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Transports of Delight: The Ricksha Arts of Bangladesh (CD-ROM)

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Joanna Kirkpatrick

Transports of Delight: The Ricksha Arts of Bangladesh

Indiana University Press (2003)

An appealing review and analysis of the ricksha arts of Bangladesh, with comparisons to popular arts in India and Pakistan, this interactive multimedia CD-ROM is informative and easy to navigate. Besides the large number of excellent color images of rickshas and the art that decorates them, there are four video clips, shot with a hand-held camcorder, that give a vivid impression of what it is like to travel by ricksha through the city streets and country roads of Bangladesh. These clips employ both folk songs and natural sound. The introduction is also backgrounded by a contemporary Bengali ballad that invokes Kirkpatrick's interpretive theme of the CD.

The CD-ROM is divided into four main sections (Introduction, Ricksha Art Images, Streets and Views, and Readings). Sub-sections address various topics, including the history of "conveyance art," comparisons of ricksha art to other genres of popular and folk art, and recurrent themes seen in ricksha decoration. A sub-section on artists and makers examines how rickshas are made and decorated. Each sub-section includes illustrated text discussions and a gallery of photographs supplementing the points the author has made.

The text and the four articles in the Readings file raise important questions, such as how "iconophilic" South Asia reconciles with Muslim uneasiness about the depiction of human figures, and the ways that popular imagery pique or satisfy a largely male audience's desires. These and other timely discussion points make this CD-ROM an ideal resource for courses on the art or visual ethnography of South Asia. It should also be of great interest both to scholars of the region, and to general readers interested in world popular and folk art.