Satire | Confessions of a tempo driver

History books tell us that tempos were the earliest forms of transport used for ferrying illicit goods. Many of the Stone Age era cave paintings discovered in India depict a man unloading a sack of black money from a buffalo-drawn tempo, while the tempo driver is seen feeding an avocado to the buffalo. Such kala dhan-themed cave paintings haven’t been found in any other part of the world, which leads me to conclude that alongside fire, zero, and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Arogya Awas Ujjwala Vishwakarma Mangalsutra Yojana, the buffalo-drawn tempo must rank as one of the biggest gifts of Indic civilisation to human civilisation. I hope once India becomes ‘Viksit’, we tempo drivers will get the same respect our cousins in the West do. Q: Following the PM’s comments, Opposition leaders have called for investigations into the tempos that delivered black money.