I was once walking on my little legs by the side of the famished pot-holed road passing the village. I was coming back from the fields. A road-roller and an elephant were going side by side on the tattered pot-holed road. Three PWD guys on the road-roller, a bulky iron elephant itself, went with a lumbering muse. The real elephant carried four sadhus who maintained the mammoth creature for their mendicant journey. They had exactly the same slow, unmindful pace, none of them willing to overtake the other. Traffic wasn’t much during those days. Now and then a bus, truck or tempo would crawl respectfully from front or behind and carefully maneuvered the crossing by taking its tyres below the road on the opposite side.
I walked behind watching the spectacle unfold. Who would mess with a road-roller and an elephant on the road? So the vehicles maintained their distance. The PWD guys and the elephant-riding sadhus looked very confident on account of their solid occupancy of the road. They even chatted in a friendly way, going slowly side by side.
The sadhus had opium chillums in their hands and the PWD guys got desirous of some free spirits. They requested and it was accepted by the sadhus already in free spirits. Two sadhus got down with a chillum and got onto the road-roller and the driver enjoyed the smoky bonhomie. The road-roller rolled almost of its free will. The other two PWD guys stood in front of the elephant as it put its trunk under their bums to hoist them on its back and there they enjoyed the inhalations of freedom with the couple of sadhus on the elephant. And there I walked behind looking at their merry ways. It was a far gentler world then.
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