Bestial encounters I

Although I make it a point not to read more than one books at a time (out of respect for the book I’m reading), while reading The Brothers Karamazov, also I’ve started reading The Queen of Elephants (the book is missing at Amazon). Actually due to my often reluctant bowels, I end up spending lots of precious time sitting on the potty seat. I’ve decided to utilize the time constructively. Taking along The Brothers Karamazov would have been difficult due to its massive size, so I chose The Queen of Elephants as it is of a much leaner constitution. The book talks a lot about elephant conservation in India. In this post I’m not going to talk about the book though. I’m going to talk about the various calamitous animal encounters I have had in my life despite the fact that I have an inveterate love for the animal species.

The encounters are going to appear in series and the first part I have already published a long time back. Since it was more than one-and-a-half years ago, I’m posting it again:

When I was living with my grandparents (my dad’s parents) in Ambala, there used to be a big, open ground in front of the house. On the left side of the sandy ground there was a shallow pond where cows and buffaloes used to come to beat the heat. Since it’s the buffaloes that like to wallow in wet mud and water, cows used to mostly graze on the thick grass around the pond.

Across the pond there was a road – rarely used by automobiles and mostly used by bullock carts and cycle-rickshaws – and across the road there were some government quarters surrounded by very high concrete walls. The land around these walls, due to its low level and massive trees, used to be damper and cooler compared to other areas surrounding the pond. Most of the cows and bulls used to congregate there. Since they used to sit across the pond (the pond was at least 200 meters wide), and the buffaloes only came there when they were herded by their owners, our side of the ground used to remain relatively cattle-free. This meant we could play there without running the risk of getting trampled in an un-anticipated stampede.

At around eight in the evening, almost every day, I used to go to the empty ground and stand there for a while, beside the perpetually unlit electric pole. In those days I used to walk with a custom-made wooden stick with a broad base – it was much later when I started using the elbow crutches. Being a very small town (a former British army cantonment), it used to be quiet very early in the evening.

From where I stood, the houses, with their dim, yellow lights, looked forlorn and faraway. As usual, a tinge of loneliness impregnated my mood and I wished I was with my parents and sisters who were very far away, in Delhi. This used to be my way of getting in touch with them. Around that pole, enveloped in the darkness of nature, away from the houses and the noises, I could orchestrate my own fantasies of being in Delhi. That darkness provided me the isolation I craved for the whole day because I could never relate to people I stayed with. I preferred that isolation. I was alone, I was on my own. Away from all those noises and smells and surroundings that reeked of alienation and homelessness. Compared to them, I used to find the moon, the stars and the occasional shooting stars friendly and intimate. I knew they were not exclusive to that place. I knew exactly at that moment they shone over Delhi, too.

I had been standing there for more than twenty minutes. I knew that soon my grandmother would notice my absence and come outside to call me inside. About to turn around, I heard a rumbling. I felt vibrations beneath my feet and their intensity grew by milliseconds. Under the moonlight, I saw a big cloud of dust rising from the side of the pond. Amidst the deafening sound, I heard a few human screams and before I could realize what was happening, I saw tens of cows tempestuously running around me with their tails raised high. It was like the whole of nature had gone mad within seconds. It happened so suddenly that I didn’t even feel scared for a while. That’s it, I thought. Very soon a cow or a bull would run into me and I’ll be on the ground and then there would be just me and their hooves. Everything – the stars, the moon, the shooting stars, the loneliness, the isolation, the darkness, my parents and sisters, Delhi – everything would be gone.

I didn’t move an inch away from the pole. Whether it was instinctive or conscious, somehow I knew the cows were aware of the pole, and no matter how agitated they were no cow would collide with the pole. I would only fall if they just brush-passed from my side, throwing me on the ground with their bulging stomachs. Nonetheless, my body kept growing stiffer and stiffer with fear and I knew sooner or later I would loose balance and fall on my own.

Soon the entire ground was covered with a thick cloud of dust and I could only see the cows that came very close. There was only this numbing sound of their hooves hitting the ground mixed with their fierce breathing and a slight tremble in the ground.

Then something happened that I’d always remember. I felt a wet nudge on my elbow. A black cow stood by my side – on my right side, on the opposite side of the houses. She couldn’t stand still because the other stampeding cows kept brushing against her from everywhere. After a few seconds she moved forward and came and stood in front of me. Her stomach touched my body and I was sandwiched between the pole and that cow. Is she planning to crush me? I thought. Being very small, my face rubbed against her stomach. Her warm smell filled my nostrils and it became hard to breathe. I had never been that near to a cow, although all our neighbors had at least one cow each. I wanted to push her away but didn’t want to make her angry. The other cows kept pushing her or bumping into her but she never moved even an inch. She had either completely blocked my view or I had closed my eyes – I could only hear the running cows

I don’t know for how long we stood there. Finally the sound subsided and within a couple of moments, the only sound I could hear was my grandmother and Badri Chacha (our elderly neighbor) screaming in the same pitch. Since it was dark and there was lots of dust in the air, they could not see us.

Suddenly I heard Babdri Chacha’s exclamation, “There you are Kali! I thought you had run away with other cows.” His face appeared above the cow’s back and then I noticed the cow had a broken rope around her neck. “And bibi here’s your grandson too, standing behind Kali, Allah!!” he screamed in the same vein.

“Kali?!” I silently exclaimed.

He hushed the cow towards the houses and stood beaming in front of me while I saw the round figure of my grandmother appearing amidst the settling dust. She was saying so much with such a speed that I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I simply collapsed when she hugged me. When I came back to my senses, Badri Chacha was carrying me on his shoulder and a small crowd, along with my crying grandmother, was following us. The cow quietly stood under the tree in front of his house, looking at the procession with her shiny dark eyes. How couldn’t I recognize Kali? I thought.

I hope they don’t think I’m dead, I thought. “Kali saved me,” I said loudly when he placed me on a cot in front of our house. Everybody surrounded us while my grandmother sat beside me and tried to clean my hair and face with her chunni.

Badri Chacha proudly told everybody how he had found Kali standing in front of me. She had somehow broken her tether and ran to me. Many rushed to her to pat her back and agitated her in the process. She would have run or hit someone had not Badri Chacha grabbed her rope in time. He hugged her while my grandmother profusely thanked her as if she were talking to a human.

Nobody had an idea what had incited those cows. Plans were drawn to get those stray cows removed next morning. I didn’t want that to happen, and I knew by morning they would not have (accept for my grandparents of course) the required motivation.

When everybody had gone inside, I quietly went to Kali. Badri Chacha was sitting in front of his house and smoking his hukka. He saw me standing near Kali and shook his head, grinning. I touched her head when she stretched her neck. In the darkness, I could only see the outline, and her big, shiny eyes.

“Thank you Kali,” I said. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you there. It was dark and there were so many cows.”

Many a time I had chatted with Badri Chacha while he fed Kali. Sometimes he let me feed her while he stood on guard. Kali was a new cow. He had bought her at a cattle fair a couple of weeks ago so nobody knew what nature she had.

She snorted gently and tapped the ground. Since cows can be unpredictable, I had never been allowed to go near her or for that matter any other cow without an adult’s presence. After spending some time with her, I walked back home. Before going inside, I turned back and looked at the pole that was standing in the middle of the ground. Then I looked up and saw the moon and the stars. Knowing my grandmother, I knew my quiet evenings were gone for at least a few weeks.