We’ve all heard of a bicycle built for two, as the turn-of-the-last century ditty goes, but how many of us have ridden a bicycle built for a water jug, a fruit-flavored ice maker or, just in case you’ve got a hankering for something otherworldly, a favorite god or goddess?
Gangaals, brass water jugs made in Gujurat, are transported on bicycle platforms
In modern-day India, bicycles provide transport not only for humans but for just about anything humans can envision and make. In typical Indian out-sized fashion, there are millions of black bicycles (mostly Chinese imports), zipping down streets, alleys, and dirt roads beautifully decorated and creatively customized to carry wondrous stuff, as I discovered while visiting The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where they were celebrating the arts of India last March with song, dance, food, and crafts.
A hand-crank ice machine used for making fruit-flavored ices
One of the most exciting exhibitions on view at the Kennedy Center was Kaleidescope: Mapping Indias Crafts and Arts conceived by Adiren Gardère and Emmanuel Grimaud in conjunction with the Crafts Museum of New Delhi. The exhibition consisted of 28 bicycles representing India’s 28 regional States. Each bike was outfitted with a platform holding a regional object or craft that has been perfected within a family of artisans and passed from one generation to the next for centuries.
Traditional Indian crafts on display at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC
The crafts in question included beautiful brass jugs, called Gangaals, handy for carrying water in Gujurat; a nifty machine used for making hand-cranked fruit ices from Madha Pradesh, and a wooden painted sculpture of the Hindu deity, Varaha, from Tamil Nadu.
Varaha, the third avatar of the Hindu deity, Vishnu
A bank of video monitors hovering behind the bicycles showed hair-raising footage of street scenes, revealing that life in India takes place in the streets, often in lengthy and difficult fashion. At some intersections, there are no traffic signals and bicycles, motorcycles, as well as cars and carts, often come to standstill. As one savvy bicycle vendor discovered, if youre sitting in a tight traffic jam on a hot summer afternoon in Mumbai, you might has well serve up some fruit-flavored ices to your neighbors, sit back, and savor the serenade of honking horns.
Videos and bicycles depicting street life in India