Life Cycle

Abstract

Life Cycle (42 Minutes) explores the place of the bicycle in the everyday lives of city dwellers in Kolkata. Are Kolkata's bicycles relics of a past to be hastily discarded or are they viable, if complicated cargo vehicles in India’s burgeoning cities? Winding through Kolkata’s roads we follow the city’s daily wage-workers, teachers and environmentalists and their changing relationships to cycling. What happens when new traffic regulations impede two-wheeled travelers from riding on Kolkata’s roads? How do vendors, couriers, newspaper sellers and artists negotiate Kolkata’s roads congested with cars and other motorized transport? Who wins the battle for the road – the bicycle or the car? Life Cycle is a tribute to the bicycle in uncertain times; and its relationship to rapidly changing Indian cities. Direction: Malini Sur