The humble autorickshaw is hailed as kitschy and cool, as it springs up in ads and art as the ultimate metaphor for a crazy, urban life
A wobbly three-wheeler that trundles through the traffic, its two-stroke engine lugging four people at a Prozac pace of 40km/hr, the autorickshaw hasn’t been the most stylish vehicle in town. Roger Moore might have dodged a chase in it and Rajinikant might have serenaded it in a Tamil blockbuster, but the “auto” — our diminutive pet name for autorickshaw — had not been hailed as either cool or kitschy. Not until now. Probably for the first time since a plucky little version rolled out of a shed in suburban Bombay in 1957, the autorickshaw is springing up in ads and art as the metaphor for Indian urban life. Auto has become the motif.

The latest Vodafone ads by Ogilvy & Mather show a dolled-up autorickshaw with the tagline “Bolo aur bajao”. And why would the humble autorickshaw play the lead in an advertisement for the caller tunes of a cellular-service provider? Rajiv Rao, executive creative director, O&M, says, “You listen to Bollywood songs when you are in an autorickshaw and autowallahs often play them loud. We wanted to show that you can get music on the go. And the autorickshaw exaggerates the whole Bollywood angle since almost all of them have pictures of heroes and heroines. The autorickshaw is cool.” Indeed.

But the vehicle, which looks like an insect finding its way on a tarmac, has no airs of being photogenic. It delights in its plebeian looks, with the driver perched on his single seat on the wheel in front, a sheet of rexine pulled taut on a wire frame, its brilliance confined to the tones of black-yellow or green-yellow (depending on which Indian city you are in). But the vehicle has been rediscovered by people.

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