When Madhukar Appaji was a little boy, his grandmother would tell him stories – stories about mythical flying horses that would help the hero bring home the pretty girl from the neighbouring village, or stories about the great warrior king Ashoka.
“As the descendants of Emperor Ashoka, we brought horses to this part of the country about 2000 years ago,” says Appaji proudly. Decades later he still vividly recalls his grandmother’s stories from those longago summer visits to her ancestral home in Mysore.
Thus, it is not surprising that today Appaji is the head of ‘The Horse Heritage Revival Project’ in Mysore. An initiative of Appaji, it is being endorsed (though not funded) by the Mysore Heritage Centre under its long-term mission to make Mysore a pedestrian and tourist-friendly city.
A Tribute to The Tonga
“My dream is to have car-free towns with only horse transport: horse-driven ambulances, horse garbage-trucks, horse taxis …Where do you think the term ‘horse-power’ comes from?” asks Appaji. He believes that apart from major bus and railway public transport points, people should use horses and carriages to get from point to point. “Cars won’t last long – petrol will last maybe another 20 or 30 years. We need to have dependable, eco friendly transport that won’t pollute our air and won’t hurt us when we breathe,” he adds.
Thus, in 2002, Appaji and his team of six went about Mysore collecting broken-down tongas from the streets, from the garbage dumps, and from all over the city with the aim to restore and revive the tonga tradition. “Mysore’s progress from the dark ages to the civilised era has been on horse-back. It is my duty to bring back the richness of this legacy to my people.”
Bringing Back ‘Horse Power’
The headquarters of The Horse Heritage Revival Project are on the outskirts of Mysore. Here you will find about six and half acres of land, most of which is under construction, with half-built brick buildings and stables within which rest carefully cared-for horses. Appaji has grand plans for this space: he is building a ‘live horse’ museum in which people dressed in the attire of the 1930s will reenact life from that bygone era. He is also restoring Victorian-era carriages to be used in ‘tourist activities’ such as ‘honey-moon rides’ through the city and horse caravan tours around the region. The project also runs a tonga-training school, rents out horses at subsidized rates to tonga-drivers, and teaches the craft of tonga and carriage restoration. Additionally, Appaji plans to begin an institute with summer school programs for horse-lovers to learn riding and other equine arts. He is working with two villages near Mysore to make them into horse-transport localities.
Horse-Man to the Rescue
“Everyone calls him The Horse-Man or The Chevvy,” says Akram, a third generation Mysore tonga driver. “He’s helping keep alive the work of my father and grandfather.”
Another old- timer, who’s been a tonga driver for over three decades, is Jeevan Prasad who says, “In my day tongas roamed this city. But now that the auto-rickshaws have taken over, it is very hard for people like us tonga drivers to make a living. I feel happy that someone is working to make it easier for us to hang on.”
The tonga and the carriage were introduced to Mysore around the 1600s and were the backbone of the public transport system of this heritage city till the 1970s, when autorickshaws took over, explains Appaji. By 2001, only eight tongas survived, and carriages had all but vanished. Today, thanks to his project, Mysore’s tonga drivers have increased from eight to more than 80.
“What we’ve done is found all the missing links in the tonga chain and brought them back,” says Appaji, whose team also patrols Mysore to ensure that horses are not being abused by the cavalry policemen or tonga drivers. “A horse should be tickled not whipped,” he explains. Appaji has conducted extensive research on the work-load and care for different breeds of horses. “Animal and man are supposed to live together. That’s why the horse was created and the man was created. We have a relationship with each other that goes back centuries.”
He Has a Dream…
Appaji is so proud of his project, that he carries little video clips of tonga training sessions in his cell-phone. “I don’t know if I’ve lost my mind, but I have put my life into this,’ says Appaji, who has invested about 3 crores of his life-savings into this project. “I’ve gone around in aeroplanes, I’ve gone around in ships, but when I go around in a tonga, I feel the movement of civilization. I feel like I am on the top of the world!”
Realistically speaking, Appaji’s Horse Heritage Revival Project probably isn’t ‘The Next Big Thing’ where the future of modern transportation is concerned, nor is Appaji the next Einstein, Bill Gates, or Vijay Mallya. What he is, is a dreamer willing to act on his dreams. And that is rare. In this world of bottom-lines, material striving, and corporate ladders, there is something wonderful about a person wandering off the beaten path and exploring new ways of thinking, living, and making a difference. So all the more power (or horse power) to him!
Despite the concept of horse run transportation being almost preposterous today, one must accept that what Appaji pointed out is true: The planet’s fuel will run out someday. When it does, civilization as we know it may come to a grinding halt. While most of us choose to deal with this unalterable fact in a gentle way (recycling, cycling, and such), Appaji simply hits the issue at its heart. For all we know, our children’s children might see the return of a time when horses were the most viable form of transportation. And it is then that Appaji will no longer be thought of as a mere dreamer or a crazed man with ‘hippie’ ideals, but as a true pioneer.
Courtesy: Greenlife Magazine
