Bulls of the World, Unite

  

                                                      Bulls of the World, Unite

A bull lowed fiercely and sniffed the air.    The cow in her shed heard it and responded with a deep throated “(am)ma..”. The bull impishly asked “ why “ma”..? your ‘ma’, my ‘ma’ and every Tamilian’s  ‘ma’ has left us all. Only Chinnamma is there.”

“But tell me”,the bull continued, “ what do you want by giving that full throated cry “ma”? You are all lucky as you are worshipped on pongal day. The Tamils even call it “mattu Pongal”( Pongal for the cows).  They bathe you, do your make up with haldi and kumkum, they feed you with jaggery, sugarcane and cooked rice. They treat you as a special daughter of the house”. The cow retorted : “Why what about you? They intoxicate you with special alcoholic drink and paint your horns and lead you into an arena for people to see you in all your glory. Why do you complain?”

The bull bellowed displaying signs of impatience and aggression: “Well, for you this is a special day when you are feted and worshipped. Of course in many parts of Tamilnadu –barring a few districts specially down deep south, we also used to get a similar lovely treatment when we were also bathed, dressed and fed. That was a long time ago. Things have changed. We are now bulls- and when we are called sterile bulls, it is all the worse for us. But even if sterile, we continue to serve them with our hard work like  ploughing the fields The Cow remained pensive trying to figure out what its opposite gender was talking.

The bull began after what seemed an inordinate pause: “ For us it is a hard day. We are fed alcohol. We do not even know what they give us to drink. In fact nothing is fed lest we should start to chew the cud. Once drunk, we run around in a highly inebriated state almost like a new born calf. We are egged on to run madly and chased by men and boys to frenzied shouts from the crowd. Some pull our tails, some literally take us, what the men phrase it as take the bull by the horn, some others  attempt to grab and tightly "hug" the  large hump on our back  and hang on to it while we attempt to escape. The hysterical crowds encourage the bull tamers to hug the hump for as long as possible, till they bring us to a stop and ride long enough to remove the flags that adorn our horns. They want to get the gold tied to our horns but if we resist or try to run, they frighten us with war cry. Do you know how cruel bull racing is because we bulls can't be forced to run without agitating, frightening or hurting us.  For them it is a sport; for us it is painful, traumatic. They get a kick when we kick them hard.They love teasing us without necessarily showing us red rags as they do in Spain. But I believe they have stopped this mindless fun sport in Spain. But then who listens to us? All we do is snort and grunt. You are lucky, safe and secure in your shed, chewing the cud coolly as is your wont.

 The cow looked half bovine, half sheepish. With the cud still in the mouth she garbled her question: Why don’t you complain to the authorities who are friendly disposed like the PETA or the Supreme Court?

What makes you think we have not explored all these avenues? answered the bull. They are all for putting an end to this sport. But the culture vultures complain that Jalli kattu is a part of Tamil culture and is a macho sport. Even sportspersons like Ashwin, the spinner, Vishy Anand, the Chess master , cine artists like the great Rajni sir and Kamala Hasan,  the music genius Rahman, the gurus like Sri Sri and Juggi Vasudev  are invoking culture and tradition so as not to rein in Jallikattu.  I can’t believe that the intelligentsia of Tamilnadu fails to see that this is utter falsehood. We were always treated well and that is Tamil culture. Just because we cannot articulate, men have taken advantage of our silence and turned us as sports toys for the frenzied youths who seem to have nothing in particular to do. In fact even Ramachandra Guha, the great historian who has a deep knowledge and understanding of Indian culture has pointed out that it is unemployed youths who like to psyche themselves up to show off their muscle power. What a pity! Guha sir has been trolled by the wily twitterati as being a pseudo historian and that he has zero knowledge about Tamil culture.  Do you know what Jaggi guru said. He asked will you ban cricket because the cricket ball can sound the death knell of a player as it has happened to two people in the past(2 out of 20,000 who play).  But no player, no cricketer, no spectator has argued for banning cricket. But in our case we cannot articulate our suffering and seek a ban except through our wordless grunts. Our agony, reflected in the way we run so as not to be caught is fun for men and boys, but who understands our pain and grunt?

Cow: What is the way out?

Bull: I have sent my own version of what’s app to all my fellow bulls about gender discrimination. You cows are having a cushy time while we are harassed, hurt and hounded. This is the worst form of gender discrimination. We males are hounded and harassed. Of course you cows are not the culprits nor are you responsible. The men have their gender bias against their women and they reverse it in our case. We hope to go on a protest walk through the Marina and we will see how we can scatter the assembled crowd there with our humungous numbers.

Cow; Come on, please don’t deprive us of this one single special status we enjoy. This is also Tamil culture to worship the cows at least on pongal day.

            Bull: Don’t worry. We love to see you looking lovely with kumkum and haldi. Except that we have become sterile and unwanted, we would love to rub our necks with yours and show our love and admiration.  We will not do anything to stop this festival where you are the cynosure of all eyes. WE just like to highlight that  true Tamil culture lies in worshipping the cows and also the bulls. In fact this pseudo Tamil culture that militates against our bovine sex is not practised in all parts of Tamilnadu- just a few pockets. Tamils are generally peace loving people. Only a few misguided politicians have given bull racing the cultural tag to prove to the world that Tamils are second to none in heroism.  Kindly join us to tell the world that Tamils can display their machismo and place their  great heroism on physical courage, virility ,aggression in all other forms of sport that do not cause pain to innocent voiceless creatures like us. The Jalli kattu that carries huge amount of money can be well spent on promoting all sports for the sports crazy Tamils. Will you join us?

 Cow: Yes, but tell me what shall we do?

Bull “March with us on the marina beach. We will march towards the ocean and dump our dung there as a mark of protest so that these men and women cannot put to use our rich dung as a  fertilizer, an efficient fuel , a  biogas producer, a useful building material, a raw material for paper making, an insect repellent and a disinfectant etc etc. Even that Patanjali Guru cannot use our urine for his magic herbal therapies.  Cone and Join us and let us all together grunt  We can, Yes we Can.”