In front of Kamalapur Station, a large number of cycle rickshaws were waiting for passengers
Kamalapur Station is the main terminal in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Still, calling it “big” can be misleading. Anyone picturing the scale of Tokyo or Shinjuku Station will be disappointed; at best, it is the size of a provincial station enlarged by a degree or two. Even so, it serves as the central hub of Bangladesh Railways. In front of the station, as always, there is a crowd of people and a clamor of noise—and dominating this scene are the cycle rickshaws.
The square outside the station is packed with rickshaws, not neatly lined up but crammed so closely they look ready to collide. The number is not a mere few dozen, but surely a hundred or more, resembling soldiers waiting for the order to march. The only difference is that their destinations are not battlefields but nearby neighborhoods, bustling markets, or the budget guesthouses favored by foreign travelers.
The cycle rickshaw, a kind of pedal-powered three-wheeled taxi found across the Indian subcontinent, is especially numerous in Dhaka. Guidebooks often praise them as an “eco-friendly means of transport,” but for the drivers, it is less about the environment than sheer stamina. The flat terrain of Dhaka may be some consolation, yet pedaling through sweltering heat all day is hardly something outsiders can romanticize so easily.
When I raised my camera, one rickshaw-wallah looked back at me with a strangely calm gaze. His face showed no frustration or impatience, only the air of someone thinking, “Yet another tourist taking pictures.” Along with the other drivers waiting in the background, he was part of the everyday tableau that defines Kamalapur Station. In the chaos of Dhaka, rickshaws are not just a mode of transport—they have become an emblem of the city’s very landscape.
| Mar 2010 BANGLADESH PEOPLE | |
| CLUSTER CUSTOMER WAITING TIME CYCLE RICKSHAW DHAKA RICKSHAW WALLAH |
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PHOTO DATA
No
3809
Shooting Date
Sep 2009
Posted On
March 12, 2010
Modified On
September 1, 2025
Place
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Genre
Street Photography
Camera
CANON EOS 1V
Lens
EF85MM F1.2L II USM
