Beating the Donkey

Early morning traffic lay snarled across the road in impossible knots. A gray blanket of smog hung low over the buildings, turning bright sunshine into a diminished haze. The cool in the air foretold the heat to come later in the day.

At the Submarine Chowk, all manner of vehicles known to mankind stood tangled together on the dirty tarmac. Huge trailer trucks bringing teakwood, flammable fluids, and shiploads of goods sent by families returning from their gold quest in the Middle East towered over the rest. Eager young bankers sitting in tiny Suzukis clutched mobile phones and tried to arrange rendezvous with their wives, their traders, and their mistresses. Fathers weaved through the gaps on motorcycles, their children dressed in school uniforms and perched perilously on the handlebars like tiny sparrows.

Young mothers, anxiously watching the rumbling convoys of trucks, harassed by the driver’s defection or illness or vacation, sighed and worried about the evening meal.

The cars, buses, trucks and vans inched forward, accompanied by the morning’s usual curses. It was as yet too early to start with the real obscenities; people usually saved those for the evening commute.

The traffic was at least moving. Snails would have crawled by faster, but evil principals waiting with canes at the top of school stairs would have to administer fatal beatings another day, bosses would not be able to fire the tardy bankers. Men hoping to miss the dentist or doctor’s appointment felt their hopes dashed to the bottom of an indescribable cliff.

Suddenly, all the cars and trucks stopped moving with a bump that swelled like a wave from the front of the phalanx all the way to its straggly tail.

The Minister, seated in his four wheel-drive Pajero, and accompanied by a truckload of armed policemen, spilled his coffee. His head jerked up from the newspaper he was reading and he let out a shout. Then muttering under his breath, he looked back down at the paper, which was now stained with coffee. He threw the paper aside before the fluid could get to his starched white shalwar kameez.

The Minister waited for two minutes... three... five. At seven, he lost his patience. He snapped at his driver, “What is the problem here?”

“Sahib, I don’t know,” said the driver.

“Fool, I can see you don’t know. I am asking you to find out what the problem is.”

The driver glanced around nervously at the traffic, and then opened the car

door and ran ahead on the road. Within a few moments, he was back.

“Well? What is it?”

The driver swallowed and then said, “Sahib, it seems there is a slight obstruction on the road.”

The Minister said patiently, “And what would that be?”

“Sahib, it seems that a donkey has stopped in the middle of the road and will not move.”

The Minister roared, a sound that reverberated through the car and resonated through the driver’s skull. At this, the driver jumped, and ran for the head of the police escort.

The policeman marched stiffly towards the jeep, the driver stumbling behind. The uniformed man, who had large muttonchop mustaches and carried a menacing gun, saluted the Minister.

“Go and get that donkey out of the way,” said the Minister.

The policeman saluted again.

In the middle of the road, at the narrowest, most strategic point of the roundabout, a crowd had gathered to watch the show. The donkey stood in the dead center of the road. The owner of the cart that the donkey had been pulling jumped up and down near the donkey’s head, addressing it with a mixture of curses, pleas, shouts, and threats.

“You miserable stupid creature! Move! Move, in God’s name, move! What is wrong with you today?”

The policeman swaggered up to the scene, and said, with mock respect, “Oye, Mian Sahib!”

The owner said, “I know, I know, Sahib, I am doing all I can to move this creature.”

“That’s not good enough, Mian Sahib. The Minister is waiting and he is in a hurry. I order you to move this ridiculous ass at once!”

The honks and shouts from the surrounding cars and their drivers melded into a single cacophonous blur, drowning out the effect of the policeman’s barked orders. The owner of the donkey, however, recognized the note of authority in his voice and doubled his efforts to get the unfortunate animal to move.

“Come on, you worthless, pathetic animal, get going!”

The donkey looked as if it was grinning.

“Move! Now! If you know what’s good for you!”

The donkey yawned.

The policeman decided to give the owner a hand. He prodded the donkey’s skinny

flank with the butt of his gun. “Chalo, bhai,” he said, as loudly as he could.

The donkey raised its tail and dropped a pile of excrement on to the road.

The policeman flushed red as laughter rippled along the ranks of the nearest vehicles. The drivers had given up on the hope that the problem might be solved quickly and had decided to watch the fun. Small boys ran up and down between the lines of cars, selling snacks and tea in case anyone wanted some light refreshment.

“This will not do,” said the policeman. He marched back to the Minister’s car, where the Minister’s face had grown dark with impatience.

“Sahib,” he said. “The donkey is proving extremely stubborn. What shall I do?”

The Minister looked at the man as if he were the smallest, most insignificant flea in a dog’s coat. “You can’t take care of this problem yourself?”

“Sahib—”

The Minister opened the door of his car and stepped on to the road.

The policeman ran ahead of him, screaming to the crowd, “The Minister is coming! The Minister is coming!”

The guards, suddenly jarred into action, tumbled out of their van and marched ahead, clearing a path for the Minister. Motorists pointed and whispered to each other. “The great Minister! Let’s see what he can do, pitted against a donkey. Come to think of it, he’s probably used to dealing with donkeys up in Parliament.”

A few muffled guffaws broke the ranks and floated on the breeze as the Minister strode purposefully up to the donkey. He eyed the owner contemptuously and said, “Why is this donkey standing here in the middle of the road?” The man began to apologize in a wheedling, piteous voice, but the Minister raised one hand and said, “Enough.”

The Minister looked at the donkey fiercely, as if to say, “Donkey, don’t you know who I am?”

The donkey raised its lips from its gums and tossed its head. It seemed to be snickering at the Minister, although those watching all remarked that of course a donkey couldn’t tell the difference between a Minister and an ordinary man.

The Minister pursed his lips, and thought for a few moments. People later remarked that it looked like gears moved inside his head, the little cog and the big cog grinding around, making a strange squeaking sound. His brow wrinkled and his lips moved, as if he was reading something out loud to himself.

He turned around and looked at the columns of traffic awaiting his decision. When he swung back, his jaw was firm. “If you cannot move the donkey in thirty seconds, I will order my men to shoot it.”

A collective gasp issued from the spectators’ lips, and the cart owner cried out loud, “Sahib! This is the only donkey I own! I am a poor man! I will be ruined!”

Voices rose from the crowd. “It’s too harsh.” “It’s just a poor creature!” “Amma, Amma, they’re not really going to shoot the donkey, are they?”

The Minister raised one eyebrow and the head policeman shouted out orders to his subordinates. They lined up on the side of the road and raised their guns, taking careful aim at the donkey’s side. The entire Chowk grew silent as everyone waited to see what would happen. The owner of the donkey muttered prayers and curses, hoping that the Minister would show mercy towards him and his donkey.

The Minister said to the man, “I’m going to give you one last chance to get this donkey off the road.”

The owner cried out, “For the love of God, you damned donkey, move!”

The donkey raised its head, as if sniffing the air. Jaws dropped and eyes widened as the donkey snaked its mouth towards a poor boy selling bunches of roses. The donkey grabbed at the boy with its huge teeth. The boy threw his roses in the air and ran away, shrieking.

The roses lay scattered on the ground. The donkey snatched them up in his jaws, chewed on them deliberately, and then turned towards the row of policemen. Nonchalantly, the donkey pursed its lips and spat the wet rose petals out at the guards.

Then, with a great bray, the donkey raised one defiant leg and smartly kicked the Minister as hard as it could.

The Minister fell to the ground. In the uproar, hundreds of voices swelled with shouts of laughter, horns honked, buses blared their sirens, truck drivers blasted triumphant snatches of music. The donkey calmly walked through the crowd and trotted off, pulling the cart behind it. The owner, who dared not look at the Minister or anyone else, quickly jumped into the cart and whipped the donkey hard with a tiny bamboo cane. Donkey and master disappeared in the melee.

Immediately, the cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles surged forward. The Minister roared from the ground, surrounding by the legs of his unlucky guards, trying to get up and order them to kill the donkey and its owner. But the traffic had swelled all around, hiding the donkey and its owner from view.

The policemen helped the Minister to his feet. By the time the Minister was standing again, traffic was moving round the Chowk at normal speed.

From that day forth, whenever people discussed the incident, they remembered how the Minister had tried to beat the donkey. “But the Minister forgot one thing,” they would say to each other, with a smirk and a glint in their eyes. “He forgot that you should never try to beat a donkey at its own game.”

From "Animal Medicine" (OUP 2000), available at Desistore (www.desistore.com/animedicine.html).