A MASTER OF HORSES

Mani: Am I to tell that little thing about the white horse?

Eruch: Yes, tell it.

Mani: I commented earlier on the white horse, that angelic, majestic-looking animal.

Don: Who turned into a regular devil.

Mani: Absolutely. All during the New Life while we were walking on the road, the procession was headed by the white horse with Don (Donkin) leading him. It was like the taming of the shrew. When we got to Moradabab where we halted for some time, it was Mehera's birthday. New Year was also celebrated there, New Year of 1950. That morning Baba gave a bit of cake to each in turn and wished each one a Happy New Life. Not Happy New Year, but Happy New Life. While we were staying at Moradabad something else was added to our. . .

Don: Retinue?

Mani: Menagerie. Actually that horse was to draw a tonga.

Don: Good heavens!

Mani: Yes, the white horse was to be harnessed to the tonga.

Don: Despite its bad temper?

Mani: Yes, and that's why I said it was like the taming of the shrew. That majestic animal! The discipline it went through. A horse trainer was called in, and it took him about five days to get that horse trained to accept the fact that it would be harnessed to a tonga and have to pull it with people in it.

The horse trainer was a tiny little fellow, so ordinary-looking that if you saw him in a bus or passed him on the road you wouldn't give him a second glance. But, Don, he was a master of horses! The way he trained that white horse! Mehera and I would sit out in the mornings and just watch. He did a beautiful job. Baba said, 'You've got to do it. That horse has got to be harnessed to a tonga.'

The horse expert tried all sorts of tricks on the horse and told us, 'You wouldn't believe it, but I tell you this horse has once been harnessed to a tonga and he knows all the tricks. But he's such a clever fellow that he's trying to pretend to me that he doesn't know what I mean.' The trainer would catch the horse unawares in certain things, and slowly he was able to tame him.

From that time the horse served us by pulling the tonga. That was the period when Kaka would go ahead of us in the tonga while we walked. He would get down at the town where Baba wanted next to halt and get out the things to have them ready when we arrived.

Don: What eventually happened to the white horse?

Eruch: I completely forget now what happened to it. Was it sold?

Mani: I think it was. Nobody seems to remember. It's extraordinary, nobody seems to remember the end of the white horse.

Eruch: We must know it. We know what happened to the bullocks later on. Baba gave them away to an institution called the Nanee-Dodniya.

Mani: It means 'Small World,' the world of the little ones.