These are the three-fourth clothed on rainy days, three-wheeled (on most of the days), bipedal, solo-driven transport convenience, with the passengers sitting in the "baby-seat," traveling backwards. They are called Sri Ranga cycle-rickshaws in Srirangam.
During the Sri Ranga Matriculation school days, I usually would be seated in between the Rexene-clad 'big' seat and the wooden 'baby' seat, on the aluminum clad floor, with legs dangling out of the contraption, traveling sideways.
By the way, in Srirangam, almost all nouns and pronouns carry "Sri Ranga" or its variant as a prefix: Ranga vilas, Sri Ranga maligai, Sri Ranga Rice Mill, Sri Ranga cycle-rickshaw etc. Whether he likes it or not, even the God of the Srirangam Temple is named likewise since long ago by the forefathers of some of the present day Sri Ranga pronouns.
To proceed with the story (!), when hitting the (Sri Ranga) road bumps of Srirangam, you are lifted a foot off the aluminum floor. Of course, the real fun is while coming down. Some crafty road bumps even get you off the floor and onto the baby seat.
As a boy, I kept wondering, especially when coming down to the floor, "Why could they not raise the floor of the rickshaws a foot above?" Then, we wouldn't have to travel down a foot and hurt our asses. Some bumps later, I came up with another thought of lowering the floor a foot. Then, when encountering road bumps, you don't have to be lifted-off at all in the first place!
I felt ashamed that I couldn't think the second thought first. I never spoke about them to anybody until now, as I no longer care about these rickshaws and rickshakarans. Before I proceed any further, this essay is not about those cycle-rickshaws and accompanied thoughts.
Even though most of those cycle rickshaws were named "Sri Ranga."
Because, before these cycle-rickshaws made a dent in my mind, there came the auto-rickshaws. This form of transport changed my perspective of traveling to such an extent that I still walk inside Srirangam and whenever necessary, fly out of it in a personal helicopter.
To be continued...