Auto rickshaw the most stylish vehicle in town!

The humble auto rickshaw 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.

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