Benyamin - Goat Days

I had hardly woken up when the scary figure handed me an aluminium vessel and gestured that I had to milk the goats. Milk the goats? Me? I could feel a blankness envelop me then. As if I had fallen into a crater of ignorance.

I had never seen a goat so close in my whole life. Okay. You might wonder — haven’t seen a goat closely! Where are you from? Yes, you and I have seen goats. Goats have been living in close proximity of humans since the dawn of settled life — from 7000 or 6000 BC. A poor creature domesticated by our neighbours Mariyumma, Janakiamma, Velayudhan Kutty and so on. It is a lovely animal. Anyone will feel like cuddling little lambs. Goats give us milk, little lambs, dung. We can drink the milk, sell the lambs at the Thursday fair, use dung as manure for banana trees. Goats eat leftover food and grass. They drink kaadi. They fall sick if they eat cassava leaves and are happiest eating jackfruit leaves. Beyond that I did not know anything about goats. Perhaps you don’t either. Where is their native place? Who are their ancestors? Obviously, I did not know important things like the different kinds of goats, and the qualities of each kind. I was even ignorant about basic details like the number of its teats, number of hooves, duration of pregnancy, period of milk production, how much milk they produce each time, how to milk a goat, how many times to milk it and how to pull its udders for milk. Did they kick with their hind legs like cows or with their front legs like horses? How does one evade its kick? I didn’t know anything.

I had never asked anyone about goats. And no one had ever told me anything. Had I known that this would be my assigned job here, I could have observed and learned all about them. Janakiamma who lived only a few paces away had two or three goats. I had seen them too — eating grass by the wayside and in the fields, their little ones leaping and bounding. Maybe they were milk goats. Had I known about my present job in advance, I could have practised milking them. But I had barely noticed them. A lot many creatures live all around us. The situation could hardly have been different had I been called to rear cows or to look after dogs. It is only when we have a need that we think about them and regret that we hadn’t noticed, learned or understood them when we had the chance. It was only after falling headlong into this situation that I realized the need to keep our eyes open to our environment.

What else could I do? I had to learn on my own. I entered the masara with the pail and approached a goat. Back home, I had seen the teats of the goats being washed before they were milked. In the desert there was no water even for people to bathe and clean themselves! There was no question of washing the teats. Slowly, I crouched behind a goat, took the vessel close to its udder and pulled at it. Not only did no milk come out of it, the goat squirmed and leapt away into the flock, kicking down the vessel along with me. Seeing it sprinting crazily, the other goats also ran helter-skelter. One of them ran over me trampling my back. I writhed in pain. Somehow, I got up, crouched behind another goat, one that had stopped running. When I touched its teats, it too was startled and leapt away. I tried to milk yet another, and it ran away too. My Lord, I thought, how can one milk a goat that runs? I was baffled.

Feeling determined, I approached another goat. That ran off too. This continued. After half an hour, when the arbab and the scary figure came into the masara to see how much milk I had got, there was not even a drop in that vessel. What’s more, I was frog-leaping after the goats.

Seeing my plight, the arbab scolded me and went back to his tent. The scary figure came in and took the vessel from me. Then, he demonstrated how to approach a goat to milk it.

Never approach the goat that had to be milked from behind. Approach it from the front. Do not start milking it straight away. Caress it like a child by tenderly touching its cheeks, ears and back. Stroke its sides, pat its back and then slowly sit by its side. Caress its underside twice or thrice. Then slowly touch its teats. The goat will twitch. Even goats feel ticklish. Like a virgin. Then, ease its discomfort by slowly caressing its teats. At home, its baby would perform this task. And one can only milk after the intimate mother — child contact mitigates the ticklishness and the fondness for the child makes the milk ooze from its udders. There were no lambs here to put the goat at ease and to make milk seep out. We had to do that work too. After ensuring that it has got over its ticklishness, pull the udder from top to bottom using the thumb and the index finger. The pressure shouldn’t hurt, but must be firm enough to draw milk. This control is something one masters gradually. It is the mark of a milkman’s worth.

Do not try to hold the vessel in one hand and milk with the other. When you milk with one hand, slowly caress the teats with the other. Any jumpy goat will remain still. It will not kick, leap or knock the vessel over.

How the scary figure controlled the goat — I was spellbound by his performance. Those nervy goats, what happened to their annoyance? After milking some goats, he handed me the vessel. Slowly, I mimicked his actions. Of course, it had all the drawbacks of imitation. It was only after some time that I realized that activities such as milking come naturally to an animal lover and animals instinctively distinguish them from their mimics. Also important is the daily contact with the goats. They say that a goat can understand if a new pair of hands touches its teats.

Still, I managed to control a goat and placed my hands on its teats. I cannot explain the satisfaction I felt when the first drop of milk fell into the pail. As if I had completed my training for a big job. I had mastery over one of the many goats that must come under my control. The others will eventually follow.

When I somehow managed to fill half a pail and come out of the masara that morning, I was drenched in sweat, as if I had done some hard labour.

Another day, not very different from the previous, came to an end. Meanwhile, the scary figure had trained me in the many ways of herding goats. He demonstrated how to lead the goats — not from the front, but from the sides; and how to beat into control those that try to break away. He taught me how much wheat, hay and fodder should be supplied in each masara.

That day seemed hotter than the previous one. My throat was parched after every ten paces, and it burned as the lukewarm water from the iron tank travelled down it. Also, because I was not used to the water, my stomach became upset. I don’t know how many times my stomach ran that day. Overcoming the previous day’s shame, I sat down openly to do it, wherever I felt the need. To avoid being beaten by the arbab for trying to clean myself with water, I began cleaning my behind with stones. I concluded that it was customary for each region to use what was most available there. The English have plenty of paper, so they use it for cleaning; for us it is water, and we clean with it; here, stones were aplenty.

After midday it became humid. I felt like I was being steamed. Fatigue sunk in, and my running stomach made it worse. I complained to the scary figure and to the arbab, nevertheless, my workload was unaffected. The arbab cared only about my work, not about my discomforts.

I was clammy by the evening, as though I had been soaked in rice juice. My skin felt irritated and inflamed as I hadn’t washed for many days. Hiding from the arbab, I washed my hands and face in the water for the goats. My armpits and pubic area, untouched by water, felt filthy.

That night I went to bed uneasy. Of course, when I say bed, I only mean figuratively. My bed was the loose sand. The scary figure had appropriated the only cot there. My bag was under it. I would pull out my sheet and spread it on the sand. It was already dirty, but without it, the small pebbles in the sand would hurt. I had an unpleasant night but given the circumstances, only a fool would expect any comfort.