Speaking of horses, hill stations provide you with plenty. Albeit these are horses who humour tourists. The loud children, big men and women, all perhaps in search of some interim pleasure. “Can we go ‘horse riding’ ” is not to be read as a question, but as an indication of an activity whose time has come !
You can excuse the odd neighs and sundry gallop in the wrong direction. ( Somewhere they ought to be like us, right ?) All that is commonplace.
At Mahabaleshwar though, they have names to the horses.
Names like
Salman.
Bipasha.
Shaheed.
Kareena.
John Ibr.
Hrithik.
Munna Bhai.
And the chaps that sell rides, proclaim to the world, ‘ How about a ride on Salman ‘ ? Well. Hmm. Now, i love horses. But that marketing pitch didn’t quite resonate well with me. A rose is a rose is a rose. Yes. That’s true. And, in this case it was a horse.
But you know, when i did ride, two things made it uncomfortable. I am an occasional tourist and a rarer horse rider. Ofcourse, the butt didnt take the steady cantor pleasantly.
The other i guess was in my own mind. ” Riding ‘Salman’ ” wasn’t exactly my idea of a holiday. And then, just as i was dismounting and ruing the lack of a clear and steady mind, ‘Sir, would you want to try Bipasha’ said a big gent with another white horse.
And Bipasha snorted. I guess in wholesome disapproval.
The next day, as i took a walk, Bipasha, Salman, Shaheed and the gang, were all being given their bath. Their name tag identities lying besides them. And not on them.
And suddenly, they seemed who they truly were. Simple beautiful living creatures.
I
I clicked many times. ‘Pics of Salman, Shaheed, Bipasha et al having a bath by the river’ would be a blog title that could cause such a spike in Internet traffic that the world could have to come to a halt.
The horses couldn’t care less. Any more than a vigorous shake of a fresh white head ! And that was to swat a fly !