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National Geographic : 1960 Oct
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KODACHROME() NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY Before that the noble Asoka had sent his missionaries over this same route to spread the brotherhood of Buddhism. And long, long before that, nomads from beyond the Hindu Kush had spread over the plain of the Ganges, leaving a heritage of Aryan gods and a physi ognomy that makes people of north India more Caucasian than Asiatic. Where legions of armored war elephants once thundered over the tablelike plains, un inhibited Sikh drivers now pilot their diesel pachyderms, defying everything in front of them-except the sacred cows that plod un concernedly along the highway. Helen and I had smiled in Calcutta when brakes screeched and buses swerved and street cars ground to a halt as some cow ambled nonchalantly along Chowringhee, crossing with complete safety where but moments before pedestrians had gambled with their lives. But now, faced with thousands of miles of driving among the two hundred million of India's cattle-one for every two Indians-we didn't think it was so funny. However, we soon learned the psychology of the road: that you could pass safely in front of a cow, but that a water buffalo must be passed to the rear; that a pedestrian will jump at the sound of your horn, but not until you've almost run him down; that buses will politely 449
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