I saw this e-rickshaw.
At first, it was just a vehicle parked by the road.
Then I noticed the man sitting in it.
A person.
A vehicle.
A road.
A livelihood.
And then something else became visible.
The vehicle was not merely a vehicle.
It was an asset being used to create value.
Someone had recognised a need for transportation, invested in a machine, learned to operate it, and turned it into a means of earning.
Nothing extraordinary was happening.
That is precisely why I found it interesting.
We often look for extraordinary ideas when thinking about money.
A new business.
A new technology.
A new market.
A new opportunity.
But much of the economy around us is built from ordinary things that someone learned to see differently.
A vehicle becomes transportation.
A room becomes a workplace.
A camera becomes a service.
A computer becomes a consulting practice.
A piece of knowledge becomes a solution to someone else’s problem.
The object itself is not the whole story.
What matters is what someone learns to do with it.
And perhaps this is where my own question begins.
I don’t yet know how this man thinks about his work.
I don’t know how much he earns.
I don’t know what it cost him to own or operate this vehicle.
I don’t know how many people he carries in a day, what his expenses are, or what makes him choose this work.
I only saw him sitting there.
And yet, for a moment, I could see something I had previously overlooked.
A livelihood hidden inside an ordinary object.
Perhaps there are many such things around us.
People doing ordinary work.
Using ordinary tools.
Solving ordinary problems.
Creating value in ways we rarely stop to notice.
Maybe I have been looking too hard for ideas.
Perhaps I need to look more carefully at life.
The empty e-rickshaw made me stop.
The man sitting in it made me wonder.
And now I am left with a very simple question:
How much of the economy around me have I never really seen?
Maybe I don’t need an answer yet.
Maybe I just need to keep looking.
Perhaps earning begins with seeing.
And perhaps seeing begins with paying attention.
Written by Aniruddha Singh
Photography: Akshat Singh · Aniruddha Singh