Benyamin - Goat Days

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 hillsides. 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.

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.

While unloading the material, I explained to him all my sorrows in all the languages that I knew and begged him to somehow save me from the hell I was in. However, I saw only icy coldness in his face. He didn’t even acknowledge me. The anguish I felt! When the arbab had called me to the trailer, I had run to him with so much hope, deserting the goats. It was an optimistic dash towards the light of life. But the driver’s cold look drained me of all hope. I looked at him pathetically whenever he placed the bundles of hay and grass on my head and tried to attract his attention with some gesture. I begged him to save me. Once I deliberately dropped the hay bundle and bent down and touched his feet. Even then, he wouldn’t look at me. I felt sad. My heart broke.

After unloading the goods, the Pakistani drove away without even smiling at me. My optimism dimmed. How much I cursed him! Nobody in the world would have ever cursed a stranger like that or hated one like that. To get rid of some of that anger, I hit my own chest twice as I walked back to the desert to gather the goats.

Today I can understand the vulnerability of the driver who must have known the arbab for years. One cannot say what the arbab would have done if he had tried to talk to me. One time, the arbab jumped out with his gun when the driver of the wheat trailer tried to talk to me. I remember the arbab felling the driver of the water truck with his rifle butt for trying to talk to me. How many goats like me must have got trapped in this masara before? Maybe the miserable outcome of trying to save one of them must have been fresh in the Pakistani’s mind. Maybe he, sitting in his vehicle, was crying his heart out for forsaking me so heartlessly. Even if that wasn’t the case, I preferred to believe so. I tried to convince my heart so. It was only thus that I managed to swim across many of my sorrows. Merciful Allah, I am fated to walk through these harsh days that you have ordained for me. Forgive me for hating and cursing that innocent man for that.

In the beginning, everything in the masara had a nauseating stench. The smell emanating from goats’ urine, the stench of the droppings, the reek of grass and hay that got wet with the urine. If I had ever experienced a similar stink before, it was in a circus tent.

Even the goats’ milk had that stench. Whenever I dipped khubus into the milk to eat, the smell would drill into my nostrils. How many times I vomited in the first days. But slowly, it retreated from me. Or I forgot about it. Later, although I tried many times, I could never experience it. It became so much a part of me I could not believe that such a stench had ever existed. Not only that, I was able to discern the difference in the many smells that originated from the goats. The he-goats had a special smell and the sheep another. There were hundreds of types of sheep, each with a distinct smell. Pregnant goats had a certain smell; goats about to give birth had another. Based on that smell, I was even able to calculate a goat’s date of delivery. The newborns had a particular smell different from that of older lambs. Goats in heat had a different smell. The smell of the camels was distinct from all the rest. There are two types of camels — those with one hump and those with two. Each type smelled different. There was only one animal in that masara without any smell, and that was me.

One day, I developed a craving to write a letter to Sainu. I didn’t bother about how it would reach her. I had to write. I had to. During the brief interval after the khubus-and-water lunch, I dragged out my bag from under the cot. The letter pad and pen I had brought from Bombay were inside it. I took them out. The pen began to write faintly only after a lot of scribbling. I was writing a letter for the first time. I had no idea how to write one. Still, I gathered all my thoughts and began to write.

My very dear Sainu,

I have reached safely. I couldn’t even write a letter because I was very busy with work. I know you must be worried. Don’t worry. Your ikka is comfortable here. I am in a big firm that produces milk and wool. It is a good job. We don’t need to do anything. The machines take care of everything. I supervise the work around here. My arbab likes me very much. He likes my work, and often gives me presents. I stay in a very expensive place. Sitting on my cot, I can see everything that’s around us. It is so beautiful. Ah, the food. How many new and unseen items the arbab brings for me! I started writing this letter after eating khubus with chicken curry and mutton masala, and a glass of pure milk. Indeed, I wonder if I have become fat even within these few days! Now it is afternoon — rest time. I need to get back to work after some time. Till then, I can sleep in this pleasant breeze.

Some of our local people are here with me: Ravuthar, Raghavan, Vijayan, Pokkar, and so on. I do not interact with them much — the arbab doesn’t like it. The arbab has a houri of a daughter. Every evening, she and I go for a stroll. She insists that I must go with her. Her name is Marymaimuna.