Musings
Carting back in time
GEORGE N. NETTO
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The simple pleasures of life when the world went about things at a much slower pace.
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Illustration: Surendra
Travelling to school in a bullock cart would be unthinkable for today’s children. They commute in comfortable buses or zip along with their classmates in auto rickshaws or pillion-ride on their parents’ two-wheelers. But when I was school
ing in Tiruchi in the 1950s, the bullock cart was a common mode of transportation. It had — and still has — an endearingly old-world and rustic charm about it.
Not meant to be comfortable
Our bullock cart was quite spartan. It had an arched canopy topped with matting and a sack-covered bed of dry straw on which we squatted with our knees drawn up to our chins and our backs chafing uncomfortably against the cart’s wooden sides as it jangled and jounced along. The cart’s big wooden wheels were fitted with iron hoops rather than tyres, and it had no springs. This — together with the rutted rural tracks — guaranteed one a sore posterior if one was not well “cushioned” anatomically. And if one dozed off, lulled by the soporific rocking of the cart, one was sometimes rudely awakened by a sharp knock on the head as the cart lurched over a deep pothole. The languid bullock seemed resigned to the drudgery of hauling us to school and back daily. Off-white in colour, its horns were tipped with brass bells that tinkled as it plodded along reluctantly with cart driver Kandasamy cracking his whip and literally tweaking its tail out of shape to make it go faster. Fortunately for him the SPCA wasn’t very active then.
Language lessons
Bare-bodied and muscular, Kandasamy smelt, not unpleasantly, of sweat and beedi-smoke as he urged the bullock on, sometimes using a few colourful Tamil expletives whose meaning was lost on us then. To flaunt my burgeoning Tamil voca
bulary, once I innocently mouthed one of these profanities during a Tamil class — and promptly had an ear all but wrenched off by the irate teacher! Travelling in a bullock cart was never dull or dreary for us children. Sandstorms sometimes swept through the cart, scattering our books. Often we were smothered in clouds of dust churned up by passing vehicles. No sooner had we dusted ourselves off than another vehicle would come along and shower us again. During the monsoon we sometimes got splattered with mud when a vehicle sped through a puddle. With the cart offering scant protection, now and then we got an undesired ducking during a downpour. Huddled inside drenched, we sometimes opened our umbrellas — only to have them blown inside out by the wind. Indeed, there couldn’t have been a worse punishment for school children than having to sit through a couple of periods in soggy clothes! And throughout the term we had to contend with the cart’s resident population of bugs who seemed determined to nip us out of it. The DDT-immune parasites had us squirming like contortionists within the cramped confines of the cart!
On one memorable occasion Kandasamy got down from the cart to buy a packet of beedis from a wayside shop. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the bullock sped away, leaving him behind, wide-mouthed with disbelief. Scared, my brothers
and I huddled inside as the cart hurtled down the road. The bovine seemed to be demented, tossing its head wildly from side to side as it raced away. “Pull the reins and stop it!” shouted Kandasamy as he receded into the distance. But the reins were trailing on the road, out of our reach. A few buses and cars zipped past us, a look of undiluted wonder stamped on the faces of the drivers and passengers at seeing a speeding bullock-cart careening dangerously, without a driver. We must have travelled driverless for about 15 minutes before a burly villager realised what was happening. As the cart bore down on him, he stepped aside nimbly and grabbed the trailing reins. Soon it was a fierce tug-of-war between the man and the ox. Mustering all his strength, he finally brought the fear-crazed animal to a halt. We tumbled out of the cart, pale-faced and shaken, as our saviour calmed the runaway. And then we discovered the reason for its panic: embedded in the folds of its neck and dewlap were several yellow-and-black hornets that had excruciatingly stung it into flight. Soon the winged tormentors were dispatched and by the time the panting Kandasamy caught up with us, the bullock had regained its composure.
Privileged position
Once Kandasamy allowed me to share his seat in the front. It was quite a heady feeling for a 10-year-old sitting at the helm as it were with my legs dangling next to his — till the bullock decided, rather inopportunely, to relieve itself, badly soiling not just my legs but also my socks and shoes. Needless to say, I never jockeyed for that seat again — neither did my siblings!
Now, more than 50 years later, I still come across relics of the bullock cart during my visits to Tiruchi, and they always stir up nostalgic memories of an era not quite forgotten — when life moved at a slow and leisurely pace, much like the bullock cart.
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