The Story of a Goat

by Perumal Murugan

  Still, the old woman couldn’t accept it. There was no proof of how such a thing might have happened. In any case, how could a doe get pregnant without calling out even once? Ordinarily, the calls would be heard for two or three days after the mating, but Poonachi hadn’t made a sound. They had no idea how far along she might be. Only the date of delivery would tell them whether she had indeed got pregnant during the pilgrimage. The old woman was waiting for that day.

  There was no rainfall that year. People managed somehow with the grain they had saved up. But how would they feed their goats and cattle? Fodder stocks were fast depleting. The old man drove the goats to distant fields for grazing. On all fronts, the situation was dire. Yet, the old woman took proper care of Poonachi. Whatever she could lay her hands on, even if it was a dry leaf, she brought it home. If Poonachi didn’t eat it, she put it in the fodder pile thinking that it might come in handy later. With her own money, she bought and fed Poonachi cotton seed and oilcake to give her strength. She would be carrying seven kids, after all.

  The old man was hoping for fewer kids in this litter. His wife wished the same too, but she knew that it was not in their hands. She told him that they had to sacrifice a buck kid from the litter to Mesagaran. They should have done it last year, but things had taken a different turn. They had to fulfil two vows now: one kid this year and another in the following year. The old man agreed.

  Unlike the first time, Poonachi delivered in the pasture without any difficulty. The old man was the only one with her. One of the goatherds had alerted him about her condition and he had come running. Everyone in the field rushed there too. They were all keen to witness the spectacle of seven kids being delivered at once. The old man wanted to take Poonachi home. With so many people looking at her, she might be affected by the evil eye. And how could he carry seven infants all the way home?

  Poonachi was oblivious to his anxiety. After writhing in pain for some time, she lay down and strained once. The kids slid out and dropped faster than turds. The old man’s only job was to wipe the mucus covering over the mouth. Someone volunteered to assist him even in that task. There were no less than seven kids this time as well: five does and two bucks. Two females and one male were pure white in colour. Just like Poovan, all three had a mole on the jaw. Poonachi licked and cleaned all the kids. The old man sent someone home with the news and the old woman arrived with a basket. After that, everything happened as usual.

  The ear-piercing official didn’t make a personal visit this time. He recorded the births in the office itself. The land was dry and parched due to lack of rain, and survival had become a daily struggle. No one came to look up the kids except a few villagers. For all that, the news spread far and wide through the goatherds. None of the big newspersons turned up, though. Perhaps they had more important news to work on. A miracle was something that happened rarely. If it happened frequently, it was normal.

  Two days after Poonachi’s delivery, the man who had bought all the kids from her first litter turned up on his buffalo-drawn cart. He looked blankly at the kids, who were stumbling about in the front yard.

  He told the old man, ‘All the female kids died at different times. I don’t know if I didn’t look after them properly or it was simply their destiny. I couldn’t raise even one of them. The bucks are still around. The goats they impregnated haven’t delivered yet. We’ll find out then about the number of kids.’

  The old man and his wife were sad to hear the news. They had no reason to disbelieve him. It was a terrible disappointment that the man who had paid so much money to buy the kids wasn’t satisfied. But why had he turned up this time as well?

  The man continued: ‘How can we give up on this miraculous line? That’s why I’ve come now. This time around, I’ll give them good nourishment right from infancy and raise them myself.’

  The couple had been worried about how they were going to manage with seven kids in a drought year. They agreed to sell four of the kids to him. A female kid and a buck, both of whom resembled Poovan, as well as a buck that looked like Poonachi, were retained. The old woman had vowed to sacrifice the black buck to Mesagaran.

  This time the old man didn’t quote a price for the kids. No matter how much the man pressed him, he simply refused to name a sum. So the man fixed the price himself, paid the due amount to the old man and took the kids away. The amount he paid was well above the market price. When the old man ventured to ask him for his name and the name of his village, he merely smiled.

  Poonachi had plenty of milk for her three kids. The pain and agony she had suffered from having to suckle seven kids at the same time was a thing of the past. The old woman didn’t have as many goats to look after, either. They had sold Kalli and her three kids. Only Poonachi and her three kids were left.

  There was no greenery anywhere. The bare fields stretched all the way to the horizon. The couple didn’t take the goats out for grazing anymore. They simply untied Poonachi’s tether and let her loose. She went as far as she was able to walk and grazed mostly on grassy bunds.

  The kids played all day, merrily climbing, rolling over and jumping on Poonachi. Only now could she experience the pleasure of having little ones. When she looked at the buck and the female kid who resembled Poovan, she felt that he, too, was close to her.

  When the kids were three months old, the old man had to go to his daughter’s house on some work. He tied a rope around Poonachi’s female kid and took her with him. The kid was not even weaned yet. However, the daughter had insisted on it, so she was taken away.

  23

  ONLY POONACHI AND her two buck kids were left. Memories of Poovan came to her very often these days. One night, it seemed as if he was whispering in her ear and caressing her neck. Instantly, without realising it, she released a cry of longing. She felt the urge to call out all night. The old woman read the signs. ‘You want a mate in the middle of a famine, do you?’ she scolded Poonachi. But the very next day, she drove Poonachi to the pasture. It was several months since Poonachi had been to the area. It was deserted. Since there was no rainfall, people had sold their goats for any price they could get and reduced their burden.

  There seemed to be no goats at all in the pasture, only sheep everywhere. Sheep could survive even by foraging in the dirt. Goats needed a bough of leaves to chew upon. Even so, there was a young buck roaming in the village common. He caught the scent of Poonachi’s heat and rushed towards her, screaming. There was frenzy and excitement in his every move. He rubbed against her and tried to bite her all over. He circled around her and nuzzled her with his snout. Poonachi was in no hurry. She watched his antics with relish, like she was looking at a buck from her first litter. Since there were no goats around, no opportunity had come his way before. But today he had found Poonachi.

  As Poonachi yielded to all his moves and pleasured him, she couldn’t avoid thinking of Poovan. Everyone looked at her and said she was a miracle. But she had looked inside Poovan and found the real miracle. Poovan was a miracle discovered by a miracle: she found it delightful to think of him like that.

  The old lady reckoned that Poonachi would deliver any day at the end of five months. After that, she would have to take care of seven kids. She felt giddy just thinking about it. She wondered whether she should have avoided taking Poonachi to the buck. No, that would have been wrong, too. Moreover, if Poonachi had called out continuously for a week or ten days, what would she have done? Where would she have found a buck then? People were trying to sell even young bucks. ‘Let Mesagaran show me the way,’ she prayed, putting the burden on him.

  When the old man came back, she gave him the news. He thought over it for a long time. There was no rain in their daughter’s village either, and not a drop anywhere along the way there. ‘There has been no rainfall anywhere in the world of the Asuras,’ he said. His daughter’s family was in dire straits. Not a blade of grass had sprouted in their field. The fodder pile had dwindled to the size of a lean-to. They had sold off most of their goats a
nd cattle. At home, they skipped a meal daily. Only the children were fed something that tasted like gruel. All they did was to look up at the sky, hoping for rain.

  He said, ‘Everyone is walking with their eyes to the sky. The rain has made even those of us who kept their eyes on the ground look upward.’

  His daughter’s family wasn’t happy at all to receive the female kid. ‘Keep her for as long as you can. When you can’t anymore, sell her,’ the old man told them. In spite of their difficulties, they had invited him to come and stay with them. ‘When they are themselves having a hard time, what do we go and do there?’ the old man told his wife.

  Now that Poonachi was pregnant again, they decided to keep one buck for sacrificing to Mesagaran and sell the other. They couldn’t find a buyer, though. The time when meat-sellers came to one’s doorstep was over. Even if they were touted as the offspring of a miracle, no one would touch the kids. A few days passed in the expectation that the rich man who had previously bought Poonachi’s kids and carried them away in a buffalo cart would come again. Maybe no one had told him, or maybe he wasn’t inclined to buy even after he had been told. What could anyone do with a miracle during a famine? Miracles and exhibitions were meant for when people were relaxing after a sumptuous meal.

  The call of hunger sweeps aside all other invitations, to rise up in front of you. You become aware of other calls only after you’ve heeded this one. Even if you’re wealthy, you can only eat food, right? A few days later, the old man took the buck to the market fair. There were plenty of goats for sale, but buyers were few, and even they weren’t interested in buying goats with money. If they were given away for free, they were ready to drive them home. Normally, a market fair would have different varieties of grains and pulses piled up in abundant heaps. Potential buyers would be summoned with cries and shouts. Now there was nothing at all. The sellers, who were very few, had spread their wares in small heaps. And prices were high. The crowd pushed and jostled around them. The old man had never witnessed such a dismal scene in his lifetime.

  Holding the kid in his arms, he stood for a long time. Not a single person approached him and asked about the price. Others who had been standing like him began to leave. Another old man who was right next to him said wearily, ‘Just buy a measure of rock salt, cure the meat with salt and eat it as junk.’ The old man imprinted the neighbour’s advice in his mind. There were no buyers at the salt stall in the market. The salt was cheap, though. He collected a measure of salt in his head towel and walked home with the kid in tow.

  The market had allowed the old man to understand the state of the world. He began to wonder what would happen if there was no rainfall in the coming year as well. The only thing they could do now was to stay alive till it rained again. He thought furiously about the things he had to do for continued survival. When he reached home, he described to his wife the scenes he had witnessed in the market. She wondered whether the old man was frightening her deliberately. But if there was no one to buy the kid, the situation must be really bad. She didn’t understand why he had bought a bundle of salt. ‘Only salt is cheap,’ he said. ‘Are you going to eat the salt?’ she asked him.

  The next day, the old man began to execute his plan. He asked his wife to let Poonachi suckle the kids. When Poonachi’s teats were full of milk, she was to tie the kids up and milk her. For both of them, breakfast that morning was only milk. For lunch they had gruel made from brown millet; at night, a little millet paste. While eating the paste, the old man said, ‘We should reduce our intake further to stay alive. Till it rains again, we can skip a meal every day and tie a wet cloth on our belly to keep it cool.’

  That night, with his wife assisting him, the old man cut the throat of Poonachi’s black buck. It was to be sacrificed to Mesagaran to fulfil their vow. But how could they, at this time, slaughter a goat and throw a feast for the whole village?

  He prayed to Mesagaran as he bathed the buck with turmeric water. ‘We had tethered this buck just for you. But you are turning this whole world into a heap of dirt. How can I slaughter a goat for you and give a feast? I am offering you the sacrifice here and now. Please give me your consent,’ he pleaded with all his heart.

  The buck, too, gave his assent by nodding his head and shaking its body. Only then did the old man slaughter it. It was a bright, moonlit night. Unable to do anything, Poonachi looked at the kid’s severed head and cried for a while. She recalled the day she had seen Poovan’s severed head. ‘We die for meat. We die for sacrifice,’ he had said. Had her kid died for meat or for sacrifice?

  Working carefully, the old man skinned the buck. He cut out the meat and gave it to his wife, who chopped it into small pieces. He squeezed and rinsed the intestines, and carved the head into many pieces. In the end, the kid lay on the palm frond as a heap of mutton. Slowly the old man coated all the pieces with the salt he had bought in the market. By the time they finished the work and went to sleep, the drongos had started calling.

  The next day, they climbed the boulder on their field and spread the mutton pieces to dry. Catching the odour of meat, crows and vultures began to circle overhead. The couple planted poles around the boulder and tied pieces of cloth at the top of each pole. Even then, they could not control the crows. They came in droves and struck again and again. The old woman kept a basket upside down on the mutton to protect it from the birds.

  Yet, the crows came swooping down. Picking up a big stick, the old man closed his eyes and flung it violently into the air. A crow was hit by the stick and fell down. The old man picked up the bird and hung it from the top of a pole. The other crows cawed from a distance, afraid to come closer. Nevertheless, the old woman scooped up all the pieces of mutton and put them into the basket. More birds entering the fray and fighting for meat seemed to be a portent of greater calamities to come. She brought the mutton safely home without losing even a single piece. Then she spread it out to dry in the front yard. She remained vigilant, though she knew the birds usually hunted in open spaces and tended to avoid homes and the traffic of humans.

  As the days went by, they reduced their food intake even further. For breakfast, they had only Poonachi’s milk. Even that kept dwindling, since the kids in her belly were growing. At night, the couple drank millet gruel and ate two pieces of junk. On her way to the pasture with Poonachi, the old woman kept stirring up the mud continuously. In some places, she found sedge tubers. She dug them up and collected a handful. It was sufficient to take care of one meal that day.

  The old man would leave home early in the morning and go off somewhere. When he came back, he would bring agave tubers, spurge fruit or some other edible item. They went through countless hardships merely to quench their hunger. Their entire stock of junk lasted a month. One night, they butchered Poonachi’s other kid and prepared junk out of the meat. They could survive another month somehow. They weren’t as badly off as Poonachi, who got nothing.

  After squirting the last drop of milk from Poonachi’s udder, the old woman stopped milking her, saying that she was likely to yield only blood from now on. There was no blood either, in Poonachi’s body. The kids in her belly were sucking that up as well. The fields were bereft of even a small, dry leaf. On some days, Poonachi ate neem leaves or chewed agave plants. Finally, when everything was wiped out, the couple didn’t know what to do with her. No one was willing to buy her. If she was given away free, someone would cut her up without bothering about her condition. There were rumours that people were killing and eating cats and dogs.

  Every two days, the old man cut one frond from the palm tree on their land. He cut it into tiny pieces and fed them to Poonachi. How could bits of palm frond be sufficient for a heavily pregnant goat? Poonachi was emaciated and looked like a bag of bones. The swell of the kids in her belly was prominent. Once the kids are delivered, I can bury them in a pit and slaughter Poonachi for meat, the old man thought. His wife wouldn’t agree. ‘I’m ready to bury her, but I’ll never allow her to be slaughtered for meat,’
she said, raising her voice.

  ‘Ever since this cursed thing entered our house, she has cleaned out all the live animals from here. Now she will wipe out the humans too, just wait and watch,’ the old man cursed her.

  24

  THERE WERE NO goats, cattle, poultry, cats or dogs in any house in the village. People were desperate, not knowing what to do. Some families left for other villages and towns. When the entire land of the Asuras had not received a drop of rain, what was the point of going anywhere? Once every week, government officials distributed a kilo of flour to every household for cooking gruel. It wasn’t sufficient for even a single meal. People were desperate to get the flour, however. Going to the supply point, standing in a queue and collecting the flour proved to be a real ordeal. ‘Queue up, queue up,’ the assistants kept yelling. Even then, how could they give up what was being given to them? There were rumours that in a few days, the government was going to open one gruel stand for every five or six villages.

  The couple were worried about how their daughter was coping. They knew that visiting her would only add to the family’s burden, and seeing them suffer first-hand would be unbearable. If someone was going to their village, the couple would ask them to find out about the family’s welfare.

  The old man tried to sell a set of pots from the house, but he could find no buyers. To start with, he sold the ear-studs and chain that he had bought from the sale of Poonachi’s kids and brought back whatever money he could get for them.

  The only copper and brass items they had were a couple of small bowls and a sombu. He sold these at the market fair and bought half a measure of pearl millet with the money. His wife put the grain away safely, intending to give it to Poonachi after her delivery. The old man didn’t like his wife to do anything extra for Poonachi. He only wanted to sell or dispose of her; he just couldn’t figure out a way.