Water buffalo were being used for labour in the heart of the metropolis

Walking through the streets of Pune, past the tangle of cars and motorbikes, I suddenly saw a bullock cart drift into view. It didn’t so much enter the road as take the stage, like an actor stepping beneath a reluctant spotlight. My attention followed it automatically. Pulling the cart was a water buffalo with a magnificent pair of horns, its pace unhurried, its posture regal in a way traffic could never imitate.

I circled to the front and raised my camera. The buffalo didn’t flinch. If anything, it regarded me with the calm authority of a creature who has outlived empires. Its dark, liquid eyes seemed to say: go on, take your picture if it satisfies you. In that moment, I felt less like a photographer and more like a student being silently examined.

In Hindu cosmology, cows are revered to an almost untouchable degree; employing them as labor would spark outrage. Water buffaloes, however, work the fields, pull carts, and bear loads without complaint. The division of labor, it seems, is not determined merely by horns or hooves but by some deeper cultural taxonomy. To my untrained eye, both animals appear equally dignified, equally grand. Yet their lives diverge simply because they belong to different castes of the bovine world.

The longer I watched the buffalo move away, the more its presence lingered. How effortlessly a society assigns roles based on lineage, species, or fate—how familiar that feels, even to a passing traveler.