by Benyamin
After a while, I caught up with the scary figure. Leaving the goats to roam, the scary figure sat on a boulder. I sat on another—I didn’t have anything to do, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to ask him about so many things. But how? The only language that I had was that of signs, and he was not even looking at me. What was he gazing at? Neither at the heavens nor at the earth, merely into emptiness, I thought. After some time, he got up and herded the goats together. It was a somewhat difficult task. There were about a hundred goats. When one ran this way, the other headed in the opposite direction. By the time they were somehow beaten back to the fold, yet another would have run away. After gathering every goat with some effort, the scary figure began to walk back towards the fence. As I didn’t know anything, I merely watched.
Together, we reached the enclosure. When he told me something, I guessed he meant ‘You proceed to the masara with the goats, I’ll follow.’ Ah, then masara means the enclosure for goats. So, mayin must be water. At least let me learn the words like that.
I brought the goats to the enclosure. He came with the grass. Together, he and I brought water and hay to the masara. Did I say masara? Look how quickly I switch to Arabic.
We went to the next masara and took its goats to the desert. It was only after we had taken the goats of two or three masaras that I became conscious of the purpose of these excursions—these goats were not taken out to be grazed, but merely to give them some exercise. A limb-stretching morning exercise to cure the lethargy of their daily existence.
The sun began to blaze furiously. All the goats had been brought back from the daily jaunt. Every one of them had been supplied water and feed. Then, an awful thing happened. The call of nature became severe. I hadn’t performed the early morning bodily needs. The last time I had managed it was before boarding the plane in Bombay. It hadn’t been necessary the previous day as I hadn’t had anything to eat. But the four or five khubus I had consumed in the morning began to have an effect. But where could I do it? I didn’t need the screen of four walls. At home, the riverside or a bush cover was good enough. One could also wash in the river. But, here, there was not even that minimum privacy. It was wide open all around. It is true that everyone did it and everyone knew that everyone did it; still, as humans we expect some privacy for certain actions of ours, don’t we? I was apprehensive about sharing this with you. Then I decided I must, merely to explain how apparently trifling issues agitate and distress us. If such private dilemmas are not laid out in the open what is the use of telling a story?
I tried to calm myself. But this was not something that I could suppress. With every second, the discomfort increased in my stomach. Slowly, I walked to the other side of the masara. There was now at least a screen of goats between me and the arbab, and between me and the scary figure. That was more than enough. Closing my eyes, I did it.
Relief. The utmost relief that one could get in the world.
I rose up after throwing some sand and stones on it, like a cat. I needed to clean up. That was not difficult. There was plenty of water in the tank. I could carry some in a bucket and clean myself behind the grass or hay bales. I collected water in a bucket and walked behind the bales.
Before the first drop of water fell on my backside, I felt a lash on my back. I cringed at the impact of that sudden smack. I turned around in shock. It was the arbab, his eyes burning with rage. I didn’t understand. What was my mistake? Any slip-up in my work? Did I commit some blunder?
The arbab snatched the bucket of water from me and then he scolded me loudly. Lashed at me with the belt. When I tried to defend myself, he hit me more ferociously. I fell down. The arbab took the bucket and went inside the tent.
This was what I gathered from the arbab’s angry words in between lashings. ‘This water is not for washing your backside. It is meant for my goats. You don’t know how precious water is. Never touch water for such unnecessary matters. If you do, I’ll kill you!’ Thus I learnt my first lesson. It was wrong to wash one’s backside after taking a dump.
I got up, feeling very uneasy. I had never faced such a predicament in my life. It was almost as if I lived in a river. Without water, nothing happened in my life. Cleanliness had been my ideology. I would get annoyed when Sainu didn’t bathe twice a day. And I was always in water! But the breaking of all my habits began that day, didn’t it? The harshest for me was this ban on sanitation.
I came back and sat on the sand, below the cot. The scary figure was sitting on his bed, eating khubus. He handed two or three to me. I couldn’t imagine eating anything without cleaning myself. I refused to touch the food. Then I saw a sight at a distance. A herd of camels, about fifty, marching in a line. It was a grand sight. The first time I saw a camel. The largest in front, and the smaller ones forming the tail. There was no one to lead them or herd them. They chose their own path.
As they came near us, I looked at them in amazement. It seemed that their heavy eyebrows signified all the severity of the desert. Nostrils opening and closing like the gills of fish. Broad open mouth, strong neck, coarse hair like in a horse’s mane, ears erect and horn-like. I was most attracted to and most frightened by their detached look. I looked into the eyes of one of the camels for a brief second. I retracted my gaze as if I were looking at the sun. It felt as though the depth and the breadth, and the severity and the wildness of life in the desert were crystallized in those eyes. It must be the impossibility of its situation that lies congealed behind the camel’s impassive countenance. I would like to describe the camel as the personification of detachment. Those camels went past me and walked inside the fence on their own. It was their own masara.
Twelve
I was deputed to give water and fodder to the camels. I went up to their masara, but I was afraid. Do camels hurt humans? If they do, how do they attack? Kick? Bite? Trample? I had no idea. But I had to enter their masara and give them water and fodder. There was no way I could avoid entering the masara because there was a being more ferocious than a camel could ever be—a dreadful arbab, following me with sharp eyes. I stepped into the masara daringly. Expecting a bite or a kick, I walked in between their legs and somehow gave them water and fodder. Later, I had many more opportunities to learn how the right combination of circumstances can forcibly dissolve any man’s fears.
That day the camels didn’t hurt me. I had to fill water in four containers, fodder in four, wheat in two, hay in three. By the time my work got over, I was exhausted. With my eyes, actions and supplication, I implored the scary figure to help me. Whenever he stood up to help, the arbab came out and prevented him. Only then did I realize that it was the punishment for taking water to clean my backside.
I went and sat near the cot of the scary figure. When my breathlessness and fatigue subsided, I began to feel hungry. The khubus the scary figure had given me was still there under the cot. I did not worry about the fact that I hadn’t been able to clean myself. Couldn’t bother about cleanliness any more. Sitting there, I had four large khubus and gulped down two mugs of water.
When I finished, the arbab beckoned me to the tent and advised me and scolded me. While listening to him, I acted as if I understood everything. Even though I didn’t understand anything, I could comprehend the magnitude of my crime.
After that, for a brief while, it was rest-time. I searched all around for a little shade, but it was nowhere to be found. All that was left was the glare of the blazing sun and the scorching heat. The little shade there was was in the arbab’s tent. He guarded it like it was a sultan’s palace, not letting anyone in. I didn’t have the nerve to creep in there.
The scary figure slept soundly on his cot, unmindful, a cloth on his face to block the sun. The sunlight and the heat did not seem to affect his grimy body. Folding a towel on my head, I sat near the cot. After braving the heat of the sun for some time, the little rectangle of shade under the cot caught my eye. It felt like the greatest discovery in the world.
Indeed, if the worth of a discovery
is measured by its necessity and the demands of one’s situation, to me, my discovery was greater than any other. How long had the scary figure been lying in the sun? Why didn’t he find the possibility of shade, like I did? Elated, I sneaked under the cot and stretched out. Although the sand was hot, my short nap was more pleasing than the sleep I had experienced before.
I must have dozed off when I was called. Again, like I had earlier in the day, I took the goats out, batch by batch. I noticed for the first time the different types of goats and the different types of masaras designated for them. In one, only milk goats; in another, the male and adult females; there were different masaras for goats of different sizes and lambs of different ages; in yet another, sheep; and in the last one, camels.
The gate to the camel enclosure opened as we were going out with the goats. They went on their way, on their own. When we returned with the goats of the last masara, the camels returned. The chores were repeated—water, hay, fodder, wheat …
The scary figure came with a large pail and I followed him as he went inside the masara of the milk goats. He milked them one after another at great speed. In one go, he filled that pail. Together, we carried it out.
The arbab drank some milk from it, and the scary figure had two cups. Although they told me to drink as much as I wanted, I couldn’t because of its disgusting odour. The remaining milk was taken to the masara of the young lambs. They gathered around the bucket, as if to drink kaadi—a type of cattle drink prepared back home from the water used to wash rice—and glugged from it. Again, I noticed—I had started noticing new things with my eyes and mind—that the little lambs were not kept with their mothers. Mother and child were kept separately. No lamb was allowed to drink straight from its mother’s udder. All were given milk in the same bucket. In that case, which mother’s milk did a child drink …? Isn’t it through taste and smell that a child recognizes its mother? It should be like that, whether it be a goat, dog, cow or human being. Is this communal drinking meant to sever the bond a goat and its mother enjoy? Who knows? That is the way of the Arabs, or at least the way of the arbab. I was fated to obey him. Why should I think and worry about anything beyond that?
Shadows lengthened, the sun disappeared beneath the desert folds. Dusk bloomed, night set in. By then, the night-arbab arrived with the night meal. He offloaded some provisions and water from the vehicle. The day-arbab loaded the vehicle with some things and left.
The night-arbab had brought khubus. No curry for it, though. Just khubus. I understood what my menu for the days to come would be.
Early morning drink: fresh, breast-warm raw milk (only if one felt like it)
Breakfast: khubus, plain water
Lunch: khubus, plain water
Evening drink: fresh, breast-warm raw milk (only if one felt like it)
Dinner: khubus, plain water.
And plain lukewarm water from the iron tank to drink in between meals (only when very necessary).
After finishing the night chores, the scary figure lay down on the cot. I spread a sheet on the sand. The arbab was inside the tent. I wanted to ask him many things, but as soon as his back touched the cot, the scary figure started snoring.
I was alone. My bag was my pillow. It had the scent of pickle. Suddenly, I recalled the people at home, Ummah, Sainu, our son (daughter) who grew inside her. They must be troubled not having heard of my safe arrival. I felt miserable. My heart felt like it was about to burst. How will I convey to them that I had reached? That I am fine?
I remembered Hakeem. What work would he be doing there? From far, it appeared that he too had landed in a masara. His situation can’t be different. Sad. How many dreams would he have had as he boarded the plane? How can he suffer this at so young an age? He was not very poor. His father was in Dubai. This visa came when they were trying to take him there. ‘Yes, go abroad, without wasting yourself at home. Learn the language and life there. Within two years you can be taken to Dubai,’ his uppah had told him.
Poor boy, how would he endure this arduous life? In my case, I am used to a hard life, mining sand. It’s fine with me. He was only used to fun and frolic back home. What will become of him? These are the designs of Allah. One must endure these things. What is the way out? The days to come will only be harder. My Allah, most merciful, grant Hakeem and me the strength to endure these sufferings.
The night dawned into my second day in the desert. I slept late that day too, maybe because I was not used to the sleeping posture I had to adopt.
Thirteen
I was exhausted even before the day began. As I got up in the morning, my hands, legs and body ached. My body hurt more than it did after a whole day’s sand mining in the river. More than the pain, it was the irritation of not being able to bathe myself clean after work that bothered me. I would never come out of the river without bathing though I had worked in water the whole day. It was the uneasiness of sleeping in the same dress one wore in the sun, sweating and moving among stinking goats, and being strewn with their urine and dung. My dress stuck to my armpits and in between the legs; to say nothing about my sweat-soaked shoes.
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.
