The green message of two tongas

AT a green energy conference held recently, a speaker waxed eloquent on solar power and fuel-efficient vehicles of the tiny South Pacific island of Tonga. While industry delegates listened with rapt attention, my mind dreamily veered to another tonga, the horse-drawn carts of Bangalore and Mysore.

Today, the tonga or ‘jutka’, as it was called, may be a rare sight in these cities, but until the 1980s, these carts commonly plied the roads.

Although it was a decent mode of transport in the 1960s and 1970s, our parents preferred the more comfortable and faster autorickshaws, taxis or buses. Besides, it seemed infra dig to be seen in a tonga, especially in the cantonment areas. With our pleas falling on deaf ears, we had little hope of enjoying tonga rides.

So, when an uncle who came to pick us up at the Mysore railway station suggested that we hire two tongas to go to his house, our joy knew no bounds. Before our mother said yea or nay, my brother and I clambered inside and soon we were enjoying the bumpy ride.

During our stay there, we were treated to a few more ‘pony express’ rides. Back in Bangalore, life moved on as we grew up with our cycles and mopeds, letting the tonga slip from our memory.

In the early 1980s, we once took our visiting cousins from Bombay to a movie. Later, the five of us walked towards Shivajinagar bus stand after being ignored by autorickshaw drivers. Suddenly, out of the blue, a tonga appeared.

In a flush of excitement, all of us scrambled in and off it went clip- clop, clip-clop. We sat rather perilously with our legs dangling outside the cart, while our hands clung on to the clasp above. The cousin, who sat next to the tongawallah, had the good fortune to hold the reins of the horse for a few minutes. The friendly man compared her to actress Hema Malini, who played a ‘tangewali’ in the 1975 blockbuster Sholay.

As we entered our neighbourhood, the tonga invited curious stares from shopkeepers and passersby, which frankly didn’t bother us. As for our cousins, they were enjoying every moment of their first-ever ride in a tonga.

When the tonga stopped opposite our gate, the loud and incessant barking of our dogs startled the horse, which let out frightful neighs. The sudden and rare equine-canine cacophony brought our parents scurrying outside. They were annoyed, but we got away with a light rebuke.

My reminiscences of the vintage tonga romance ended abruptly when the audience at the conference clapped, signalling the end of the speech.

As we walked out, a colleague lauded the island’s futuristic renewable energy plans. I silently saluted the humble, non-polluting horse power of the past.