Walk up to the main gate of the Victoria Memorial on a reasonably sunny day and you may just find yourself transported back in time. But tear your eyes away from that marble edifice for just a moment, if you can, and take a gander at what’s on the opposite side.
Some 20-25 horse-drawn carriages — known as tanga to Bengali speakers and buggy or rath to others — populate this stretch of road. Their bright colours — gold, silver and shades of bright red, for the most part — catch the eye, and they’re designed to have the look and feel of something grand.
Some, round and enclosed, are almost like birdcages, while most others are open-roofed. Handlebars shaped like peacocks’ heads and other little ornamentations can make a passenger feel like a nabob who’s summoned his coachman for a turn around 18th century Calcutta.
But who are these 21st century coachmen? Known as tangawalas , many have firm roots in Kolkata, and most are following their ancestral profession; their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers all drove tangas in their time. Notions of legacy and destiny abound. Mohammed Imran, 25, calls it his khandani — hereditary — work, determined the minute he was born; he is content.
From carer to driver
Others are less phlegmatic. Mohammed Sonu was barely eight when he started helping his brother with his buggy. He was later promoted to horse’s carer, and eventually became the sole driver. His brother has since moved on to other work, but still takes most of the income from the buggy; Sonu, now 19, gets only 25%. If Sonu had had a choice — and, crucially, a real education — he would have done something else, he says.
Similarly, Mohammed Saheb Alam, 35, has had to accept his fate. A man of faith, he believes it was his naseeb — destiny — to follow in his forefathers’ footsteps. He inherited his father’s buggy, and says, “Father’s happy, so we are happy.” But Saheb, like Sonu, never had a proper education, and hopes his children will live a different life where they can make their own choices.
These men don’t follow any fixed daily schedule; each tangawala ’s working day starts and ends at different times depending on when he thinks he can get passengers. Their income also varies greatly, day-to-day and month-to-month. For example, 17-year-old Sahil Mollah works from 10 a.m. to around 8 p.m. each day. He gets two to three passengers on most days and five to six on Sundays. Sonu starts work at a similar time but doesn’t stop until 2-3 a.m..
Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty
Business is hard during the summer months, they all say. Passengers are scanty, the horses struggle in the scorching Kolkata sun, and the tangawalas themselves are infinitely tired by the end of the day, with almost no profit to show for it. Saheb vigorously complains about having stationed his carriage at noon and not getting the first ride of the day till 6 p.m.
Wintertime, especially December when the air smells of Christmas, is when business booms and there are plenty of rides and happy passengers. Some passengers are even regulars, the families that live nearby, with children who enjoy a ride almost every Sunday.
High maintenance
When it comes to income, the consensus is that they make ₹500 per ride. The owners, who would have spent around ₹3.5 lakh on the carriage and ₹20,000 to buy a horse, find most of their monthly earnings swallowed up by the needs of the horse and the carriage’s maintenance. Most owners have two horses each, purchased from the Sonpur Mela cattle fair in Bihar. These horses eat cattle feed ranging from bhusi (horse powder made of wheat) to grass, bichuli and chana (pulses).
Saheb spends around ₹700 a day on his horses, Chand and Chandni, who are his priority. Mohammed Abdul Sajid, 38, who usually takes his passengers around the Kolkata Race Course, Fort William and back, talks about the sad condition of his horses, Sonali and Rupali, who’ve been surviving on very little bhusi lately. He doesn’t make enough profit to spend on the horses as well on his family’s needs and his own.
But the tangawalas seem resigned to their predicament. Abdul alleges that local policemen manipulate him into taking them on free rides, but offer no help in return when they appeal to them. According to him, the police harass him and the other legally licensed “numbered” carriages — but not the non-numbered ones, who offer bribes. He has been rejected for loans several times, and no longer holds out any hope of help from the government. Saheb shares similar sentiments, in a resigned voice.
Binoj Saha, 38, is the odd one out. He became a tanga driver not through lineage but because he loves horses. He points out several hurdles facing the tangawalas. There are fewer and fewer passengers, he says, and they lost many of them when the parking facility near the Victoria Memorial shut down.
Strangely though, you will find few tangawalas who don’t like what they do. They enjoy riding their horses around and taking people up for rides on cool evenings with the wind in their hair; they revel in the conversations and the loud laughter of happy families.
And the roads around Victoria Memorial and the people who crowd around it revel in the tangawalas too, they know well the sound of the carriage bells and the clip-clop of the trotting horses.
