Modern India throws out its donkeys and asses. But Modern business in India wants young men to work harder than the patient—rarely complaining and possibly more efficient—donkeys

The other day I saw an ass.

This may come as no surprise to misanthropes and ever-loving cynics who see asses everywhere they go.

Even I, of humble and mild disposition, meet them often.
They are the ones who have opinions about whether having a convivial drink, or for that matter getting bacchanalian at a celebration deserves a public thrashing. They are the ones that think that who you were born to be more important than who you are, and they don’t actually know the difference; these asses will kill you if you cross imaginary boundaries and talk to someone of the opposite sex who is of ‘nobler’ birth. See I told you, they were asses!

Then there are the others who think that their God is better than your God, and if you don’t have a God, then God help you. Asinine as it may be to think that the all-seeing omnipotent omniscient unbelievably creative ‘it’ up there, here and everywhere actually wants to and is pleased by playing favourites, and that too by just one of the million trillion gazillion things on this and countless other planets, these geniuses will kill you and themselves for it, dying I presume with a self satisfied smug smile on their faces as they explode into nothingness.

There are of course asses of others kinds: white ones who don’t like black ones, brown ones who think white ones are the source of all their problems and possibly striped ones who can’t tell who is to blame at all. There are spectacularly intelligent asses  who believe that the reason the planet turns is because the light shines from, well, their asses and so they blithely go about doing whatever they feel, as the earth burns in their wake.

So as I said I see asses too.

But this was different. I actually saw one on the street. A full blown four-legged ass in the heart of one of the largest cities in the world in the 21st century! Of course, since I am not a zoologist I couldn’t swear it was an ass. It could have been a donkey. Is there a difference?

Anyway here was this lone ass darting across the street to avoid being run over by my car. Now asses aka donkeys as I knew them many years ago before the human varieties that I referred to earlier replaced them, are somewhat phlegmatic creatures, choosing to at best express themselves with an occasional braying sound. But this one seemed like he (maybe she?) was excited about something.

But what got me thinking was where have all the asses gone? At one stage I remember them laden with bricks meandering to a construction site. Or carrying clothes that the ‘dhobi’ was taking away to the local washing place or bringing them back starched and pressed. Or just hanging around in packs at random corners, much like teenagers apparently waiting for something, anything, to happen. And from time to time above the din, you would hear them—the loud braying that was both irritating and somewhat reassuring.

And they were interesting creatures that seemed to have a stoic, and yet not-boring disposition. I was told as a child never to walk behind one for they could and would kick. The saying “dig your heels in” seemed to be inspired by them: I have seen this washer man struggling to get one of them to move. No dice.

Over the years they slipped from sight, even from memory. Till the other day. And I began to wonder, what had happened to them. I know this is not as romantic a notion as musing about the swallows of Capistrano or some such.

But hey I liked these creatures: They were of service, they mostly didn’t complain and in an anthropomorphic way I thought they were cute especially after I had seen Shrek.

Maybe they disappeared or at least were disappearing because we had little use for these beasts of burden and unlike their fellow B of B’s they didn't have other uses like milk and cheese and even the occasional steak. (I hear that Cleo’s complexion was much enhanced by asses’ milk, but Shahnaz Hussein has not revived this Pharaonic tradition.)

And so with a sigh and a heave of the old chest, I went on with my evening and my life.

Till this morning. Same street corner, different day, and headed in the opposite direction: The car is stuck behind a handcart. Now handcarts are not uncommon in India, and the beast of burden in this case is a fellow human being. Unlike donkeys/asses these beasts have not disappeared or are disappearing. They seem to be a “viable” species in India.

Here was the interesting twist: the handcart was for delivery of domestic cooking gas cylinders. The puller of the cart which was admittedly a modernized version of the traditional wooden one, was a uniformed with company Bharatgas logo and all, young man.

It was the oddest thing of all. Modern India throws out its donkeys and asses. Modern India has mined from deep sea, hard-to-extract and then piped and bottled natural gas for Modern India’s kitchens. And Modern business in India wants young men to work harder than the patient—rarely complaining and possibly more efficient—donkeys.

We are a strange land. And I often feel like a stranger in it.
But it seems that we are a country full of asses after all.

(V Shantakumar is the former chairman & CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi in India and now the managing partner of Doing Think)