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Photo exhibition brings to life Delhi's phatphatias

New Delhi's phatphatias, the trikes that lived on the capital city's road for four long decades till their death last year in view of the Supreme Court ruling on pollution, has been brought alive - courtesy a photo exhibition.

According to Radhika Singh, director of Fotomedia which is presenting the exhibition, the photography by young artist Samar S Jodha depicts the life of phatphatia since 1950s, and its silent death.

Singh said the photo exhibition 'End of the road for Delhi's Harley Davidsons' is an on-going project. It looks at the Harley phatphatias, which were ordered off the road last October.

While this was the end of an era for the city itself, for some of the men who rode and maintained these machines and are now struggling with unemployment or new vocations, it is one long road from a mass tragedy.

The photographs of Jodha would be on display at the photo exhibition, arranged in collaboration with India Habitat Centre and Fotomedia, till March 3. The two-month exhibition was inaugurated on January 4.

Harley Davidson motorcycles were mass imported to India after World War II and were later auctioned. Some of them ended up being modified into three-wheeled motor-rickshaws.

With the remaining bikes from that 1949 batch being either cannibalised for spares, sold for scrap or bought and taken away by foreign collectors who paid up to Rs 1.6 million for them, it was a quick but sad end to Delhi's Harleys.

Today, while the owners of phatphatias are buying new vehicles under a government-supported scheme, the drivers and mechanics who do not fit in this new order are struggling with unemployment or doing odd jobs like working in tea stalls and dhabas.

UNI

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