Meena Kadri, a senior designer and brand strategist based in New Zealand, spent two years in Ahmedabad, clicking pictures of autorickshaws. Her photographs of autorickshaws, their signage and even the artwork on their mud flaps were displayed at the exhibition “Like That Only” in Scotland and New Zealand last year. At the Glasgow show, Kadri had a visitor — New York-based graphic design heavyweight Stefan Sagmeister, who has Guggenheim Museum, Lou Reed and Rolling Stones among his clients. Sagmeister was intrigued and pleasantly surprised. “He said qualities like delight were eroded in the West and it was great to see it being celebrated, but I am more interested in the way the autorickshaw embodies jugaad than its kitsch value,” says Kadri. “It symbolises a way of thinking that underpins innovation and flair rising from necessity rather than from abundance,” she says.

Autorickshaw got its first fashionable introduction to the West thanks to kitsch lovers like designer Manish Arora. His Autorickshaw rug, designed for The Conran Shop in 2007, flew off the shelves for 495 pounds. “The autorickshaw is a perfect symbol of India,” says Arora whose rugs are sold out. “Its psychedelic colours and motifs of oversized flowers and shooting stars worked for me. I keep using the autorickshaw in a lot of my work.”

The graffiti are what inspire 29-year-old Mayur Polepalli, who has been taking photographs of autorickshaws in Bangalore and uploading them on the site arart.blogspot.com. “I’ve always been fascinated by things written or drawn on autorickshaws. What’s on the rickshaw is what’s on the driver’s mind —from the name of his girlfriend or wife to his favourite God or movie star,” says Polepalli.

... contd.