Goats on Motorcycles

welcome to rajasthan, land of the motorized goat

It was in Rajasthan that I saw my first goat on a motorcycle.

And, let me tell you. Goats do not like being on bikes. They squirm, shake, moan -- anything they can to get out of their tethers and back onto solid ground. I didn’t realize any of this until after my sixth or seventh motorized goat viewing, however. All I knew during that first goat viewing was that I probably shouldn’t be surprised that, in a country where a woman had recently married a cobra, someone else had decided to transport livestock via motorbike.

I won’t lie, though. I was shocked at seeing a goat strapped to a motorbike. Cobra weddings aside, seeing motorized livestock is pretty strange. India, however, has a wonderful way of making the unusual seem normal. By my third biker goat viewing I was able to calmly say, “oh, look. There’s another goat on wheels. It looks mad.”

They had reason to look angry, too. The goats in question would be strung up, legs tied together with rope. The animal would either be slung across the back of a motorcycle like a sack of flour or else held tightly by the driver. Every now and then there would be several goats at a time on a bike, which made me very nervous -- I hadn’t come to India to witness animals getting hurt (or run over) after falling off of motorbikes. Luckily, every goat I saw stayed on board and intact.

It was also in Rajasthan that I saw my first camel. That is, my first real, authentic, working camel. It's one thing to see them in a zoo, but another thing entirely to see a lumpy humped creature walking down the side of a busy road. Eight feet tall and with legs longer than a supermodel's, that first camel I spotted was a regal creature. He walked alongside traffic like an elderly Persian king, head held high in the air, mouth quivering while full of cud.

I was completely and utterly taken with the sight, and tried to snap as many photos as I could from my car. I felt like I had stepped into a modernized version of Arabian Nights, replete with veiled Rajasthani women, camels and goats. This feeling only increased after the next sight I saw -- an entire train of camels, plodding along in a row. Ah, I thought, an entire noble court of dromedaries! This was a nice illusion for a period of time until reality stepped in. My princely camels were, in fact, unabashedly pooping on the side of the road. Their regal heads were marred by noses pierced through with metal and wooden stakes, and unlike any Persian king in the history of the universe, these creatures were working as day laborers, pulling overloaded wagons of concrete and brick.

Later in the trip (but still in Rajasthan), I had a very bad experience with one particularly irritated camel. My short lived love of these beasts ended at the exact moment I almost got bucked off the Double Humped Antichrist. That tragic moment will be written about, but for now, I will stick to those first blissful days of camel love.

Oh, and for any goats from Rajasthan reading this blog -- good luck with those motorbikes!