fisherwomen at home with their purple and green saris tucked up between their legs as they ran with baskets of shining, slithering fish from the boats to the market, straw and mud and fish scales making the ground dangerously slippery. Added to this chaos were the smells of the city mingling with the familiar smells of the sea and fish and turning them into something strange, and the noises of the city – not only the familiar fishermen’s voices, loud and ringing, but the noise of the traffic which was so rarely heard in or around Thul.
And now they were out through the gates and on the street and in the midst of the terrifying traffic. In all his life Hari had not seen so much traffic as he saw in that one moment on that one street. In Thul there was only an occasional bus driving down the main road of the village to the highway, and very rarely a single, dusty car. When he went to Alibagh, it was chiefly bicycles that he saw, and a few cycle-rickshaws, and of course buses and lorries. But here there was everything at once as if all the traffic in the world had met on the streets of Bombay – cycles, rickshaws,
handcarts, tongas, buses, cars, taxis and lorries – hooting and screeching and grinding and roaring past and around him. He clutched the arm of the man next to him in alarm and then was relieved to find it was a farmer from Thul, Mahe.
‘Hurry, brother – don’t stop – come, we have to go to the
Kala Ghoda,
the Black Horse,’ Mahe panted, and together they dodged the traffic and ran straight into a huge red double-decker bus that screeched to a halt just before their noses. The driver leaned out of the window and bellowed at them. They stood transfixed, shaking.
Then the police appeared – the famed Bombay police who, with a wave of their batons and a blast on their whistles, could bring the traffic to a halt or send it up one road and down another, and were capable even of controlling processions and herding marchers through the crowded city such as this one of fishermen from Alibagh.
‘Where have you come from, fool?’ the policeman roared at Hari. ‘Never seen traffic lights? Don’t you know how to cross a street? Come straight from the pumpkin fields, have you?’
‘Send him back there – let him grow pumpkins – keep him off the Bombay streets,’ shouted the bus driver fiercely.
The policeman laughed, held up his hand to keep the bus waiting and waved to the marchers to cross the road.
‘We are farmers and fishermen from Alibagh,’ said Mahe quietly before he moved on. ‘We have come to speak to the Chief Minister.’
‘You do that,’ the policeman told him. ‘You do that – he is waiting for you, with tea and a garland and a sweet for each of you.’ He burst out laughing again, winking at the bus-driver as he did so, and then blew his whistle shrilly to make them move. Hari and his companion moved on, very hurt and offended.
‘These Bombay-
wallahs
, the rudest people on earth,’ muttered Mahe, and Hari nodded.
Those were only the first jeers of the day. They were to hear many more as they walked through the streets to the mysterious Black Horse. As Hari looked up fearfully at the towering buildings, ten and twenty storeys high, at the huge shops and their windows that were as large as the huts at home and much brighter, and pushed past the people who teemed on the streets more plentifully than fish in the sea, he wondered about the Black Horse. Did this amazing city contain a great black horse as a kind of deity, a god? He looked for it
eagerly, perhaps a little anxiously, but saw only people, buildings and traffic, and heard only the honking of horns, the grinding of gears and the roar of the great double-decker buses, the taxis and cars. People pushed past with their market bags, handbags and briefcases, grumbling, ‘Here’s another procession to hold us up,’ and, ‘What is this lot shouting for now? We’ll miss the bus – we’ll be late for work – here, get
And now they were out through the gates and on the street and in the midst of the terrifying traffic. In all his life Hari had not seen so much traffic as he saw in that one moment on that one street. In Thul there was only an occasional bus driving down the main road of the village to the highway, and very rarely a single, dusty car. When he went to Alibagh, it was chiefly bicycles that he saw, and a few cycle-rickshaws, and of course buses and lorries. But here there was everything at once as if all the traffic in the world had met on the streets of Bombay – cycles, rickshaws,
handcarts, tongas, buses, cars, taxis and lorries – hooting and screeching and grinding and roaring past and around him. He clutched the arm of the man next to him in alarm and then was relieved to find it was a farmer from Thul, Mahe.
‘Hurry, brother – don’t stop – come, we have to go to the
Kala Ghoda,
the Black Horse,’ Mahe panted, and together they dodged the traffic and ran straight into a huge red double-decker bus that screeched to a halt just before their noses. The driver leaned out of the window and bellowed at them. They stood transfixed, shaking.
Then the police appeared – the famed Bombay police who, with a wave of their batons and a blast on their whistles, could bring the traffic to a halt or send it up one road and down another, and were capable even of controlling processions and herding marchers through the crowded city such as this one of fishermen from Alibagh.
‘Where have you come from, fool?’ the policeman roared at Hari. ‘Never seen traffic lights? Don’t you know how to cross a street? Come straight from the pumpkin fields, have you?’
‘Send him back there – let him grow pumpkins – keep him off the Bombay streets,’ shouted the bus driver fiercely.
The policeman laughed, held up his hand to keep the bus waiting and waved to the marchers to cross the road.
‘We are farmers and fishermen from Alibagh,’ said Mahe quietly before he moved on. ‘We have come to speak to the Chief Minister.’
‘You do that,’ the policeman told him. ‘You do that – he is waiting for you, with tea and a garland and a sweet for each of you.’ He burst out laughing again, winking at the bus-driver as he did so, and then blew his whistle shrilly to make them move. Hari and his companion moved on, very hurt and offended.
‘These Bombay-
wallahs
, the rudest people on earth,’ muttered Mahe, and Hari nodded.
Those were only the first jeers of the day. They were to hear many more as they walked through the streets to the mysterious Black Horse. As Hari looked up fearfully at the towering buildings, ten and twenty storeys high, at the huge shops and their windows that were as large as the huts at home and much brighter, and pushed past the people who teemed on the streets more plentifully than fish in the sea, he wondered about the Black Horse. Did this amazing city contain a great black horse as a kind of deity, a god? He looked for it
eagerly, perhaps a little anxiously, but saw only people, buildings and traffic, and heard only the honking of horns, the grinding of gears and the roar of the great double-decker buses, the taxis and cars. People pushed past with their market bags, handbags and briefcases, grumbling, ‘Here’s another procession to hold us up,’ and, ‘What is this lot shouting for now? We’ll miss the bus – we’ll be late for work – here, get
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