A TUK RIDE SHOULD COST MORE THAN A CAB.

WHY NOT?

- By Theida Sider

There is something quietly absurd about a tuk costing more than a car. Not absurd in a numerical sense, but in what it signals. A tuk is loud, imperfect, open to dust and rain, driven by someone who may tell you unsolicited truths about politics, weather, or the general state of the nation. A car is sealed. Air-conditioned. Silent. Its driver is polite enough to disappear into the function of the ride. When the tuk begins to demand more than the car, something in the city's logic shifts.

I did not notice this immediately. Only later did I realize how rarely we interrogate the ordinary until it begins to slip away. The tuk has never been about efficiency. It has been about proximity. To the road. To noise. To people. It is the city breathing without apology. Choosing it has never been rational. It is relational. You choose it the way you choose familiarity over comfort, experience over insulation. But this is not really about transport. I would often rather walk.