by Benyamin
I knew that the young ones were given milk in a pail. But I didn’t know that even a newborn was not allowed to have breast milk.
My reward for trying to help a goat deliver her baby was severe words, a kick, enough spit, two or three belt whippings and starvation at noon.
Even then, I didn’t feel bad or sorrowful. I was sure that Allah would bestow my real reward back home on Sainu and my son. Or so I told myself. I needed to hold on to something to survive.
Seventeen
I gave more care and affection to Nabeel than to any other goat in the masara. Maybe, he didn’t have any need for it and he would have been fine living with the other goats. But I couldn’t let him go. He was the one who was born into my hands, the gift that Allah had given me in place of my son. Unseen by the arbab, I would often make him drink from his mother’s breasts—a good fortune no other goat in the masara ever enjoyed. What better gift could I give him than making it possible for him to drink from his own mother’s breast? While the rest were fed from the common pail of milk, I made him drink separately. I fed him tender leaves of grass, making him walk by my side when the goats were taken out. Like a naughty boy, he would break away and spring ahead, and turn his head to look at me. I would run to catch him and he would shoot into the herd and hide. And when I caught him, I would kiss him. For me, Nabeel was not one of the many goats in the masara. He was my own son.
He was very naughty from the beginning. It was his habit to fight with he-goats bigger than him. Some goats would accommodate his friskiness, but some would strike him with their horns. How many times he came to me bleeding! Unseen by the arbab, I would take water from the tank and clean his wounds and apply on them the medicine the arbab had. Nabeel recognized and returned the special treatment and affection I gave him.
One day, after eating khubus, I was about to take the goats for a walk when the arbab called me. No outing today. Today there is some other work to be done.’
After some time, the arbab came out of the tent with a long sharp knife. Inside me, something burned. My Lord, did he plan to kill some of these goats and eat them later?
You couldn’t ask the arbab anything. You could only just listen to whatever he says. You must obey whether you understand his words or not. That is what I had been doing so far. Therefore, I was afraid to ask the arbab anything. I quietly followed him.
The arbab went near the masara where the little he-goats were kept. Looking at one of the he-goats, he directed me to catch it. To kill it, I was sure. Murderer! But I was not brave enough to oppose him. Unwillingly I entered the masara and brought the he-goat he wanted outside. He asked me to turn it to face me, place its body between my thighs and to raise its hind legs. I didn’t have a clue as to why I had to do that.
The goat was soon standing on its forelegs, its body between my thighs and its hind legs in my hands. The arbab, who was right in front of me, could see the underside of the goat clearly. The goat was trembling with fright. I was even more scared. I remember that the arbab made sure of the sharpness of the knife. Then there was a wild cry like I’ve never heard before and I saw blood squirting, as if from a spout. In my hands, the lamb wriggled with all its strength. For a second I feared I would lose my grip. ‘Don’t let go,’ the arbab yelled. Fearing the arbab’s wrath, my strength defeated the goat’s. In the next second, the arbab took out the spray from his pocket and aimed it at the wound. Even then the goat continued to cry with all its life. But the bleeding, as if by magic, stopped abruptly. After a while, the goat’s writhing body relaxed. The arbab indicated that I should return it to the masara. When I released it at the gate of the masara, it bolted into the herd like a wild boar that had had a shot fired at it.
Pity! A he-goat had lost its maleness. A maleness that was to the arbab a small piece of meat and a little blood. I had noticed that not all male goats were allowed to live with their virility. Only a select few were lucky. After a certain age, they were made to live among she-goats. They could mate as they pleased and enjoy all the male pleasures. The rest of the he-goats were castrated and made into eunuchs. They were meant for slaughterhouses. I’d observed that the castrated male goats grew faster, but I had not realized that castration was so brutal.
The arbab pointed at another goat and commanded me to fetch it. I entered the masara and caught it. The arbab knew the age of each one and also when to destroy their maleness—some in the first month, some when they were two months old. By measuring its male endowment, the arbab was able to discern whether a goat would be able to produce active and healthy offspring that grow up to give plenty of milk. That was the basis on which the decision to allow it to retain manhood or to castrate it was made.
I kept on fetching the goats he pointed at. Casually, like paring one’s nails, the arbab kept slicing off their manliness. My heart was shaken when he pointed at one of them after finishing with five or six. That hand pointed towards my Nabeel! I was shocked! My Nabeel? You, who I hoped would grow up in joy! My son? No, I cannot abandon you to his knife. I could not. I pushed him among the goats and caught another one as if the arbab had pointed out at that one. But the arbab’s eyes were like a vulture’s—although he lay idly inside the tent, he knew each of his goats like the lines on his palm. ‘Not that, the other one,’ the arbab’s hand stretched out towards Nabeel. I could not catch him. I could not do him such harm. Again I caught the legs of another one nearby.
‘Himar!’ the arbab yelled. That was the very end of the arbab’s patience. Next would be the heavy kick on my back, I knew. Still, I caught another one the third time. The arbab leapt at me and kicked me on my back. I was thrown aside. Angrily, the arbab caught Nabeel’s legs and dragged him out. I rose and touched the arbab’s feet. Oh arbab, please let him grow to become a he-goat. I need him. I would not like to send him to the slaughterhouse. Let him live here with me. I begged him in all the languages that I knew.
‘Himar!’ The arbab struck my head. ‘I can recognize the ideal he-goats. Only the kids they breed will be strong. Only they grow fast. What do you know? He has to go to the slaughterhouse soon.’ Without any mercy, the arbab dragged Nabeel out and commanded me to raise his hind legs. Then, in the blink of an eye, my Nabeel’s manhood also fell on the ground, soaked in blood like that of many other goats.
The cry that came from Nabeel when he was cut! Even now it echoes in my heart. It felt like my heart was being lacerated with a piece of flint. I only remember Nabeel whining and running into the masara. Then, when I woke up, I was lying on top of a bundle of hay. It was already afternoon. The arbab gave me some water to drink and then sent me to do my routine chores. The day Nabeel lost his manliness, I too lost mine. I haven’t yet figured out that mystery—of how my virility vanished with that of a goat’s!
Eighteen
You would think it is not difficult to take the goats for a walk. That we only needed to gently guide them from time to time. In movies you might have seen them moving in groups, walking close to one another. There would be a leader to lead them. Where the leader went, the rest followed. The goat that is very familiar with us would be made the leader and it would then be that goat’s responsibility to lead the rest of the goats and lambs. I named the three head goats in the masara Lalitha, Ragini and Padmini.
But in reality it is nearly impossible to manage goats. They walk and bound off in all directions. If one went left, the other would go right. I had to simultaneously herd some fifty to a hundred goats at one go. These goats have a mind of their own. I think I explained their habits sometime earlier. Although they have, like sheep, been living with humans for about six thousand years, we did not have such a hard time domesticating any other animal, and we haven’t still succeeded entirely. Among them, the he-goats were impossible to control. A full-grown one would be almost as big as me. When they are let loose among females to mate, they lose all control. The vigour of the he-goat in heat—running through anything and everything—is certainly a spectacle worth watching.
O
ne day, while taking them for a walk, I hit one of them just once from behind. It turned back, like a cross elephant and snorted with all its might. I saw fumes coming out of its nostrils. The next moment, it charged at me, and without giving me a chance to evade, hit me right on the chest. It felt like as if a one-tonne mallet had hit me. I only remember flying off for some ten metres, like a villain hit by the hero in a Hindi film. I fell unconscious and don’t know how long I lay there like that. Then, when I opened my eyes, the arbab was in front of me. All the arbab did was pour some hot water on my face. Then he called me himar and shouted something.
Somehow, I scrambled up and looked around—the goats were scattered in a perimeter of nearly five kilometres. I became conscious of a terrible pain in my left hand. An immense unbearable pain. The hand was swollen. I told the arbab that my hand felt broken. He removed his belt and hit me, and shouted at me to run and fetch all the goats quickly. The arbab warned me that it would be my end if even one of them was lost.
I ran through the desert, literally carrying my throbbing hand. The goats were enjoying their unexpected freedom to the full, revealing all their wild characteristics. It was like a nation in slavery waking to revolt suddenly. Absolute chaos. When I somehow brought a goat to a side, the one already there would have run off. When I ran after the second, the first would have wandered off again. After a few tries I realized that it was impossible to gather all of them at one go. I began to run to the masara with the few I managed to collect, lock them up and rush back to the desert. Then, with the five or ten that I managed to gather, I would return to the masara again. The first goat would be about two kilometres away from the masara, and the rest scattered at about five kilometres from there. I am not sure how many times I had to cover the distance between the masara and the desert. I only remember that I was dead tired. And when I stopped to have some water, the arbab hit me hard, snatched the cup of water from me and flung it away. I rushed back into the desert again, thirsty, panting, my tongue parched.
Looking up at the sky with anguish, I whimpered the name of Allah all through that exercise. I could see goats scattered till the horizon. How was I going to get there? My feet were swollen, pain pierced my hand relentlessly and my thirst was severe. Screaming and shrieking, I ran after the goats. There was not even a hint of a wind, all was still in the sky and there was the blazing sun.
It was afternoon when I brought all the goats back into the masara. Later, I would often wonder how I survived for such a long time in that scorching heat without even a drop of water and with no rest at all. The two factors that helped me through that phase were my desire to live and my infinite faith in Allah. After bringing in the last goat, I fell on the cot, thoroughly exhausted.
The arbab came and sat near me and dripped some water into my mouth. ‘Water … water …’ I mumbled over and over again. Even in my half-conscious state I heard the arbab saying you people are profligates, profligates who do not know how to use water carefully. Then I lost consciousness.
It was night by the time I woke up. My hand was even more swollen and the pain was too severe to bear. I was sure it was broken. And my chest hurt from the pounding from the he-goat. My throat felt like it would crack from the thirst. I walked unsteadily to the water tank and drank to my heart’s content. Then I went to the arbab’s tent. Scolding me for sleeping for so long, he threw two or three khubus at me. I was very hungry. Dipping them in water, I greedily finished the khubus. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night because of the pain. I went crying to the arbab’s tent several times. I begged him to take me to any hospital. But the arbab didn’t pay any attention. As dawn broke, he came to my cot with a vessel and asked me to hurry up and milk the goats. I showed him my hand. I got a smack on my head as a reply.
The pain on my chest hadn’t eased and my hand was inflamed by then. I limped to the masara in that state. How could I milk the goats with just one hand? My usual practice with well-behaved goats had been to place the vessel on the floor and milk them with both the hands; the impish ones needed a rub on their back. What could I do with only one hand? If a goat jumped, it would kick the little milk I managed collect. Blindly, praying to Allah, I entered the masara. The first goat I saw was the one I had named Pochakkari Ramani. How I gave it that name is a story I shall tell you later.
I looked into Ramani’s eyes and told her, ‘Ramani, I cannot move my hand at all. It is the work of one of your partners. But the arbab must drink milk in the morning. It doesn’t matter to him if my hand is broken or if the sky has fallen. He must drink milk, and I must get it to him. If you cooperate, I will escape the beatings of the arbab. My fate is in your hands today.’
To tell you the truth, I have often felt that goats can understand things better than some humans. Anyhow, that day, Ramani stood still for me. Somehow, I got enough milk for the arbab and placed it in front of his tent. I cursed him in my mind: Drink pig, drink till you are full!
After gulping down the milk the arbab came to me and asked me to hurry up and milk the goats for the young ones. I simply wasn’t capable of that. I openly told the arbab, ‘I can’t! Can’t! Can’t!’ I think I was screaming by then. The arbab saw this side of me for the first time. He was really shocked. I went and lay face down on the cot, expecting belt lashes on my back. At the most, the arbab would kill me. Let him. This torment would end. What fear remains for one who is willing to accept death? Allah, I had promised to you and to your law that I would never commit suicide. I hope you will have no objection if I leave myself to be killed by the arbab. I am not fated to see my son. It is okay, I am not sad. Let me die at the hands of the arbab. I cannot take this suffering any more.
But the arbab did not come near me as I had expected. Already the goats had become restless and were jumping around. They were used to a schedule. If their routine was disrupted they got jumpy. Let everything go to hell. What do I care? I lay still.
When the elder arbab arrived, I did not get up. The two arbabs talked to each other. After that the day-arbab came towards me, took my arm and examined it. He massaged it through the swelling. Consumed by pain, I screamed loudly and begged the arbab to take me to a hospital. But he took his vehicle and went somewhere, as if he hadn’t heard me at all. I stretched out on the cot. He came back after some time with some herbs in his hand. Mashing them in a vessel, he applied it on the swelling, and then, like in olden times, took some sticks and fixed them tightly around my hand with a cloth bandage. I showed him the puffiness on my chest. There too he applied the herbs. All through the ordeal, I kept begging the arbab to take me to a hospital. All that the arbab said was ‘It is okay, you will get well soon.’ I did not trust him. I was afraid that my hand would worsen, rot and would have to be amputated.
The arbab brought me two or three khubus. Dipping them in water, I swallowed them. ‘It is already pretty late, quickly take the goats for a walk,’ the arbab ordered. I couldn’t say no. I ran to the masara, holding my broken hand.
By about noon, I could feel the pain slowly ease and fade away. It almost disappeared completely by night. Within just a couple of days, the swelling was gone, both on the chest and the hand. About ten days later, the bandage was removed. All those days, I milked the goats and took them for walks, with only one good hand. To my amazement, during that period, the goats never kicked or charged at me, or even toppled the milk pail.
Maybe goats understood me better than the arbabs ever did. They must have realized that I would never hurt them even if they charged at me. However, I kept a safe distance from the he-goats. I evaded them if they came towards me, or I protected myself with my staff. I never got attacked by a goat after that horrible incident.
Let me tell you something that I have not divulged so far in this story. Would you believe me if I told you that my childhood ambition was to become a goatherd? Maybe, it was a wish born out of seeing the movie Ramanan. My ummah loved Ramanan. To wander about from one land to another. To saunter with flocks of goats through meadows and hills
ides. To pitch one’s tent every day in a new place. To sit by the fire guarding goats on winter nights. Shepherding was for me what dreams were made of.
When I finally got the chance to live the life of a shepherd, I realized how painfully distant it was from my dreams. We shouldn’t dream about the unfamiliar and about what only looks good from afar. When such dreams become reality, they are often impossible to come to terms with.
Nineteen
I lived on an alien planet inhabited by some goats, my arbab and me. The only interruptions to the monotony of my life were the visits of the water truck twice a week, the hay truck once a week and the wheat trailer once a month. These vehicles were the only means by which I could connect with the outside universe. The drivers were usually Pathans from Pakistan. If I established a connection with those people, I could contact the external world. I could at least inform them that I existed. They could be the means for my eventual escape from here. A faint flicker of hope that I would have such a chance to slip away slumbered somewhere in the corner of my mind. But the arbab used to send me off to the desert early on the days when they came with instructions to return with the goats only after they left. On most days, I didn’t even have to help them fill the tank and unload bundles of hay and grass, and sacks of wheat. Still, my heart would flutter with inexpressible joy whenever those vehicles reached the masara. I’d be elated, as if some loved ones had come to visit us. I would chat with the goats more than usual. But when those vehicles, raising dust, faded away, I felt like the world itself had run away from me. Then a heart-draining fatigue would come over me.
Unexpectedly, one day, a trailer came without any helper to unload. The arbab called me back from the desert. The driver was a Pakistani. I saw a man who wasn’t either of my arbabs up close after a very long time. Since I had been denied normal human smells I felt that even his sweat had a scent. Out of the sheer happiness of seeing a man, I even touched him once. I felt a shiver of satisfaction passing through me.