A few decades ago, when I got married to a chic metro city girl – I spoke eloquently and elaborately about my work place and home town, Mangalore. Unimpressed, as most are about the amenities and outlets a small district town can offer, she looked askance – and, after going through the many sepia toned faded B&W pics of Mangalore I had with me, rolled her eyes upwards, cocked a well tweezered eyebrow and stated, rather unflatteringly ‘O ho! it looks like a one horse town ??!!??’.

Now all who know me, also know, I am partial to a fetish about Mangalore, and will go any lengths to prove that this city, despite its many and very obvious handicaps, tops my list of favored spots to reside in. But, this ‘one horse town’ epithet had me ruminating: Could it be so? Though the matter of fact pronouncement was an euphemistic allusion to lack of civic amenities in general, in literary sense, coming to think of it, in reality, I hadn’t seen many, in fact any, horses in Mangalore.

With that on my mind, my quest for the city’s equine history and search took me to some fascinating facts – that Arab traders brought horses to equip cavalry for local satraps and arasus, stabling their imports near the present railway station, at a spot that came to known as Kaprigudda – the word itself a derived from Kappu, (black) the skin tone of the North Africans merchants that brought the livestock across the seas. Yet another stockade for the mid-east imports was set up in the area that was called (and still is) as Kudroli (derived from kudre – horse).

With advent of automobiles, the lowly and common jatka, horse driven carriages, disappeared and since the last five decades or so, not a single such vehicle has been spotted on the city’s sinuous alleys and by lanes. The clip clop of the metal horseshoes was never to be heard again.

Coming on to the present, I gathered, much to my dismay, that the only horses that were in the city in the sixties and seventies were three owned by the ‘maharaj’ of the Jogi Mutt sect that traces its origin and roots to the Kadri area of Mangalore. With death of all three animals, a single replacement was bought for ceremonial purposes.

The last specimen, Chetan, a regal chestnut, died recently after serving the austere Jogis for many years;  many here, having seen the horse, leisurely foraging and ambling in the vicinity of the Kadri Hill.

Toady, Mangalore is no longer just a ‘one horse’ but a ‘no horse’ city. In a way, I grieve. Imagine a whole generation of kids from here, not having even seen a live horse!! What is childhood, except reading about, hearing, riding, feeling, smelling and imagining white steeds, of knights astride them, of brave warriors of cavalry, of daring Lochinvars who come riding to pluck away a pining bride….Imagine a child not knowing how the horse looks (except through movies or pictures) trying to mentally visualize the horse drawn chariot of Cinderella.

Tragic.

So was my new wife right? ….I sometimes wonder why she separated – bad enough, she may must have thought,  living in the ‘one horse’ town – but no way was she going to remain after it became a ‘no horse’ town!!!