Anthology Part 1 - A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat

The event and the eyes that see it

From A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat

By Emma Levine

Levine travelled throughout Asia researching and filming unusual sports. In this passage she writes about a donkey race in Karachi, Pakistan.

[1] We drove off to find the best viewing spot, which turned out to be the crest of the hill so
[2] we could see the approaching race. I asked the lads if we could join in the ‘Wacky Races’
[3] and follow the donkeys, and they loved the idea. ‘We'll open the car boot, you climb
[4] inside and point your camera towards the race. As the donkeys overtake us, we'll join
[5] the cars.’ ‘But will you try and get to the front?’ ‘Oh yes, that’s no problem.’

[6] The two lads who had never been interested in this Karachi sport were suddenly fired up
[7] with enthusiasm. We waited for eternity on the brow of the hill, me perched in the boot
[8] with a zoom lens pointing out. Nearly one hour later I was beginning to feel rather silly
[9] when the only action was a villager on a wobbly bicycle, who nearly fell off as he cycled
[10] past and gazed around at us.

[11] Several vehicles went past, and some donkey-carts carrying spectators. ‘Are they
[12] coming?’ we called out to them. ‘Coming, coming,’ came the reply. I was beginning to
[13] lose faith in its happening, but the lads remained confident.

[14] Just as I was assuming that the race had been cancelled, we spotted two approaching
[15] donkey-carts in front of a cloud of fumes and dust created by some fifty vehicles roaring
[16] up in their wake. As they drew nearer, Yaqoob revved up the engine and began to inch
[17] the car out of the lay-by. The two donkeys were almost dwarfed by their entourage1; but
[18] there was no denying their speed — the Kibla donkey is said to achieve speeds of up to
[19] 40 kph, and this looked close. The two were neck-and-neck, their jockeys perched on
[20] top of the tiny carts using their whips energetically, although not cruelly.

[21] The noise of the approaching vehicles grew; horns tooting, bells ringing, and the special
[22] rattles used just for this purpose (like maracas, a metal container filled with dried
[23] beans). Men standing on top of their cars and vans, hanging out of taxis and perched on
[24] lorries, all cheered and shouted, while the vehicles jostled to get to the front of the
[25] convoy.

[26] Yaqoob chose exactly the right moment to edge out of the road and swerve in front of
[27] the nearest car, finding the perfect place to see the two donkeys and at the front of the
[28] vehicles. This was Formula One without rules, or a city-centre rush hour gone anarchic;
[29] a complete flouting of every type of traffic rule and common sense.

[30] Our young driver relished this unusual test of driving skills. It was survival of the fittest,
[31] and depended upon the ability to cut in front of a vehicle with a sharp flick of the
[32] steering wheel (no lane discipline here); quick reflexes to spot a gap in the traffic for a
[33] couple of seconds; nerves of steel, and an effective horn. There were two races — the
[34] motorized spectators at the back; in front, the two donkeys, still running close and
[35] amazingly not put off by the uproar just behind them. Ahead of the donkeys, oncoming
[36] traffic — for it was a main road — had to dive into the ditch and wait there until we had
[37] passed. Yaqoob loved it. We stayed near to the front, his hand permanently on the horn
[38] and his language growing more colourful with every vehicle that tried to cut in front. …

[39] The road straightened and levelled, and everyone picked up speed as we neared the end
[40] of the race. But just as they were reaching the finishing line, the hospital gate, there was
[41] a near pile-up as the leading donkey swerved, lost his footing and he and the cart
[42] tumbled over. The race was over.
[43] And then the trouble began. I assumed the winner was the one who completed the race
[44] but it was not seen that way by everyone. Apart from the two jockeys and 'officials'
[45] (who, it turned out, were actually monitoring the race) there were over a hundred
[46] punters who had all staked money on the race, and therefore had strong opinions. Some
[47] were claiming that the donkey had fallen because the other one had been ridden too
[48] close to him. Voices were raised, fists were out and tempers rising. Everyone gathered
[49] around one jockey and official, while the bookmakers were trying to insist that the race
[50] should be re-run.

[51] Yaqoob and Iqbal were nervous of hanging around a volatile situation. They agreed to
[52] find out for me what was happening ordering me to stay inside the car as they were
[53] swallowed up by the crowd. They emerged some time later. ‘It’s still not resolved,’ said
[54] Iqbal, ‘but it's starting to get nasty. I think we should leave.’ As we drove away, Yaqoob
[55] reflected on his driving skills. ‘I really enjoyed that,’ he said as we drove off at a more
[56] sedate pace. ‘But I don't even have my licence yet because I'm underage!’

[57] They both found this hilarious, but I was glad he hadn’t told me before; an
[58] inexperienced, underage driver causing a massive pile-up in the middle of the high-
[59] stakes donkey race could have caused problems.

Notes

1 entourage: a group of people attending or surrounding a person
Sedate: calm and unhurried.
Volatile: liable to change suddenly, especially towards anger.

Reading the text

Levine is a travel writer, photographer and filmmaker. While researching traditional sports across Asia, she followed a donkey-cart race in Karachi with two local companions, Yaqoob and Iqbal. That fact explains why she wants a good camera position and asks to join the pursuing vehicles; it does not earn a separate paragraph of context in an exam response.

Keep verified fact and textual inference separate. Her research journey and camera purpose are facts; the claim that she becomes exhilarated, alarmed or affectionately fascinated is an inference that must be demonstrated from the extract. Do not turn an interpretation of the narrator into an unsupported biographical claim about Levine herself.

The extract's deeper interest lies in who sees the event and how her view changes. Levine is neither a distant reporter nor one of the jockeys. She begins as a visitor waiting to record the race, becomes a passenger inside its chaotic pursuit, and ends able to look back on dangers she did not fully understand at the time.

Three perspective claims can all be defended:

• the race is a thrilling release from the long wait;
• the spectacle is chaotic and genuinely dangerous;
• Levine's comic comparisons reveal affectionate fascination, but also the simplifying frame of a cultural outsider.

The last claim needs care. The extract includes jockeys, spectators, officials and bookmakers, so the event has a social organisation alongside its disorder. Levine's comparisons with familiar cartoons, motor racing and city traffic may help an unfamiliar reader picture the event. They may also make the event appear strange by measuring it against the visitor's references. Neither reading should be asserted automatically: the wording and its place in the extract must carry the argument.

A productive question to keep open is this: does Levine's humour celebrate the experience, protect her from its danger, expose its absurdity, or do all three at different moments?

How the experience changes shape

Structure is the arrangement and development of the experience, not a spare list of short sentences and paragraph lengths. Read the Issue 8 extract in four movements.

There are really three pursuits threaded through the account:

1. the two donkeys race each other;
2. the spectators' vehicles race for position;
3. Levine races to obtain the footage she wants.

This matters because Levine is not merely watching chaos created by other people. Her wish to film helps draw her into it. That makes the first-person narration more complicated: she can be fascinated by the spectacle while also being implicated in the risk.

Two brief statements control the late movement. “The race was over” appears to close the action, but it closes only the donkeys' contest. “And then the trouble began” immediately opens a new conflict among people. The second statement does more than create generic “impact”: it corrects the reader's expectation of closure and shifts the source of danger.

The final revelation reaches backwards. Earlier, Yaqoob's timing, confidence and “nerves of steel” can sound admirable. Once Levine learns his age and licence status, the same behaviour can also look like untested recklessness. Structure has changed the meaning of evidence we met earlier.

Evidence that earns its place

The best reference is not the longest or most dramatic quotation. It is the smallest piece of text that lets you answer the exact focus and, where possible, connect a local choice to the wider movement.

Use these as navigation landmarks in the numbered text above. Relocate them in the extract and inspect the surrounding sentence before using them.

A decision in action

Suppose the focus is: How does Levine present danger as exciting?

• The speed figure proves that the donkeys move quickly, but it says relatively little about Levine's mixed attitude.
• The near-collision records a dangerous outcome, but on its own it does not capture the pleasure of the chase.
• “Formula One without rules” contains spectacle, speed and missing control in four words.