a mélange of the past and the present enchanting artists, poets, writers, filmmakers, photographers and tourists.

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The yellow Ambassador car or the “peeli taxi,” has been woven into Kolkata’s fabric ever since the first one hit the roads back in the ’60s. More than just a mode of commute; the peeli taxi is a ride down nostalgia lane. The Ambassador taxi was modelled on Britain’s 1956 Morris Oxford Series III. It was first produced at the unit of Hindustan Motors in Uttarpara in 1957. Hindustan Motor’s plant in West Bengal’s Uttarpara used to produce around 150 taxis a day until 2014.

 

The hand-pulled rickshaw is a colonial heritage in Calcutta. These lightweight, wooden rickshaws, pulled by men of thin and sturdy body frames, wrapped in lungi from the waistline till the knee joint, through waterlogged lanes and crowded marketplaces, are unique to Calcutta’s identity. These  are featured in books and films. Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Phantom Rickshaw  is set in Shimla of the 1980s. Bimal Roy’s classic Do Bigha Zamin tells the story of a farmer who becomes a rickshaw wallah in the then Calcutta. Roland Joffe’s City of Joy features Om Puri essaying the role of Hasari Pal, the rickshaw-puller.

 

‘Calcutta Trams’ is a phrase heavily loaded with images, meanings  and feelings spanning a range of connotations. The Calcutta Tramways Company hauled the tramcars by horses through Calcutta’s serpentine streets in the early years. In 1905 electricity powered the system and by 1943, tram routes covered a 67 km stretch in the city. The romance of trams has been immortalized in celluloid in  Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar, Yuva, and Kahaani.

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