Horse “Ghura” Joke

Heard:
Once, long ago, a foreign tourist was on a visit to Kashmir. He wanted to go from downtown Srinagar to Dal Lake, so this foreigner walked up to a nearby tangadda and asked a tangwol, tongawalla, who was at that time was grooming his not so big horse and mounting the sideblinds on its eyes. The foreigner gingerly asked the tangwol if he would give him a ride to Dal Lake. Tangwol replied, “Why certainly Janaab,” and while brushing the coarse sparse hair of his little horse using his own coarse long fingers, he added, “and it would only cost you rupees ten.” The foreigner was no fool. He had heard all about the wily ways of Kashmiris and their evil bargaining powers. And this particular foreign gent was also well read and at this particular moment he remembered a line written in 1783 by an Englishman named George Forster: Kashmiris are “endowed with unwearied patience in the pursuit of gain.”

The foreigner, crossing his arms across his puny chest, the big collar of his bush shirt looking stiff, said, ” I know the route and all the roads, it should cost me not more that five rupees,” and then, with some difficulty, putting his hands inside the side pockets of his tight at hip bell bottom pants, added, “I will only pay five. Fine.” At this the tangwol moved close to the foreigner and in a hush-hush tone said, “Ahista Bowlaow, not so loud,” and then moving still closer, into the foreigner’s ear, whispered, “mera Ghura sunaiyga toh hasaiyga, if my horse hears that, it’s going to throw a laughing fit. You see it knows all the routes.” After this the bargaining session ended.
After a ride that lasted around forty minutes, the foreigner reached Dal Lake and paid the tangwol the promised sum of rupees ten.

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Photographs: A horse and a Horseman at Gulmarg

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