Jamal had just arrived in Dhaka when I met him at a rickshaw garage on the outskirts of the city. It was the summer of 2017 and the ongoing monsoon rains were causing excessive flooding all over Bangladesh. Jamal told me that the floods had compelled him to leave behind his home village in the coastal area of Satkhira. As our conversation unfolded, it became clear that such rural–urban journeys had been common throughout his working life. Jamal first came to Dhaka in 2004 to sell fish at one of the city's wholesale markets. After four years he fell into trouble as the growing number of hartals (political strikes), exploding petrol bombs and street fires that heralded Bangladesh's national election made it impossible to operate a business in Dhaka city. The political mayhem resulted in deliveries being held up and fresh fish going bad. Jamal decided to change strategies and started working as a vendor, selling cheap jewellery and cosmetics on the streets of Dhaka for over a year. However, the political turmoil persisted and after a while Jamal was forced to move back to the countryside. For some time, he could not bring himself to work at all. His lost investments and failed entrepreneurial endeavours had left him depressed and broke. With time, Jamal managed to pull himself back together and established a fish farm in his home village. However, the heavy monsoon rains and ensuing floods dealt him another blow by damaging part of his fish stock. To make up for his losses, he decided to spend four months in Dhaka to earn some extra cash as a cycle-rickshaw driver. His brother, a former rickshaw puller himself, introduced Jamal to the garage from where he rented his rickshaw. Feeling ashamed about his temporary job, Jamal spent his days avoiding the parts of the city where he might run into distant relatives or acquaintances and spent his nights at the makeshift attic above the garage where he slept in the company of 25 or so other rural–urban migrants.

There are hundreds of thousands of men like Jamal in Dhaka, ranging from energetic teenage boys to slow-pedalling senior drivers, who move in and out of the city's rickshaw industry as the seasons change, the rivers swell, investments are lost and political unrest builds.