Ganja’s Tanga — A Memory Carriage
گنجے کا ٹانگہ
गंजे का ताँगा

A few days ago, something as simple as an online post about horse-carriages opened a small window in time. And through that window slipped a memory—one that rose from the dusty lanes of Multan and travelled all the way here, to my home in Canberra.

It was the 1950s. My elder sister and I went to school every day in a tanga, a horse-drawn carriage that felt as much a part of our childhood as our slates, satchels, and inkpots. Each morning we passed through those familiar neighbourhood streets: the government water tap with its line of clay pots and metal buckets; the milkman’s wall neatly tiled with cow-dung cakes from ground to roof; and the narrow drainage channels running down the centre of the street—freshly cleaned, usually just moments before we arrived.

After weaving through a maze of wide and narrow lanes, the tanga would be waiting near Mrs Dean’s house. Mrs Dean had been the nurse at the time of my birth. Her son Joseph was in my class, and her daughter Angela in my sister’s.
The school walls were high. When the dismissal bell rang, the gatekeeper would step out, glance at the waiting carriage, and call out. Inside, an elderly woman would unbolt a small gate and send off the group of children assigned to that tanga.
“Come on, it’s Ganja’s tanga!”
That was our cue.
Of course, “Ganja”—baldy—was not his real name. But by middle age his thinning hair had made the nickname stick, and no one in the neighbourhood called him anything else. After packing fifteen to twenty children from the rear step right up to the horse’s tail, he would take us safely back to Mrs Dean’s house.

For four or five years, nothing changed. His tanga was always jet-black, polished, spotless, dressed with bright brass decorations. His horse was always white—groomed, garlanded, and almost festive, with flowers on the reins, bells that chimed gently as it trotted, a red plume between its ears, and a small silver ornament on its forehead that, people said, was real silver.
We children imitated his calls—“Hut rehōp! Bach rehōp!”—(be on side - be safe) both at home and at school. Those sounds became part of our everyday rhythm.

Years passed, and I moved on to high school. In my khaki uniform I now walked to school with friends, following the same stretch of road that led to my old primary school. Whenever Ganja’s tanga rattled past, memories rose like warm breath on a winter morning.

Ganja’s life was simple. He carried only schoolchildren—no other passengers. In winter he even delivered our lunch tiffins. He lived alone. We never saw him angry, never saw him late. I had heard grown-ups whisper that he had been married. His wife had died giving birth to their child—and the baby had not survived either. As a child I had only half-understood this story. Later, as I grew older, I realised that although he always smiled, there was a quiet ruin somewhere in the pattern of his life—something we children had never grasped.

“Hut rehōp! Bach rehōp!”
Even today it feels as if he is calling out to us—reminding us to walk carefully through the lanes of life.
For in the end, whatever survives… spreads from the simple generosity of the heart.

Riaz Akber